1080i + 720p on same Blu-Ray or HD-DVD?
 

We already learned (here at dvInfo.net) that it is not possible to edit 1080i content and 720p content in the same file in Final Cut Pro. Now, we have a question about what the HD DVDs ("HD-DVD" and "Blu-Ray") can handle in terms of 1080i content and 720p content that are from different FCP files.

Here is our example situation:
We normally rent a second Sony Z1U when we want to do a 2-camera shoot. But now that we have purchased the JVC GY-HD100, renting a second camera has become much more expensive. Not sure why but it costs way more to rent the JVC. So we are thinking, "that's OK: We'll just do the two-camera shoots with two Z1Us, as we did before the upgrade to the JVC camera."

The idea is that as long as our DVD products are standard definition, we can easily create two different files in Final Cut Pro for editing -- one for the 720p work, and one for the 1080i work -- and then place the resulting portions of the production as separate menu items on the same SD DVD. The nature of our work is such that the 'originally 1080i' (Z1U) content can be kept completely separate from the 'originally 720p' content (GY-HD100), as separate menu items on the compressed DVD product.

But what about the future, when we may want to re-issue these products on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD?

If part of a production is shot in 720p and part in 1080i, can these two HD formats be place together as separate menu items on the same HD-DVD or Blu-Ray DVD?

How do you burn a Blu-Ray DVD?
 

Hi,

When the time comes to purchase a Blu-Ray burner, what is the best way to export the timeline? Does Compressor offer a solution that isn't as time consuming as H.264?

Since Blu-Ray holds so much more info, I was hoping I wouldn't need to waste so much time sqeezing it down with H.264.

Does DVD Studio Pro support Blu Ray disks?

Not many replies huh?

So far I've found an "HD-DVD 30min" codec in compressor. It encodes the HD content using mpeg-2 instead of H.264. This should save time. I don't need the heavy H.264 compression sinch I'll have 50GB B/R DVD's to work with.
Still don't know if DVD Studio Pro will support Blu-Ray.

This sure is a fun conversation I'm having with myself :)

I'm not sure, but just commenting:

Wouldn't this be the same or comparable to having the "widescreen" version and full-frame version on a DVD? Or having a DVD that has 60i content and 24p content in 2 different tracks?

Couldn't you just encode 2 different tracks (one as 1080i and the other as 720p) so your menu options point to each track?

Limited Success: HDV to playable Blu-Ray
 

I received a Sony BWU100A drive two weeks ago…the box (with a very low serial#) arrived without the software disc. The “Cyberlink BD Solution 1.0” was mailed by Sony and I have been experimenting with it.

The drive will, of course, make CD, DVD and BD data discs without problems.

For video, I wanted to put my latest HDV project (1080x1440 30i) of 99 minutes on a disc with chapter buttons and further chapter marks for intervening scenes. The bundled software CAN import, add chapter marks and burn to BD-RE, but the menu making module was omitted for now. The software took my edited .avi file (From PremierePro2.0 + Cineform Access HD) of 87gigs (!) and encoded it to 19.3 gigs on BD-RE – about the same size/data rate as it would be on the source HDV tape. This was using Cyberlink Producer 3.3 – BD Edition, version 3.7.0.2824

The resulting disc played and looked stunning, using the included player: PowerDVD 6.6 BD Edition. When inserted into a Samsung BDP1000 on display at an accommodating nearby retailer, the disc WOULD NOT LOAD, and the machine had to be unplugged before eventually ejecting the disc. Of course, there is no way, at present, to tell if it is the Samsung or, more likely, the Cyberlink software at fault.

I also made a test disc with short segments, (including a resolution chart) in four different formats: HDV-1080x1440 16:9, NTSC-DV-480x720 16:9, NTSC-DV-480-720 4:3 and finally PAL-DV-576x720 25fps 16:9. The PowerDVD software played each in sequence, at the correct aspect ration and with only a half second flicker between each segment. If you were going to do this in a finished project, you would want to fade in and out of black and have no audio running over the transition. This disc would not load in the Samsung player either.

Unfortunately, the “capture” function in PowerProducer would not work on any camera (DV or HDV) or from any mode (DVD or BD). While this port on the moterhboard (TI-OCHI) and its Microsoft driver are flawless in PremierePro, it crashed the entire OS if tried in PowerProducer……But then I was not planning to use that function. Also, it would not import the mpeg2 file Cineform makes for exporting back into the camera. There it just crashed the application, not the OS.

For those of you into the details, here is the logical layout of the disc:
Only folder: BDAV
Sub folders: CLIPINF with a tiny file 00001.clpi
PLAYLIST with a tiny file 00001.roks
STREAM with a file 00001.m2ts of 19.336 gigs for 99 minutes

Cyberlink’s PowerToGo “DeskData” application was used to copy the above disc, and that too played in PowerDVD software but we did not try it in the Samsung. There is no explicit “Copy BD movie” tab.

So, at this date (Sep 14, 2006) you CAN put HDV on Blu-ray, but without a menu but you will have little assurance it will play in a Blu-ray player. I expect Cyberlink, with Sony’s urging, will get these features working soon. I certainly hope we have something better from Adobe soon – we don’t need every advanced feature of BDjava menus working for a first version.

Hitachi Blu-ray AVCHD cameras scheduled for 07
 

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6380066.html

I can't wait for the first prototype.

Burning NLE HD using Sony Blu-Ray DVD burner?
 

I've been trying, with no luck, to burn 1920x1080 HD files to the Sony blu-ray burner using their bundled cyberlink power-producer software (Mpeg or avi files made from Premiere Pro 2, using mainconcept pro HD for mpeg attempts). Using a PS3 as the player.. it works great with commercial blu-ray titles. I upgraded to the latest power-producer 4 software.. PP4 imports the files OK and then appears to burn OK, and I can see the the m2ts file when exploring the disk (so burning is at least partially working), but it will not play on the PS3... the PS3 does recognize the file & it's title, but gives an unsupportable format error. Cyberlink's support info for burning any type of files other than HDV camcorder imports is next to non-existent.. just says it accepts mpeg and avi files for burning. I've tried many mpeg file formats from Premiere and also tried hdv format.. I suspect the problem has something to do with making the right codec/mux/rate choices for the avi or mpeg file creation in premiere, but haven't found the secret.

Has anyone had any luck finding a reliable workflow for getting true HD exports from Premiere burnt to blu-ray using the Sony burner?

Doug - Most likely PP4 is reencoding your Premiere Pro assets to MPEG2-TS. So the variable of whether you are using .avi's, mpeg-2, or HDV MainConcept isn't really the issue. I've tried burning files in PP4 and have been able to confirm compatibility with a Sony set-top Blu-ray player but haven't tried it in the PS3 yet. I might get access to one this week.

The bad part about the MPEG2-TS files that PP4 creates is that when viewed on a high-definition TV it shows huge ugly digital compression artifacts. I don't see these artifacts though when viewing on a computer monitor. Why is there that difference in picture quality?

BTW, The one iffy variable that is specific to my burning scenario is the use of Panasonic 2x discs.

~Eugene
www.filmtransfer.com
eugene@filmtransfer.com

Update on Blu-Ray BD-RE playability
 

Well, I have a Sony BDP-S1 player and it does a beautiful job on purchased BD-ROMs, but playability of my own BD-RE discs will have to await the firmware update in early 2007.

http://esupport.sony.com/perl/news-i...=163&mdl=BDPS1

Although I have never gotten confirmation anywhere, I believe the "un-playability" of user content all stems from a late Spring'06 decision for user-created content to be written to folder BDAV instead of rights-management endowed BDMV folders that Hollywood discs use. Thus Cyberlink and other recent software is doing it exactly as the Blu-Ray Association demands. It is the players that need updating.

As an aside, the above post complained that the PowerProducerForBluRay crashed when presented with .m2t (transport stream) files. The solution is to return them to "elementary streams" with ReMux_TS from this helpful spot. These already encoded files then went onto Blu-Ray at disc speed (48 minutes for a 99 minute project).

http://www.yamabe.org/softbody.html

Blue-ray Burner question
 

I have a Canon XH-A1 and I have a Sony PS 3 at home that plays Blue-Ray disks. Although my clients still only need SD files and my local stations only accept SD, I am still curious about taking my HD Skills to the next level.

Since my A1 shoots HD, I am thinking about purchasing a Blue-ray burner to start to learn that side of things (I have the HDV for web down just fine).

Does anyone have any suggestions on which burner is the best? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

HDV to BluRay Experience
 

Its a bit early yet......

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=75505

Saving HVX footage to blue ray or HDdvd
 

Does any manufacturer make a burner that I can put in my FCP tower to save footage so I don't depend on hard drives. Can I keep the duel durner in my second slot.

...or an external burner for my G5 would be nice.

I see B+H photo do one for $1250! Cheap as chips!!
I just Googled it.

Andrew

Sony to Include Portable Movie Files on Blu-Ray
 

http://kotaku.com/gaming/blu+ray-sho...vds-227862.php

I hope this will be as good as the article indicated.

Still expect DRM, guys.

Am I being sceptical. Blu-Ray Authoring
 

http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/products/main_3_ENU.html

Would I be right in saying that this isn't as rosey a picture as they are making out. It says "Create HD DVDs and DVDs for playing on a home player "
I may be wrong but, are there only a few Blu-Ray players out at the moment, and from what I underatnd, they don't play "HOME MADE" discs?

Anybody actually using this with successful results?

if it says create HD DVD , in no ways it concerns Blu-ray products.

XDCAM HD from 35 Mb/s to Blu-ray at 40 Mb/s
 

Last night I had to wake the wifey up to share what for me was an important moment. With my new Panasonic Blu-ray player I was finally able to play a BD-RE disc at 1080P on my 42" Westinghouse. I've only seen the BD-RE material on my 720P 23" studio screen before, where it did look good, but this was something else.

The footage was shot with my 350, and it looked comparable to anything I've seen over HD satellite or on commercial BD or HD DVD. Very fulfilling. We who have this camera made a very good choice, it's almost hard to imagine how the picture could be significantly better.

The workflow was via FAM into Premiere with the MainConcept plug-in, then I rendered a "movie" and use Vegas to kick it up to a 1920x1080 format that Roxio DVDit Pro HD could use. I couldn't get this stage to work in Premiere/MainConcept, I kept getting 1440x1080 and it played back tall and skinny -- not saying it can't be done, just that I couldn't yet.

It's been over a month since I did this, so sorry about the non-specificity, I'll take decent notes when I do this again, but there IS a workflow that never has to go below 35 Mb/sec and ends up at 40 Mb/sec on the BD-RE and yields really satisfying 1080P playback.

Tip

That's good info Tip, thanks for sharing. I was rendering a wmv file out of Vegas last night and wound up with the same tall skinny (1440X1080) appearance even though the wmv template was for 1920x1080.

-gb-

Some details...
 

Here's how I did it. I imagine that this could be done much more simply if you're editing in Vegas, if so just capture/edit in Vegas and render your finished timeline as in step #4 below. But the following is how I did it since I'm not up to speed on Vegas yet.

1) Ingest clips as described in Premiere Pro 2.0 with MainConcept MPEG 2 plugin at 35/Mb/s via FAM.

2) Complete your edit of the project on the Premiere timeline. Export as movie using MainConcept XDCAM HD preset adjusted to highest quality and 35 Mb/s. This is still 1440x1080.

3) Import this "movie" file into Vegas and put clip on timeline.

4) Render as Microsoft AVi at 1920x1080, and adjust all the various dialog areas for the best quality, this will output a large uncompressed file at the stated resolution. It is interlaced but my TV's resolution readout says that it is progressive, that is 1080 lines. It reads out true interlaced 1080 sources such as Dish Network HD as 540 lines, so I do think this workflow is delivering progressive frames via BD.

5) Open DVDit Pro HD and bring the AVI file in via "add movie." Set the output for the highest data rate, etc.

6) Burn the Blu-ray disc. The resulting disc may not display your menu, it didn't display mine.

7) A menu workaround is to create a one second or so blank title (black video) in Vegas and render it as the same 1920x1080 AVi. In DVDit Make this "Movie 1" and the main movie "Movie 2". Right click on Movie 1 in the project tree window and select/mark it "first play." Now give Movie 1 an end action of "go to menu 1" or whatever menu you want at the beginning.

8) Pray. My DVDit Pro HD is now giving me the same stupid error message "Pathname is invalid - 19005" that it did some time ago, can't find or remember the solution. So I haven't been able to test the menu workaround yet. But the rest of the workflow does work.

9) One more thing, pray again, this time that Nero or Sony or Adobe or anyone besides Sonic/Roxio will release a Blu-ray authoring/burning solution that is reliable.

Tip

Blu-Ray for mortals has arrived!
 

Seven months ago I complained here about "Limited Success: HDV to playable Blu-Ray"

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=75505

Well Sony released firmware 1.55 for the BDP-S1 player to support user burned projects on BD-R and RE media....but only for BDMV projects. (those having menus etc.)

Meanwhile Sony Storage Solutions distributes the BWU100a drive with Cyberlink BD Solution software that seems to make only BDAV projects (simple ones with no menu)

So at another's suggestion, I purchased Roxio DVDit Pro HD this morning ($500) and by late afternoon had my oldest, 99 minute HDV project playing on my Sony BDP-S1. No installation hitches, Great suggestion.

I chose to write to BD-RE media as temporary measure till inkjet printable BD-R is available. Both TDK/Primera and Verbatim, I believe, have promised them.

My workflow was as follows
Footage taken by my Sony HDR-HC1 is HDV so mpg2 at 1080x1440 60i
Heavily edited in PremierePro2.0 with the fabulous Cineform 4.1x plugin
Output via Cineform as if to put back into camera: .m2t file at HDV's native 25mbps CBR video with 384kbps audio.
These archived files were broken back to elementary .mpg streams with REmux_TS (free from a guy in Japan, just google for it)
At least for my first project it seemed to want to transcode that back to 24mbps...so it took 6 hours in total. I'll have to see if I can skip transcoding in the future.
I flattened a Photoshop file for the menu (1080x1920, square pixels) and brought it in as a menu background and used Roxios navigational arrows and linked them to chapter marks I made. I had 20 chapter marks but only 9 buttons on screen.
The project played and looked great on my 52" 1080p Sharp Aquos.
The project DID NOT PLAY on my editing station's Cyberlink PowerDVD6.6BD software, but that application may only like BD-RE/BDAV projects. No big deal, I only edit on that machine.

Folks, Blu-Ray for mortals has arrived!

Resolution
 

The post below indicates resolution on two fronts.
The Sony BDP-S1 plays user created BD-R/RE, but only BDMV projects.
The Cyberlink software with the Sony BWU100a only makes BDAV, so
I purcahsed Roxio DVDit Pro HD

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=89040

Update
 

See my post here on using this

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=89188

when will there be a Blu-ray stand-alone recorder for saving my HDV videos?
 

when will there be a Blu-ray stand-alone recorder(possibley with a built-in hard drive) for saving my HDV videos?

(something that will be sold in the US/Canada)

Thanks!

Video clip hdv to hd dvd or blue ray disk ???
 

dear friend i use my hdv sony hdr-hc3 video camcorder , i wont product a dvd hd application as blue ray disk or hd dvd.
my sw nle is sony vegas 7 .
i don't know the correct procedure for make a file mpeg2 compliant with sw authoring dvd (move factory 6 plus) or (dvdit pro hd)
i hope you help my.
tkanks a lot
marco

Video Clip Hdv + Vegas To Hddvd Or Blue Ray Disk ??
 

Video clip hdv to hd dvd or blue ray disk ???

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

dear friend i use my hdv sony hdr-hc3 video camcorder , i wont product a dvd hd application as blue ray disk or hd dvd.
my sw nle is sony vegas 7 .
i don't know the correct procedure for make a file mpeg2 compliant with sw authoring dvd (move factory 6 plus) or (dvdit pro hd)
i hope you help my.
tkanks a lot
marco

I use Pinnacle studio 10.7

I do my capture/edit in vegas and I export to file as M2V/WAV. This is then imported to studio which has a HD DVD plugin that was specifically built to do what you ask. It's very easy... just put your video on the timeline, go to MAKE MOVIE, and choose HD DVD, set the bitrate you want, put a disk in your drive and away you go.

No such device on horizon
 

I have seen nothing on the web to suggest such a device will be available soon, if at all. HDV2 (1080x1440 30i) will always have to be be made precisely Blu-Ray compliant and that takes lots of compute cycles. I would guess the industry would see that market segment satisfied by optical-disc camcorders: AVCHD on mini DVDs for now, 8cm Blu-Ray in a year or two.

from hdv with sony vefas for product blu ray and hd dvd disk.
 

dear friend, i am happy user of sony vegas 7, i work with my hdv sony hc3 camcorder, i use video capture video vegas and work with video clip m2t 1440x1080 interlaced.
when i finished my video i wont encoding it for make a blu ray disk with (roxio dvdit pro hd) or hd dvd with (ulead move factory 5 or 6 plus)

i have see a new special plugin for vegas (blu print) for make a blu ray disk.
it's free ???
i search a good solution for make hd dvd or blu ray disk with optimal quality image.
i hope your help .
thanks a lot and sorry for bad english.

:-))
marco

Short Blu-Ray projects on red laser/DVDs too!
 

The HD-DVD fans talk much about putting short HD projects on inexpensive DVD media...because there is still no HD-DVD burner widely available.

Users of Roxio's DVDit HD Pro have found an easy workaround to put full HD content of of up to about 30 minutes (single layer) in Blu-Ray/BDMV format, menu and all, on a DVD. Check here:

http://forums.support.roxio.com/inde...howtopic=21074

Is Toast any good at making Blu-ray disks?
 

Just wondering if anyone has used Toast to make BluRay disks? How good is the encoding quality, and how compatible are the resulting disks with current BluRay players?

kind of deceiving
 

The new Toast won't burn or encode Blue Ray video, just data. Their website is kind of deceiving if you ask me. I use encore cs3 to author my blue ray discs and it works pretty well i'd say. It's also the only program I've found that can author Blue Ray.

HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, No End in Sight?
 

Hello,

I have been looking at HD cameras over the summer and looking forward to the Sony XDCAM EX.

But the more I think about it, the camera is a bit of a moot point if I can distribute the material.

Every project I do gets delivered on DVD.

I am amazed at how slow the roll out of HD DVD and Blu-Ray has been.

Burners are just starting to appear for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD is nowhere to be found.

This is sort of a nightmare for us small production companies.

The owner base of HD anything might be so small that we will never be able to justify upping our production equipment.

2 out of every 10 will have an HD setup, the rest will want SD.

I am ranting, but it seems like HD has been talked about for so many years, but we are still a ways off from it being a common distibution format outside of broadcast.

I have seen HD-DVDs that come as a SD/HD combo disc.

This would help out, but can not find any info about this being available for consumers to make.

Anybody seen anything about combo discs?

You can make HD DVD compatible discs on regular DVD-Rs with up to 20 minutes top quality video on a single layer disc and 40 minutes of top quality video on a dual layer DVD+R.

With Bluray, you can make what is called an AVCHD disc on a regular single or double layer DVD+-R as well. This uses the tighter AVCHD compression which will give you 30 minutes on a single layer DVD-R or 60 minutes on a dual layer DVD+R.

I would recommend you go one (or both) of these routes.

Thanks, but I was thinking in the other direction.

Making a disc which has HD & SD versions on the same disc.

A Blu-Ray player would read the HD or when put in an SD DVD player, the SD footage would be read.

This would help with the transition.

Burning to Blu-ray Directly from the Timeline
 

Can anyone please confirm the maximum length of time we can expect to successfully burn to a 25GB Disc Recordable BD-R?

All I've managed to find are a variety of statements, all of which, just say more than two hours of video footage.

I'm keen to hear from anyone who has burnt a BD-R directly from the timeline

Which Blu-Ray burners and discs appear to be the more reliable/compatible?

TIA
Neil

Encore CS3 does not support subtitles with Blu-ray export
 

I was disappointed to find out that Encore CS3 does not support subtitles in Blu-ray projects.

Is this something that will be added in a later release?

Does Roxio support subtitles in Blu-ray?

David: if you don't get an answer to that question here, try posting on the Blu-ray forums at the following link. http://forum.blu-ray.com/

Encore Blu-ray slideshows
 

Anyone had any success?

Encore crashes everytime I try.

The Adobe help forums have been unusable this last week.

Hooray! Affordable Blu-ray Authoring
 

At last the Ulead HD power pack for Movie Factory 6+ allows authoring of Blu-ray discs in BDMV.

Umm, but the test discs I've burnt won't play in WinDVD BD for Vaio! (Even with the latest update). Anyone tried playing a disc in a PS3 or set-top disc player?