Burning BD-5/9 discs plays on BD and PS3

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Larry Horwitz

Steve,

I am beginning to assume the defensive posture once again, since I entirely and absolutely disagree that the acquisition format is irrelevant when it comes to making red laser disks for use on BluRay players.

Larry

The amount of 16Mbps AVCHD used in prosumer and pro Projects is minimal. In fact, compared to DV and HDV, it is a format with a tiny installed base.

The reason AVCHD isn't used, is obvious: 16/17Mbps AVCHD delivers no better quality than does an HDV. It delivers less quality than my JVC does at 30Mbps. Only IF 24Mbps AVCHD and AVCCAM prove themselves -- will AVCHD be better than HDV as an acquisition format.

Since, by definition, a format OTHER than AVCHD are being used by MOST shooters in the world -- it is "irrelevant." AVCHD to AVCHD is simply not going to be used by other than consumers -- and since the reliability of Smart Encoding is suspect and Nero offers limited editing -- I doubt it will be used by even the majority of consumers.

Moreover, the concept of AVCHD to AVCHD cannot apply to those that edit with OS X applications -- which are the only apps (other EDIUS and Media Composer on the PC) that I'm interested in. Frankly, I wouldn't use any PC application for VIDEO editing except these two. Nothing would make me use the consumer programs. And, I wouldn't use Vegas either -- although there are many who LOVE Vegas.

All the talk about recompression loss misses the fact that EVERY HD production starts with one codec and ends with a different codec. All the talk about loss of time and quality are irrelevant. That's HOW IT'S DONE. The key, of course, is the use of a near lossless codec as an intermediate. Anyone who's made a film knows there is a negative, an INTER-negative, and a print. And, of course, the print is of lower quality. The loss is simply part of the deal. I really think talking about doing it a "different" way is just a waste of time. The world isn't going to change HOW it produces video based upon an arguement against how its done.


HOWEVER, as a DISTRIBUTION format for those without a BD burner -- AVCHD has a real role. AS LONG AS ONE USES THE RIGHT ENCODER. In fact, if the Sony AVC codec is used at 16Mbps, there's no meaningful visual difference between an AVCHD disc and a BD disc burned with 25Mbs MPEG-2. In other words, given the zero price for a DVD burner and the $1 cost of a DVD -- the quality difference is fully acceptable given how cheap the AVCHD solution is. The BD should look a LOT better given $20 per disc!

This makes perfect sense for two reasons:

1) AVC is about 2X better than MPEG-2

2) Encoding for a distribution only requires AVCHD be encoded and played back. This is the same as when one shoots AVCHD: Encoding then playback.

PS 1: I need to remind you again that BD-5/BD-9 ARE standardized formats. All BD players that meet BD specs -- which leaves out software players who seem to need to meet no standards -- can play these discs.

The ONLY thing that prevents this THIRD path is that, unless you buy Sony DVD Arch. -- you can't dial AVC up above 16Mbps. As soon as one finds a high quality AVC codec that can be set to 35Mbps -- then BD-5/BD-9 will offer better quality than MPEG-2 BD discs. Of course -- only for very short movies. :)

PS 2: as prices drop for BD Burners -- AVCHD will be less relevant as a distribution codec. And, when Sony replaces HDV with something like XDCAM EX -- that is where the prosumer market will go because it is far easier to edit.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Mike Burgess

Can I combine footage from an HDV camcorder (FX7) and that from an AVCHD camcorder (SR11) and use one of the cheaper editing programs to make a final product using both sets of footage and make it look good with little or no loss of PQ.

It depends on your definition of cheap. :)

I mix "everything" in FCP, FCE, and iMovie 08 ($85). And, of course, you can do so in EDIUS. Then, you need to follow the correct workflow to burn a disc.

[Tom Roper]

Originally Posted by Larry Horwitz

I have the optional HD DVD Blu Ray plug in for Nero, so perhaps this is why Steve and Tom report no luck or poor luck with their experiments.

I have the HD Plugin for Nero, so does Steve. But you mentioned that your success was with 192kbps stereo which I did not try. It doesn't meet my audio criteria.

Earlier I said there were 3 features, but no more than 2 can be put on a AVCHD disk at the same time.

1.) 24p
2.) AC3 5.1
3.) menus

So far no one has managed the 1st because even the native AVCHD cams that shoot 24fps add pulldown.

The TSMuxer 1.8.4b workflow is the only one that accomplishes 24p on red laser.

To appreciate that, the HDTV monitor must support a 72hz mode. This eliminates the judder frame.

But Steve is right about intermediate formats being virtually lossless. The only editing less lossy is uncompressed or native, the latter is what you or I would try to do. The intermediate formats are what Steve would use because he color corrects.

[Tom Roper]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

In fact, if the Sony AVC codec is used at 16Mbps, there's no visual difference between an AVCHD disc and a BD disc burned with 25Mbs MPEG-2.

Agree there is no visual difference if both are 1st generation, but Larry made the point earlier if you transcode 25mbps HDV to 16mbps AVCHD, even with a good encoder like the Sony AVC, there is a noticeable dropoff.

I would also point out that while DVD Architect 5.0 allows you to burn BD5/9, the disk only plays back as a data disk. In other words, you have to navigate the disk to the STREAMS folder containing the video file. That's just useless!

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Tom Roper

I have the HD Plugin for Nero, so does Steve. But you mentioned that your success was with 192kbps stereo which I did not try. It doesn't meet my audio criteria.

Earlier I said there were 3 features, but no more than 2 can be put on a AVCHD disk at the same time.

1.) 24p
2.) AC3 5.1
3.) menus

So far no one has managed the 1st because even the native AVCHD cams that shoot 24fps add pulldown.

The TSMuxer 1.8.4b workflow is the only one that accomplishes 24p on red laser.

To appreciate that, the HDTV monitor must support a 72hz mode. This eliminates the judder frame.

YES -- 72Hz is key and after experiencing a whole lot of PAL displayed at 100Hz I'm VERY suspicious of 120Hz. Movies in the PAL world look way too much like video. But, there are only a few 72Hz Plasmas (I think no LCD) and a few projectors.

I think we may have to consider 1080p30. That gets rid of pulldown and keeps the frame rate low.

PS: I get a newsletter from Japan. A story on a new 3D camera has this sentence -- I kid you not.

"Some of the visitors said the female product presenters in the video were appealing and impressive in particular."

[Mike Burgess]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

It depends on your definition of cheap. :)

I mix "everything" in FCP, FCE, and iMovie 08 ($85). And, of course, you can do so in EDIUS. Then, you need to follow the correct workflow to burn a disc.

Thanks Steve. What about for PCs?

[Larry Horwitz]

Originally Posted by Bruce Spell

Larry,

I think you and I are in agreement on many aspects of the AVCHD discussion. I know that Sony doesn't advertise writing AVCHD from DVD Architect (or Vegas) but it's a bit shortsighted in my opinion since they were one of the founders of the format.

Maybe I should take a step back and state my goals (well, at least near term).

1. I want an easy method to archive my 'raw' footage directly from the source. For this I'm simply writing the PMB created M2TS files (along with other metadata) to DVD for storage. This works as long as I don't shoot a single clip longer than just over 1 hour (otherwise I'll exceed the capacity of a DL DVD). I've already violated this desire once and had to split the resulting M2TS file using PMB. At the time I only had Nero and for the life of me couldn't piece the two clips back together seamlessly without some trouble at the join point. That's what initially led me to Vegas in the first place.

2. I will need to be able to edit the footage to some degree. I'm not a power editor (I'm not into production) but I do often use multiple angles/cameras which I need to sync and cut or dissolve between. The Vegas multi-camera workflow works remarkably well for this. I would also like to do simple fades and dissolves at times. While the Nero interface was simple and easy for me to work in I wasn't able to do that kind of editing on my footage. Hence I tried out Vegas (Premiere, which I've also used in the past, doesn't yet natively support AVCHD until CS4 is available. I guess we'll all have to see how they do).

3. Once I've completed the editing I need some way to output. Most of my discs will go to people that only have SD players. Therefore I need a way to edit once and deliver output both to SD (for others) and to HD (for me and few others). I'm hoping to find a suitable workflow to realize this goal. As you've mentioned the drawbacks to Vegas/DVD Architect at this point is that first, Vegas doesn't smart render AVCHD source material (very bad in my book just like it is in yours) and second, it only outputs HD in BDMV. It does satisfy the goal, however, of one editing project to output both SD & HD with little change. BTW, I eventually plan to get a blu-ray burner and then will want to output the same project direct to blu-ray without having to re-edit. I don't think I'm asking too much.

4. Since I couldn't get DVD Architect to create a true AVCHD disc, I then thought I could do all editing in Vegas and render out a final AVCHD edit master M2TS. I would then bring this into Nero and create the final AVCHD disc with menu (though Nero's menu options aren't as vast as DVD Architect's). My horror so far has been that I've been unable to get a clean AVCHD M2TS output from Vegas (I've only tried the Sony AVC encoder, btw) that will make it through Nero's build a disc process. I'd really like to discover why I'm having difficulty here as I certainly don't want another render step (even though Nero says that it would 100% smart render the file delivered from Vegas). I believe the disc created by Nero would be the most compatible AVCHD version. Since you've had success here I'm hoping you'll be able to shed some light on this phase of the process that seems to be eluding Steve and I. Maybe it is the fact you have the blu-ray/HD plug-in instaled - I don't know.

Bottom line - this is all very new to me and I'm learning as fast as I can. I was hoping that AVCHD had become a bit more mature by now but it looks like the edit solutions for this format are still a bit leading edge.

I appreciate all the experiences and very sound advice that you, Steve, Tom, and others have provided in this thread. It's really helped me tremendously just getting this far.

Bruce

Glad to help Bruce.

I have been using hard disk backup rather than optical disk since the cost per gigabyte, the speed, and the longevity seem to all favor it. My experience using optical media, specifically DVD media, has been quite poor. A significant percentage of DVDs I authored when this media first arrived are now unreadable much less than a decade later. I assume the dyes have improved a lot, but I still avoid using burned DVDs for anything really important.

Regarding AVCHD workflow, I like it fast and simple, so I am going to argue on the side of simple programs despite owning and using all the other ones as well. Nero is far from being my best software, and it clearly cannot do all the things some folks want to do.

You might want to take a look at Cyberlink PowerDirector 7 Ultra. Not until just a couple weeks ago did they finally fix several huge bugs and finally implement smart rendering of AVCHD. Its editor is more traditional and robust than Nero's, its user interface is also more 'standard' than Nero's, and the smart rendered output quality is indistinguishable from the original AVCHD footage. The free trial will let you make your own judgement. Its motion menus, titling, filters, other special effects are quite complete. Why not give it a shot and see what you think.

Larry

[Larry Horwitz]

Steve,
No doubt my preferences and beliefs come from the consumer AVCHD vantage point, and yours come from the professional perspective. The resulting disagreements are, as before, mostly a matter of philosophy. And I truly think of AVCHD as being a mass market, low cost, simple, and essentially non-professional world, whereas your workflows are geared to the opposite extreme.

To me, Final Cut Pro, Canopus, Avid, and all the other heavy duty tools, in this instance, are "irrelevant" so I guess I can borrow the use of your term in this regard.

The 'gray' area where the 'prosumer' lives is, no doubt, the territory where our philosophys tend to clash. I am very hopeful that Adobe, Sony, and others will begin to fill the void properly, since the present tools barely serve this market adequately in my view. Hence we are all struggling to find ways to make disks which can combine the various features prosumers are asking for, using Nero fly swatters and Final Cut sledge hammers in a most comical way to get to a final result.

Larry

[Larry Horwitz]

Originally Posted by Tom Roper

Agree there is no visual difference if both are 1st generation, but Larry made the point earlier if you transcode 25mbps HDV to 16mbps AVCHD, even with a good encoder like the Sony AVC, there is a noticeable dropoff.

I would also point out that while DVD Architect 5.0 allows you to burn BD5/9, the disk only plays back as a data disk. In other words, you have to navigate the disk to the STREAMS folder containing the video file. That's just useless!

Up until your post Tom, the thought had never entered my mind that DVD Architect 5 (and Vegas timeline) were actually producing BD5/9 disks. I had summarily rejected this format long ago since it would not play on my Playstation 3, the only hardware player I had at the time, nor would it play on most of my 4 software BluRay players.

If this is a truly "standard" format which is written into the BluRay spec, and yet even Sony does not support it in the PS3, the de-facto BluRay player now serving probably 90% of the BluRay market, then what possible reason would anybody have to use it?

I really have to wonder where Sony is coming from with this whole matter of AVCHD support. Since Vegas and DVDA professional products don't even support it, let alone their cheap home versions, they have once again left their camcorder customers with excellent acquisition tools but absolutely no easy delivery method. I understand their financial motive to keep BluRay burners and BluRay media flying off the dealer shelves. And I have lived through the nearly 5 year HDV product cycle and STILL DO NOT see a low cost delivery method. What a joke......

I would imagine that merely deleting the CERTIFICATES folder from the disk which Sony makes from Vegas/DVDA may be enough to allow my software players and possibly the PS3 to play the disk. Of course Sony choses to hide the CERTIFICATE and BDMV folder when the authoring is being done and deletes it immediately when burning is complete, so the only way to make a playable disk would be to rip, edit, and re-burn the disk without the CERTIFICATE folder. Hardly worth the effort given no menus, re-rendered video, and hours of wasted time.

I will note, with some concern, that the latest Corel Movie Factory 7 Pro no longer offers an explicit AVCHD option like the MF^+ version does for the project, although it will author red laser disks when AVCHD format is selected at burning time. I need to start using it to see if Corel has somehow watered-down the AVCHD feature set for reasons related to my comments above. This would not be the first time that Movie Factory has had features removed to satisfy the lawyers from the BluRay world. A couple years ago MovieFactory offered red laser authoring for BDMV and it was quietly removed........

Larry

[Larry Horwitz]

I could not resist the temptation to see if removing the CERTIFICATES folder from the Sony-produced red laser disks from Vegas and DVD Architect 5 would then allow them to play on the PS3.

By first burning the Sony Vegas and DVDA disks, then ripping them, and then burning them again without the CERTIFICATES folder, I learned that they are still considered "Data Disks" just as they were originally. The only way to play them is to navigate to the STREAMS folder and then play the single .m2ts file. Obviously this is of no value whatsoever, since the original non-authored clip could be played directly on the PS3 without creating this peculiar red laser disk and going through the additional steps.

There apparently is some other file change within the BDMV folder which the Playstation uses to determine eligibility for playback.

It remains unanswered WTF Sony is thinking by doing this.........

Larry

[Tom Roper]

If you would only try the TSMuxer1.8.4b workflow, you'd be surprised how painless and fast a functional BD-5/9 is. You won't have seen HDV quality this good since you had them on HD DVD. All it lacks is menus.

[Larry Horwitz]

Tom,
I can bring the demuxed .evo video over with no problems. I am still looking for a way to get my original demuxed audio (which is in .mpa file format) into digital dolby. I have Besweet and some other tools here, but going from mpa requires another conversion and I have yet to find a simple converter.

Larry

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Larry Horwitz

It remains unanswered WTF Sony is thinking by doing this.........

Larry

In this we are in total agreement.

I found thread on this topic -- maybe. BD discs have a bit that signal copyrighted material -- not ACCS. The PS-3 looks at this bit and if it's set and the disc isn't a BD-ROM, it refuses to play it because it thinks it is a illegal COPY. Some say this only applies to BD-RE.

The key is that the encoder shouldn't automatically set this bit. Supposedly there is a Java program that turns the bit OFF.

Other folks claim there is another bit that is set.

[Tom Roper]

Originally Posted by Larry Horwitz

Tom,
I can bring the demuxed .evo video over with no problems. I am still looking for a way to get my original demuxed audio (which is in .mpa file format) into digital dolby. I have Besweet and some other tools here, but going from mpa requires another conversion and I have yet to find a simple converter.

Larry

I thought you had Vegas Pro ? Anyway...what about Womble Mpeg Video Wizard DVD, it has an AC3 5.1 encoder.

Maybe TSMuxer will accept the .mpa as is. I think it should accept a AC3 stereo .mpa. Have you tried that? It's not totally necessary to feed it elementary streams anyway. It won't accept muxed .m2t transport streams, but will accept a muxed .mpg program stream.

Besweet was a frustrating waste of time for me, but I digress. You should try feeding TSMuxer some various muxed files, .m2ts, .mpg. Some .mpg files could even have multiple audio streams embedded. TSMuxer will split them, and you put a mark in the checkbox next to the ones you want to keep. You can do more than just BD-5/9 authoring with it, it's a useful conversion utility as well.

[Larry Horwitz]

Originally Posted by Tom Roper

I thought you had Vegas Pro ?

Duuuhhh!! Forgot that Vegas did exactly that. The mpa to ac3 was quick and simple, and the remuxing went very quickly also producing a totally functional BDMV and Certificate folder which do indeed play beautifully. The only difference in my workflow is that I begin with streams from the HD DVDs, stored as .evo files, and first demux them with EVODemux.

It would be really nice if somebody made a standalone app which inputs an HD DVD and outputs a BDMV and Certificate. Certainly I am not the only one with a big HD DVD colection to convert. These are all home made and thus have no DRM issues.

Thanks for the help Tom. It was / is a great suggestion / recommendation !!!!

Larry