How does one make a hidef, blu-ray DVD with our lovely new camera?

How does one make a hidef, blu-ray DVD with our lovely new camera?

First thing that comes to mind is Adobe Encore, PC or Mac.

Sorry, but this thread title is not going to be very useful in future searches, 'ya know? ;)

1. Drop video on timeline
2. Render video to chosen format
3. Load video into chosen BluRay compatibleDVD Burning software
4. Burn BluRay


What part has you confused?

1. Drop video on timeline
2. Render video to chosen format
3. Load video into chosen BluRay compatibleDVD Burning software
4. Burn BluRay


What part has you confused?


Render video to chosen format? What do you mean? I'm editing 1080i in the timeline, and want to make a 1080i bluray disc.

What software for a Mac do I need? I hear DVDsp doesn't support BluRay.

Render video to chosen format? What do you mean? I'm editing 1080i in the timeline, and want to make a 1080i bluray disc.

What software for a Mac do I need? I hear DVDsp doesn't support BluRay.

You are right, DVDSP doesn't support BluRay yet (hopefully it will soon). So for now, you can do what Ned said and use Adobe Encore, or Toast Titanium 9 if you don't mind real simple menus. Those are pretty much your only choices for now on a Mac as far as I know.

Mac? Depends which model you own. All newer ones run on an Intel processor,
so they are Win compatible. Both operating systems, OS X and Win, side by side,
if you wish to do so. However, Adobe Encore is a different beast. I'd rather stick
to DVDSP Pro and it HD feature for the time being and switch to BD as soon as
it becomes available. I'd also have a try and encode into MP4/H.264 and simply
burn that on a standard DVD-DL which works as a DVD-ROM then.

All that depends on the length of your edited video. But MP4 and HD go very
well together. To have that run smoothly, you need a very powerful computer,
though.

BTW, BD is not as easy to handle as you may think. There are different versions
of BD which go with different licences, you have to choose from. Compared to DVD,
DVD is a very simple thing, while BD is complicated, very complicated. I only know
of people who have used BD successfully, that used Playstation as BD player.
I therefore refrained from BD until now and store HD videos on hard disc or burn
MP4/H.264 encoded HD videos onto DVD or DVD-DL platters.

Hope this helps
P.

P.S.: MPEG4 and MPEG 2 are part of the BluRay Specs. So you may later compile
your encoded MP4 videos onto a BD platter without having to re-encode that
material again. From experience, I do prefer MP4 over MP2. MP4 gives images
that are more crispy.

Render video to chosen format? What do you mean? I'm editing 1080i in the timeline, and want to make a 1080i bluray disc.

What software for a Mac do I need? I hear DVDsp doesn't support BluRay.


Do a DVinfo site search for Blu-ray and you will find answers to your questions. There are quite a few of us who have been successfully going from a FCP 2.0, EX1/3 timeline straight into Adobe Encore CS3. While Encore is not intuitive like DVDSP, nor as flexible with encoding, it does a very good job and produces working Blu-ray discs. I use a 2nd generation Sony BWU-200S burner installed in the lower slot of my MacPro 3.2 Octo (Early 2008). No Blu-ray coasters since February 2008, all is stable and plays well together. Some folks claim Encore is unstable in their configuration.

The EX1/3 1080/24p video from FCP to Encore produces pretty good quality BD/BD-RE discs which work properly in my Sony BDP-S300 Home Theatre player. I have also done some 1080/60i projects but prefer 1080/24p video. While the EX1/3 footage does look stunning on my Pioneer Kuro PDP-5010FD, its still got a ways to go to match the video quality on commercial Blu-ray discs from the movie studios.

This stuff is not rocket science, so take heart and proceed with confidence. Ignore, the vague and skeptical comments posted in these forums. As you can tell, they are not helpful and they defeat the purpose of this site. Cheers and good luck :-))

You might have a long wait for DVDSP Blu-ray support as I believe it is a licensing issue as opposed to a software coding issue. Sony are very protective of their expensive Blu-ray authoring licences.

To have that run smoothly, you need a very powerful computer, though.

How powerful though? Would an 8 core, 2.8GHz Mac Pro with 16GB be able to handle this?

Jus.

One of the Mac rumors sites has a little blurb about the "possibility" of BluRay coming to the Mac in OS 10.5.6....along with some other stuff:

New iPod Nano, iPod Touch, iTunes 8.0, and Blu-Ray in OS X 10.5.6? - Mac Rumors (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/08/22/new-ipod-nano-ipod-touch-itunes-8-0-blu-ray-in-10-6/)

Again, rumor, but I think that it might coincide with the release of some updated Cinema Display monitors as they could include the HDCP protections that Hollywood wants. Otherwise, you'd be viewing a down-res'd version of any commercial BD disk you might want to play (assuming that there MIGHT be a few people here who use their computers for something OTHER than work). ;-)

While it is true you can make a Blu Ray disc using Encore CS3 on a Mac there are application issues and Adobe has been unable to fix it. Specifically, if you make a disc with menus and buttons, they don't work. It looks fine in preview mode but when you burn it, they're not active. If you want to make a disc that automatically starts playing and you don't need chapters, you're ok.

I found this out the hard way. Encore works fine on a PC.

BTW: I have an Intel Mac.

While it is true you can make a Blu Ray disc using Encore CS3 on a Mac there are application issues and Adobe has been unable to fix it. Specifically, if you make a disc with menus and buttons, they don't work.

This has not the case with my configuration as I specified above and moreover Encore is stable with no crashes. Menu's-Buttons-Chapters work as advertised. I have Adobe's Master CS3 applications installed on my MacPro 3.2 Octo 16GB ram, Leopard 10.5.4 and with all of Adobe's current CS3 updates. I also keep my Sony Blu-ray burner and Sony Blu-ray player firmware up-to-date both of which by the way are "user downloadable and user installable" from official/credible Sony web sites! So go figure???

That being said, you are not the first to indicate that it will not work in your configuration. Perhaps it's the Blu-ray burner, perhaps its the Blu-ray player, perhaps as you say there is an Adobe issue.

If you have a Mac and PC you are good to go. I edit in FCP, export as a quicktime movie, open the quitime up in quicktime player, get rid of the wrapper by exporting it as a mp4 passthrough, transfer it over to the PC, import into architect 5, make the blu-ray dvd and burn out with ful motion menues and chapters on my blu ray LG H20L burner.


Perfect results even if a convoluted workflow!!!

Barry, I'm aware that Encore does work for some, but when I called Adobe technical support they were aware of the problem and said engineers were working on it. So, like you said, go figure? So for now, I'll edit on a Mac, use Compressor to encode and burn with Encore on a PC, til they get it figured out.

BTW I do not have the Master CS3 applications, just Premiere Pro and Encore, burning to a Lacie external firewire drive...and Leopard.

Not a Mac product but Roxio Dvdit Pro HD works great...

BTW I do not have the Master CS3 applications, just Premiere Pro and Encore, burning to a Lacie external firewire drive...and Leopard.


Steve, I'd say there are two possibilities for Encore failing to produce working Blu-ray discs in your hardware configuration. The first one being the Lacie external drive which is not only 1st generation but was among the very first Blu-ray burners to ship--before the Blu-ray spec was finalized. Hence the reason to ensure that both your Blu-ray Burner and player have up-to-date firmware. Sony has been very diligent on providing firmware updates for their burners and Home Theatre players. To date there have been four updates to their Blu-ray players issued since October 2007.

Secondly Apple for what ever reason has crippled a Blu-ray specific protocol in the transport layer of OS 10.x. So for example the two internal SATA II ports on a MacPro's motherboard work 100% for burning regular 4/8 GB DVD's. These same ports fail to burn Blu-ray discs--I have personally tested this. I would make an educated guess to say that firewire ports suffer the same limitation. This is common knowledge in the Mac community. Adobe is aware of this shortcoming and they are waiting for Apple to activate this Blu-ray specific transport protocol. Thus, Adobe is in fact waiting for Apple to do its thing, not the other way around. I suppose this is one way for Apple to keep Blu-ray off their hardware. There is thread on this topic buried somewhere in the DVinfo forums and it was discussed at length.

HOWEVER, if you use the MacPro's EIDE cable that is attached to your existing "internal" CD/DVD burner, using the second connector for the Blu-ray burner--it works 100%. This is the route I have taken and as I've mentioned above, all works as advertised, no Blu-ray coasters to date. I have the internal Sony Blu-ray burner installed in the bottom slot and the stock CD/DVD burner installed in the MacPro's top slot. Also the newest Blu-ray drives are equipped with a SATA port. So an "inexpensive SATA-IDE bridge board" is required for using the MacPro's EIDE cable to communicate with the Blu-ray drive.

Interesting points.... I'm wondering whether an external SATA drive would work with a SATA card. I have a CalDigit 4-port SATA card in my MacPro and currently only using 2 ports for a raid. This could definitely have some potential.

This all makes sense to me. Will go that route and see what happens. I'll search the forums for that Sony burner model number, but could you tell me what it is?

This all makes sense to me. Will go that route and see what happens. I'll search the forums for that Sony burner model number, but could you tell me what it is?

Steve, Sony BWU-200S is 2nd generation, burns 25/50GB Blu-ray discs as well as 25/50GB rewritable Blu-ray discs. I use rewritable during the prototyping phase as there always seems to be some detail with buttons or menu's that I forget. The rewritable discs take a little longer to burn as they are only half as fast as the write-once discs. Good luck.

And the Sony burner uses the Mac EIDE cable? If not, is there a burner that does?

Interesting points.... I'm wondering whether an external SATA drive would work with a SATA card. I have a CalDigit 4-port SATA card in my MacPro and currently only using 2 ports for a raid. This could definitely have some potential.

Ned, too bad about the CalDigit card, if you only need 2 external SATA ports.

Newer Technology has a handy little kit that makes use of the two SATA II ports on the motherboard of the MacPro and only costs $24.95. The instruction manual and cables are worth this alone because the ports are not easy to find or to get at. I can confirm that the kit and the 2 motherboard ports work with external SATA II drives in a raid or JBOD configurations. Cheers :-))

The kit is available from Other World Computing same day shipping.
Newer Technology eSATA Extender Cable - Add 2... (MPQXES2) at OWC (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/MPQXES2/)

And yes you can also conclude that these motherboard ports are intended for Blu-ray drives/burners with SATA ports ... when Apple chooses to support them in a future OS upgrade rumored to be 10.5.6. And yes, the Newer Tech cables in this kit will sufficiently make their way into the two internal CD/DVD drive bays as I have tried them.

And the Sony burner uses the Mac EIDE cable? If not, is there a burner that does?

As mentioned all the new Blu-ray burners including this Sony which I use have SATA ports. So you will need a "SATA to IDE Bridge Board" so the burner can communicate with EIDE cable inside the MacPro CD/DVD drive bays. Take a gander over at:

Granite Digital (http://www.granitedigital.com/)

It is inexpensive at $29.00. There are other vendors who also provide these bridge boards.

Steve, I should also mention that you will need a 3 inch EIDE extender cable to work with this particular bridge board. The extender cable will then allow you to plug-in your existing CD/DVD drive in the upper bay as well as the Blu-ray drive with bridge board in the lower bay. I put the Blu-ray drive and bridge board in the lower bay so that the air flow to the MacPro's power supply is not disturbed in any way. Cheers!

You've been a big help to me, and others too.