I've looked through old posts but some threads are too old to know what's current.

I'm shooting with a PMW-EX1 and editing on FCP 6.0.2 and use DVDStudioPro4.

What are my options for delivering either blu-ray dvd's and/or HD-DVD's.

and what's compatibility like for playback on set-top players? (including PS3)

What are the limitations? I've read that it's possible to create discs but can't do menus. I've read that you can author HD-DVDs but can't burn them and that you can burn Blu-ray's but there's no good way to author them.

I'm looking at doing mostly one-offs so I wouldn't be replicating them (unless I had to)

Search (http://dvinfo.net/conf/search.php)

...............................

I use Encore CS3 on a PC, but burned discs with Encore CS3 on a Mac should be the same.

With Encore you can burn in BDMV format with standard DVD like menus including motion menus and chapter stops.

Plays fine on PS3, Panasonic DMP-BD30K and Samsung BD-P1400. I have heard that with current software updates the Sony players also work, but I have not tested them. (The newest PS3 software may affect playback for PAL users)

Encore does not offer subtitle support currently for Blu ray projects.

Encore does not support HD-DVD.

FCP currently has no support for Blu-ray authoring.

Like a lot of people (most, I presume), I have neither a blu ray burner or player at this point so I spent about six hours yesterday trying to figure out how to render out of Vegas to a file that I could transfer back to the Canon HG10 for hi def playback via the HDMI (or component) jack.

I was able to figure it out and everything looked fine on my 50" Sammy plasma, but I'm not sure of some of the implications. So I'm looking for some feedback here.

Specifically, I shot a bunch of 24p clips, converted .mts files to .avi's via Cineform NEO HDV to remove pulldown. The only option that I could find to create .m2ts files from Vegas was to use the Sony AVC codec and choose the MPEG-2 transport stream format under the system tab in the custom template settings. Unfortunately this limits a couple of key settings that were relevant to my project.

First, it limited the audio sampling rate to 48k which meant that my CD audio track had to be resampled on the fly (would have had SoundForge do that if I had known prior) which could introduce all kinds of aliasing issues if it isn't handled well. Second, the audio bandwidth was limited to 256K, which I guess makes the SRC a moot point since the audio is pretty much guaranteed to sound like crap on a decent playback system - Sony, how about we get lossless audio options here. Third, and most importantly though, it limited the frame rate to 29.97 (or 25 PAL).

This is where I don't exactly know what's going on with the 24p material. So I figured I'd toss out this question for those who might know while I do some more experimenting on my end.

Just want to bump this thread....I assume Vegas is simply telecining during rendering to get the resulting .m2ts file to 29.976 NTSC. Is this correct and does anyone have any idea how well Vegas performs this task? Should be relatively straightforward 3:2 pulldown...

From what I recall, the edited footage looked the same as the raw .mts clips during playback from the cam.

http://www.dailytech.com/Best+Buy+to+Push+Bluray+Titles+Hardware/article10652.htm

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120274372837958977.html?mod=djemTEW
May need subscription to read.

A key paragraph from the WSJ article.

Toshiba has been running an extensive marketing campaign, including price cuts and steady advertising, to keep consumers interested in HD DVD, but didn't make promises about the future of its format after Monday's news about the retailers. "Given these developments, Toshiba will continue to study the market impact and the value proposition for consumers, particularly in light of our recent price reductions on all HD DVD players," a spokeswoman said. She called the decision by Best Buy "unfortunate."

See also the following related thread: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=114554

See also the following related thread: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=114554

I have. I wasn't sure whether I should just add to that or start a new thread. If you wish to consolidate, please do!

Hello,

I have reading a bit on Blu-Ray specs and the white papers from the Blu-Ray site state that Blu-ray does 1080p24 but does not mention 1080p60?

I know a lot of players mention 1080p60 output, but the more I think about it, how are these players outputting 1080p60?

Are they adding to the 1080i signal?

Not many, if any cameras I have heard of shoot at 1080p60 and film is at 24p, so does anybody know what I am missing?

Also, why is 1080p30 or 720p30 left out of the Blu-ray spec?

These are frame rates cameras can shoot in.

Thanks for your help!

Perhaps the players are referring to the HDMI spec since I believe 1920x1080p60 has been written into the spec since its inception. Of course, v1.3 has moved well beyond that to 1440 or 1600?, LOL. However, try to find an HDMI cable capable of passing 10.2 Gb/s today over any respectable distance. And this is one of the reasons why the entire custom A/V install business is going crazy trying to distribute HDMI at this point and why component is still the preferred distributed medium of choice. But the image constraint token is poised to doom component vid and piss off a lot of people who have spents 10's to 100's of thousands of $$$ on whole home distributed A/V systems.

Anybody else have any ideas?

There are dozens of posts springing up all over, but the question of which HD-disc format will be our future is finally over.

From Best Buy, Netflix and even Toshiba (who is expected to announce their discontinuing the format) Blu Ray has emerged as the clear winner.

Here's just one of several posts on the web:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10491964

See also this extended thread on the same topic:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=114918

Once again, us lowly wedding videographers are ignored by the powers that be. I need to burn to Blu-Ray yesterday. HD DVD was/is no problem. Is there any word??

What do you edit with? Vegas can burn to Blu-Ray from the timeline (not for me though:-()

Still no official Mac Blu Ray burning capability. It looks like Blu Ray has won the battle but I wouldn't expect anything for DVD SP for a while

If you have an Intel Mac you could run Bootcamp and install a product like Encore on the PC side and burn out to Toast. Not at all a cheap option but one available to you. If, like me, you are still humping along on an old G5, you are still in wait and see mode

It was a no-brainer many of us saw coming miles away...

http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/02/19/toshiba.drops.hd.dvd/

I'm happy
BR will be better option for us to archive.

We already have a huge thread on this topic, so please direct your comments here: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=114918

Thanks!

I did a search here and couldn't find the answer, so if this was answered before, I apologize.

I plan on burning our HDV wedding videos to Blu-Ray and was wondering how much time will a Blu-Ray disc hold?

25 gigs = ? minutes
50 gigs = ? minutes

Thanks.

If you export the footage to around 25Mbps of MPEG2, you could fit close to 2 hours in a 25 gig disc but you can easily fit a lot more without sacrificing the picture quality by exporting to around 15Mbps of h.264.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/02/prweb711333.htm

http://www.roxio.com/enu/company/press/08_03_17_pr.html

When someone is able to test this out... please post results.

I don't even have a Blu-Ray player yet (or Toast 9 for that matter)

Roxio's page says that it supports HD content from AVCHD camcorders and 'other HD content'.

Says it supports PS3 and burning Blu-Ray on standard DVD-R.

Doesn't look promising

http://forums.support.roxio.com/index.php?showtopic=36424

http://forums.support.roxio.com/index.php?showtopic=36461

Both Roxio threads focus on "Blu-ray" burning to standard DVDs (high-def on cheap media, only plays on some blu-ray players, 30 minute or so capacity). Has anyone tried a real Blu-ray disc - I'd assume that the MPEG-4 encode problem might still be there, and I wonder how compatible the disc would be (I've seen reports that a lot of Blu-ray players don't like recordable discs due to a DRM issue). If this is true, the whole video and indie movie community should really get on Sony's case about it. Copy-protecting the major studios' movies is almost OK (I say almost because it creates all sorts of hardware restrictions that make life difficult and expensive for people who aren't pirates), but using DRM to keep people from watching things the big studios DON'T have anything to do with smacks of censorship - you watch what we feed you, because we'll use our DRM might to keep the little guys from getting their movies out!

Can some one tell me how long of a video I can put on a 25gb blu ray dvd at highest quality from Vegas?

I have been creating programs that, in some cases, are longer and file size larger than a single DVD-Dual Layer can accomodate. I am delivering finished edited programs to clients that then sell or market my work for me. I do not do any direct to consumer business.

I have to deliver the product in AVI format. The client then encodes it for distribution either as a DVD or via web download.

I have one client (in the Netherlands) that I trade portable hard drives with; but I don't want to tie up a lot of money in Hard Drives that float around. In this case they own the HD's and they are convenient for shipping a lot of video an still images. It is cheaper to send everything via FedEx in one HD.

So my questions are.

Should I consider Blue-Ray?

Will a Blue-Ray DVD hold more running time?

Will I have to purchase a Blue-Ray authoring/burning software program?

I will also have to get a Blue-Ray disk burner as well. Are there good ones out there for burning masters.

I edit with Sony Vegas Movie Studio+DVD. It does not support Blue-Ray as far as I can tell. Unless there are upgrades available for it.

I am not a techie on all this kind of stuff, so any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

On a 25G single-layer BD recordable disc this gives you approximately 3h42m for AVC or 2h15m for MPEG-2.

Thanks.....

The problem right now is that most people don't have Blu-ray players.

Blu-ray discs hold a lot more info...but they are a lot more $$.

You will have to buy a blu-ray burner and make sure your authoring program handles blu-ray. Your editing program doesn't make a difference (unless you're using it to author or encode DVD's).

I am doing some tests with a very simple but complete Blu-Ray image that I have on the PC - I'm burning it on regular DVD-R disks, but using the UDF 2.50 filesystem. This way, the Playstation 3 accepts the disk as type "AVCHD" and plays it in full HD resolution, as if it were a genuine BD. No problems so far.

Now here's the thing: I use ImgBurn to burn the image on the DVD. I can select either just UDF 2.50, or I can add to it Joliet, ISO9660 or both.
For some reason, if I add any other filesystem to UDF 2.50, ImgBurn complains, saying there might be compatibility problems with some BD players. But the PS3, at least, has no such issues.

Are you aware of any BD players that might not like BD media that has Joliet and/or ISO9660 in addition to UDF 2.50?

I'd like to use all 3 filesystems at once, since that makes it easier to read those discs on some computers.

If your client is doing the encoding for final product delivery, and has a Blu-Ray drive (even if it only reads Blu-Ray disks) in their computer, then I can't see any reason why you couldn't deliver AVI files (using whatever codec you have been using), burned onto a Blu-Ray data disk. If you use BD-RE, your client could also return the disk for re-use.

I know Apple won't officially be there, but Steve loves to drop things in the middle of other people's conferences... What do people think about the possibility of the Blu-Ray version of DVDSP showing up next week? I'm about to buy Premiere just to get Encore, but I'd certainly prefer the Apple end to end solution (I edit in Final Cut Pro)...


-Dan

Let us pray... or yell "HURRY THE @#$ UP!! We want it now!"

Indeed; if anyone is going to the LAFCPUG meeting in 'Vegas (I had planned to attend but instead have to finish directing a client edit) or learns of any *concrete* BR news for DVDSP5, be sure to post it on the Mac forum. Just make sure it's published information, not more rumour - we've all had enough guesswork.

I have a question, with DV-AVI being captured from the DV tapes at SD quality (if shot in SD), when the Blueray format becomes the format to use, will we will be able to view our AVI's? (i.e. then we'll have HD screens and players, etc...).

I don't know if it's possible/worth it to uprez all the footage, but will these be safe for a long time, even after blue ray?

Excuse me, this may not be entirely relavant to this board, but because of the excellent feedback I've received here about potential mis-information received elsewhere, I wonder if this is true? Someone on another forum just made the definite statement that "1080 30p is incompatible with Blu Ray". I don't have a Blu Ray burner yet, but will be getting one shortly. One of the reasons I purchased Prospect and then the EX-1 was to use 1080 30p. Am I barking up the wrong tree?

Get all the info on what is compatible from the horses mouth.

Hi everybody,

I'm authoring 50 and 60 Hz Blu-ray discs that will be used as part of an international standard. I want to make sure that the discs comply to the spec, and that I'm encoding for the highest possible quality.

Does anybody know where I can download or buy the BD media spec?

I don't need player or physical disc details. I just need to know the limits for encoding MPEG-4 AVC that will fit legally on the disc.

Thanks!

See Blu-ray Disc Public Specs (http://www.blu-raydisc.com/en/Industry/Specifications/PublicSpecs.html).

Looking at the PDF paper available from that link, the max video bitrate for any of the supported video codecs is 40Mbps. The max audio bitrate depends on the audio codec used. For LPCM it's 27.648Mbps, for Dolby Digital 640kbps, for Dolby Digital Plus 4.736Mbps, for Dolby Lossless 18.64Mbps, for DTS digital surround 1.524Mbps, and for DTS-HD 24.5Mbps.

Perfect! Thanks!

Here's the direct link to the PDF:
http://www.blu-raydisc.com/Assets/Downloadablefile/bdj_gem_application_definition-15496.pdf

BTW, at NAB, Sony showed 1080p60 from a Blu-ray disc. I asked the person staffing the display what was new, but didn't get a knowledgeable answer. Looking at the spec, it's clear that 1080p24 is supported, but not 1080p60.

Hopefully, 1080p60 will be supported with a future profile...

Thanks again for the reference!

There's nothing to stop you exporting 1080p30 as 1080i60, which certainly is BD compatible. Use two fields to create one progressive frame and the effect should be all but identical on the vast majority of capable displays.

Anyone know when 4x re-writable Blu Ray discs will be available?
Patrick

That's a great question. Maybe within the next few months since they have been producing burners with that capability for a few months.

Anyone out there delivering on blue-ray yet? I have pretty much everything I need except the actual burner I havent had much call for it and I cant see spending a premium price when no one wants it yet. For those who are, what kind of discs do you use? I only see one inkjet printable out there (TDK) $19 each or are you using stick on labels (man I hope not)?

I have done one so far for a paid client. Using Encore CS3 to author. very flaky. Luckily I got everything done and the client is very happy about it. He told me he will be using PS3 for playback.

Oh, I bought the LG burner for $340. I'm sure the price is little bit low now.

Where did you see the inkjet printable blank BD? Link?

http://www.meritline.com/tdk-dvd-blue-ray-single-white-inkjet-hub-printable.html

Where are you getting your blue ray disk? And how much are you paying?

So it looks like TDK has printable Blu-Ray, and Imation is coming out with it soon. They are $18 each (on a spindle from the looks of it):
http://www.tapeonline.com/Blu-ray/TDK_Blu-ray_25GB_Spindle_White_Inkjet_Printable.aspx

Falcon makes printable Blu-Ray for $15.49, but I've never heard of them:
http://www.discmakers.com/shop/ItemDetails.aspx?ItemID=BDR010-00010

RiDATA's are non inkjet friendly, but are $10:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=71&Description=&Type=&N=2000100071&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&PropertyCodeValue=874%3A22108&PropertyCodeValue=874%3A23444&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-NA-_-NA-_-NA

I just can't deliver a wedding DVD without a proper label. Thoughts?

I have some TDK BD-R discs which are inkjet printable with some TDK labeling across the middle, and I think they're the same as the ones at Tapeonline for $11.47. Not an ideal solution due to the TDK logo, but functional.