I thought I had heard you can't put 30p on a Blu-ray, is that true? I haven't tried shooting in 30p but I would like to.

Blu-ray only allows for 24p and 60i. It seems mighty strange that 30p was left out.

I've read that there are workarounds for getting 30p onto Blu-ray but never found an actual explanation. You could de-telecine your 30p footage to 24p but that would be dumb and defeat your purpose.

It's not so strange that 30P is left out. It's not needed. A 30P program that is converted to 60i looks exactly the same as the original 30P. What you get is two identical fields that look the same as one frame.

Rob, once you make the leap to 30P you'll wonder why you ever used interlaced with your Z7U. Interlaced is outdated technology that does not have a place in today's workflows and HDTVs. Try it, you'll love the look of it -- and so will your clients. Almost nothing on broadcast TV is shot interlaced anymore except for live sports and news.

Z7U / S270 Training
Vortex Media: VIDEO & PHOTO Tools and Training

Thanks Doug. By the way, I really found your training DVD very helpful when I got my camera.

So, if I shot in 30p, what is the best method to get it to Blu-ray?

Rob,

I'm glad you liked the training DVD.

I can't tell you how to get your program to Blu-ray because I haven't done it, and it really depends entirely on your NLE and authoring software anyway. All I can say is that I would still edit with a 30P timeline even if ultimately I had to convert the final video to 60i for the Blu-ray. Like I said, it will still have a 30P look.

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

Doug,

I, also, have the Z7 training DVD and have found it quite informative. There is one thing that I do differently from what you suggest in using the profiles. I would follow your suggestion on multi camera shoots if the other cameras were Z7s but I only have one Z7. Therefore, I shoot using the factory standard and apply my color dressup as an effect in post.

On producing for Blu-ray, could you then make your 30p footage 60i at any step along the way to the disk? Consider for example, in a two-step process where you export the timeline first to AVI and then transcode the AVI to m2v. Could you export at 60i off the timeline into the AVI so that then the transcode to m2v would already be 60i to 60i? Or export off the timeline at 30p but transcode the resulting 30p AVI to a 60i m2v? That sounds kind of complicated but I don't know how else to suggest an example. I'm guessing that either would work equally.

Hi Wesley, if grading the footage in post and then waiting for it to render works for you, go for it. Of course, any gradiing or rendering will always degrade the quality of the footage, not to mention the time it adds to the edit, and that's why I prefer to get the look I want in the camera a the time of shooting. Everybody has their own workflow and I completely understand your choice to follow a different path.

I'm not qualified to answer your post production questions about Blu-ray authoring, because I never have any reason to distribute on Blu-ray. But I will say that I think your suggested workflow has too many steps.

Doug,

You are correct about having too many steps in the workflow. I should have thought ahead and put up a more generic workflow. My specific circumstances necessitates the extra steps.

I always shoot in HDV with DVD release but only release to Blu-ray occasionally. If I only released on Blu-ray the steps would be simpler. The problem is with that nasty down conversion of HDV to DV and getting an acceptable color space conversion. If I transcoded 1080 HDV in the AME or MME (Matrox Media Encoder) directly to MPEG-2 m2v I would get jaggies. What I have to do is use the PPro ME to create a 1080 AVI from the timeline and then import that into After Effects for transcoding. This at least has a benefit in that I can then get the convenience of a transcoding queue which only became available in PPro starting with CS4. I therefore let AE transcode my HDV to h.264 at the same time although the CS3 AME or MME would give excellent results directly. I can load up a day's worth of transcoding to then run overnight generating both MPEG-2 and h.264 versions for any given movie. I am still using CS3 because of the Matrox RT.X2 card. Matrox just released drivers for CS5 this week but I will still wait for the dot release which will fix the bugs which, no doubt, are in the initial release.

I have CS5 loaded up on a dual-boot machine and have been using it for some isolated operations and am deffinitely chomping at the bit to get rolling with regular CS5 use. I use CS5 Encore exclusively for all of my authoring work.

Wesley,

Wow, that sounds complicated. I don't use any of the software you're using so I can't follow your workflow at all, but it sure sounds overly complicated. I use FCP and Compressor and I'm 100% sure that I'd barely have to change anything in my workflow to get 30P burned on Blu-ray and looking great. But, like I said, I haven't actually done it.

I've had a Lacie Blu-ray burner sitting on the shelf in my office since December '08. Maybe it is time to tear off the shrink wrap and hook it up? I'd like to find time in January when I finish the project I'm working on.

Hi Doug,

I apologize for putting up such a complicated post that you missed the fact that if I were only producing for Blu-ray then it would be a straight shot. I would use the AME to transcode directly out of PPro to h.264. There is no color space conversion problem there.

I have a complicated workflow for HDV downconverted to DV and Blu-ray hitches a ride with it for convenience when I am also releasing to Blu-ray.

I'm sorry I missed your point. I get it now. Thanks.

Wesley, I think you need to upgrade. I don't have to do any of that in CS5 or CS4 for that matter. I guess this needs to go in a different forum.

Rob,

I think my posts must be way, way too long. I mentioned earlier that I have CS5 and CS3 in a dual-boot configuration. Because I use the Matrox RT.X2 card I have been locked into CS3 until last week when Matrox finally released the CS5 drivers for RT.X2. Now that the drivers are out I just have to put in something like a GTX470 video card and then I can migrate fully to CS5.

Adobe started with CS4 a "Maximum Quality" check box in the AME which eliminates the need I have for a special workflow to get good color space conversion going from HDV to DV. The "maximum quality" option lengthens the transcode time but not any longer than what I have been getting in After Effects. CS5 will greatly simplify my workflow.