I am currently producing only standard definition DVDs, with HDV as my source, but in the near future I intend to start producing BD-R discs from archived 1080.avi files. I am interested in finding out about the experience of any of you in the best initial work flow in producing Blu Ray, a venue with which I have no experience or knowledge, except for a collection of some 50 BDs.

No matter what programs you are using for producing BD-R, are your best final results achieved by producing an interlaced BD-R from the Cineform 1080i files. Or do you first transcode the Cineform HDV 1080i to 1080p (using Cineform, of course, to transcode), and then produce progressive BD-Rs? I'm afraid I'm so ignorant about BD-R production and BD standards that I do not even know if BD requires only progressive!

If there is a valid choice, then what trade-offs have you seen between interlaced versus progressive BDs in regard to such issues as sharpness and artifacts

Which camera do you have and what frame rate have you chosen to record?

If the source of your footage was shot at 24p, then that's what you would want to export to BD. (Obviously you're already removing pulldown with HD-Link and editing at 24P if this is the case).

If the source of your footage was shot at 60i, then that's what you would want to export to BD.

If the source of your footage was shot at 30p, personally I would export to BD at 60i. (BD does not support 1080p30)

Essentially these suggestions are the same as you would do for a DVD (or at least the way I would). Now if you want to apply some 24p processing to footage that was shot at 60i to help achieve that sought-after "film look" or to match with a second camera shooting 24p, then do that...achieve whatever aesthetics you're after...and then export your final project to BD at 1080p24.

Craig - thanks so much for the informative and helpful response. I have been spending about ten hours a day this week (yes, including New Year's Day) studying and experimenting with various iterations of transcoding from 1080 60i to 480 whatever (in between editing work), and since I had no time left to study further re Blu Ray, I thought I would take the easy way out and post here - your response really filled the bill!

As a long aside for a moment, I am really taken aback by what the Adobe Media Encoder does to HDV 1080 60i > 480 60i mpeg2, which has prompted my current study about an alternative in handling the production of DVDs. Customers thought what I had been coming up with in 480 60i was wonderful, but all the twitter and other defects introduced by AME with the direct transcode indicated has become just totally unacceptable to me. But alternatively, I am quite pleased with the result when I use Cineform to transcode from (the already Cineform conformed) 1080 60i, to 1080 30p and THEN use the same ol' AME to transcode from that 1030p to 480 30p. Of course some experts inform me that 480p is NOT written into the DVD spec, that as a result some players won't touch such a disc, and that therefore its probably not a good idea to produce 480p instead of 480i. There will just be a lot of players out there that will tell you there's no disc. But with the results I'm getting with 480p, I will just buy for my customers, under $100 players by Sony that work fully reliably with 480p. Before I make a decision about work flow for transcoding DVD though, I have a lot more work to do - specifically, I'll be investigating the import of the earlier splendid posts in this forum by Jason Livingston and Ervin Farkas, using VirtualDub and mpegencoder for results which are apparently far superior to anything I can produce utilizing AME! I don't remember who, but I think it was Ervin who displayed an amazingly solid, artifact free screen shot produced with the programs he was using.

Sorry for that long discourse, and I do hope to start running some posts here with further queries about what I'm looking into, and the results I might be getting. To respond to your very first query, I'm shooting with Sony FX1 at 1080 60i, and in that venue only, with that and two other HDV cameras. And to demonstrate my comparative ignorance about BD-R production, I didn't even know that AME provides only for 1080 60i BD-R, and not 1080 30p, until I looked it up just before writing this.

And also thanks for your discourse on achieving the "film look" re 24 fps. But that's one area I'm not touching at all until I have a camera that shoots at 24 fps more truly than the Sony phony 24. Now if someone came out with a really great accessory lens for under $100 to achieve shallow depth of field, that's something I'd jump for.

There are adapters you can buy from Letus, and Redrock and such that can allow you to attach 35mm lenses to achieve shallow DOF, but they are a little expensive. There's probably better forums to discuss this on here though, but I don't know much about them (having not used one personally).

I author 24p DVDs all the time and I've never had a problem playing them back. But again, I would only deliver in 24p if I'm shooting in 24p.

So if you're using an FX1 I would continue to edit 1080i60 w/ Cineform and use Adobe Encore CS3 to author a 1080i60 DVD. I've done this with an FX1 before and the footage looks fantastic.

As for downconverting within Adobe to 480, yeah...I've heard that the engine is quite poor in quality. People have used Vegas and achieved far greater success in this regard. Hopefully Adobe can get their act together and fix this in a future update.

you might want to check out DVDit Pro....

works great on bluray...