Hey guys,
After few trials and errors I'm at the point where I'm about to pound my head agains the wall. I have been working on my first HD project in Sony Vegas 7 and Sony DVD Architect 5. I did the edit in Vegas with no issues and I'm able to watch it of the timeline with no problems. My next step was to author the disc in Architect but after I was done I would 1) have a problem burning the project to the BluRay disc (using J-BDR-25WPP JVC Taiyo Y) 2) the disc would not play in my BluRay player (Sony Playstation). It would actually get me to the main menu but no option to play.

Here are the steps/settings I went through. Can someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong?

I'm guessing that there is something wrong with the bit rate but could be totally off.

STEP 1: In Vegas with edited project; ready to go.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=33549&d=1417476852

STEP 2: Going to Render As option and rendering the project as .AVI with HD 1080-60i YUV (not sure if that's the best option but I think this is what I used). Should I be going with something else as my output template?

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=33550&stc=1&d=1417477126

STEP 3: This creates a file (as you can see in the middle of the screen that's about 22 GB in size. You can also see file properties at the bottom.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=33551&stc=1&d=1417477126

STEP 4: I was able to add the output file to the Architect and do what I needed to do in terms of chapters, music, etc.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=33552&stc=1&d=1417477126

STEP 5: After clicking on Prepare DVD it looks like it's trying to create an ISO file. In the past with standard DVD it would create all necessary files so I'm not sure if this is correct.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=33553&stc=1&d=1417477126

STEP 6: I noticed that it would only take 9% of BD so I clicked on Optimize Disc and noticed that my file is at about 2 GB and the bit rate is at 2.00 by default so I pulled it up to about 30 and then clicked on Fit to Disc.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=33554&stc=1&d=1417477126

STEP 7: After doing that the file size jumped to 23 GB and the capacity of the disc was 95% of the 25GB available. Is there a good bit rate (Mbps) to go by as a good rule of thumb?

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=33555&stc=1&d=1417477126

STEP 8: After that I hit finish and the disc is starting to burn but either fails (tried 3 times before it actually burned one)... and when it finally finished I couldn't play in on both the Samsumg BluRay player/burner nor the Playstation.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=33556&stc=1&d=1417477126

If anyone could assist it would be much appreciated.

Thank you!

Marcin

Those Taiyo Yuden discs you are using, the J-BDR-25WPP JVC Taiyo Y disc are classified as LTH (Low to High) discs. It is highly recommended NOT to use BD-R LTH discs for creating Blu-Ray 'video' discs for playback in Blu-Ray players.

LTH is an older technology that enables the manufacturing of BD discs on older DVD manufacturing equipment with minimal cost equipment upgrades. Modern BD players expect to see discs using Phase-change HTL (High to Low) disc technology. I have found very few BD players capable of playing Blu-Ray titles if burnt onto LTH discs. Some players were upgradeable to enable them to play LTH discs but they are few and far between in my experience. I find LTH discs are okay for computer archiving of files but won't go near them for Blu-Ray player playback of 'video' material.

How do I know this? I found out the hard way a number of years back. Once I changed to Phase-change HTL discs for authoring and duplication my dramas disappeared. To get a quick overview on what's what with Blu-Ray disc technology check out:

Not all Blu-ray discs are created equal, but does BD-R quality matter? | Digistor Blog (http://blog.digistor.com/not-all-blu-ray-discs-are-created-equal-but-does-bd-r-quality-matter/)

Also I notice you are using Vegas 7!!! That was a great program but would strongly suggest upgrading to a later version, at least 11, 12 or 13 where Vegas has some good BD rendering presets, both in MPEG and AVC that would eliminate a lot of the issues you are having. To get the optimum quality and size on your discs use one of the many decent BD bit rate calculators around such as:

http://dvd-hq.info/bitrate_calculator.php

Good luck!

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

Marcin- for step #2, I render to MainConcept MPEG-2 and then use the Blu-Ray 1920X1080 Template. Then you'll need to render the audio separately using the Dolby Digital AC-3 Pro template. This has worked flawlessly for me. I also had issues with the LTH discs for awhile until I discovered my LG Blu-Ray burner did not support LTH. I was able to download a firmware update for the drive which resolved the issue. I would still use the non-LTH media if possible

Art

Art/Chris thank you so much for replying.

This turned out to be almost a week long struggle as I thought I was rendering the files incorrectly. Everything worked as you guys described... down to ISO file. But then when I tried to actually burn the disc I was getting an error ("source files not available"). First though about external hard drive being too slow... then my Mac... so decided to give it a whirl with another Mac and my Samsung drive and learned that there was something up with the drive. Quick run to Best Buy and about hour later I had a new LG drive hooked up and on first attempt it burned everything. Sorry for all the details but maybe this will save someone some time down the road.

Thanks again!

P.S. Chris thank for the disc info. Will make sure to use the right stuff next time.