burn a DVD in uncompressed format

[Nicola Di Pietro]

Hello!

Could you give me an advice?

I have two Final Cut Studio projects, shooted using Mini HDV tapes of a JVC HD100E camcorder. Shooted at 720p.

I use DVD Studio Pro.

Once finished the editing, I need to burn a DVD for each video, downscaling to SD.

Each video lenght is <5 min.

So, I think that if a DVD can store two hours of SD video, and a video of mine is a 4 minutes video, I could make an "uncompressed" DVD!
This because I need the maximum quality, and since the project is already compressed once (the HDV minitape), if I make a DVD I compress it twice!

Even if a very low compression ratio, it loses quality a lot!

DVD Studio Pro hasn't any option like an "uncompressed DVD", or to reduce the compression to zero (like the Win Zip "zero compression - store" option...).

Could you give me any advice? Is there a software? a plug-in? Freeware or trial is better...

Thank you!

[Bill Ravens]

none of the DVD standards include an uncompressed type.

[Nicola Di Pietro]

I understood Bill, thank you.

And I have another question:

I would like to burn the video in HD to a DVD-R using AVCHD Blue Ray format.

I can use two systems:

1) Athlon XP 2000+ with Win XP Pro 32 bit SP2
2) Mac Pro with OS X 10.4 and Final Cut Studio 2

I have the video file, that I can make using Final Cut exporting in virtually any format (uncompressed or compressed AVI or MOV or other file...).

How can I make an AVCHD DVD?

Is there an utility, converter, AVCHD iso image creator/burner or other? Freeware or Free trial is better... (for OS X or Win XP)

Thank you!

[Robert Young]

There are a variety of ways to do this. This is how I do it:
First I transcode the movie to a Blu Ray (mp2, avchd) compatable format. I use Adobe Media Encoder.
Next I author a Blu Ray BD Image File (.ISO)- I use Adobe Encore
Finally, you need software that will burn the BD Image file to a DVD-R blank disk. I use ImgBurn.
The resulting disk will play on my Sony BD 300 Blu Ray player as Blu Ray HD and looks great. You can get 20-30 min of program on a DVD-R. I would caution you to keep the AVCHD data rate to the 16-18 mbs average VBR range. I have had playback problems with higher data rates.
It's a great way to put your short projects to Blu Ray without the $15 per disk cost.

[Nicola Di Pietro]

Yes it's a very good idea, expecially for burning without a BlueRay writer!
Thank you!

[Bill Ravens]

I'm pretty sure this works ony with a bluray burner. a red laser won't burn bluray content.
IOW, to burn bluray content to a standard DVD disk, you need a bluray burner.

[Bruce Spell]

Originally Posted by Bill Ravens

I'm pretty sure this works ony with a bluray burner. a red laser won't burn bluray content.
IOW, to burn bluray content to a standard DVD disk, you need a bluray burner.

Sorry Bill, but this isn't correct. There are several commercial packages that burn blu-ray content to DVD (red laser media) just fine (Nero, Vegas, etc). Additionally, Imgburn can do it as well. As was pointed out as long as the disc is burned in UDF format it will be recognized by the blu-ray players as a BD format.

Bruce

[Paul Kepen]

Originally Posted by Bruce Spell

Sorry Bill, but this isn't correct. There are several commercial packages that burn blu-ray content to DVD (red laser media) just fine (Nero, Vegas, etc). Additionally, Imgburn can do it as well. As was pointed out as long as the disc is burned in UDF format it will be recognized by the blu-ray players as a BD format.

Bruce

Alright, I admit I am not a techno expert by any means. I've heard of 'burning an iso" which I think is just like an identical copy of a disc (I guess I always thoght in terms of CD or DVD, but I guess BD is the same?).

So what is UDF format?

I have tried burning a avchd file on a DVD to play on my Panasonic BD-30 Bluray player. The specs on the BD-30 say it will play BD, BD-R, and BD-RE. Under all the versios of recordable DVD (+/- R, RW, etc.) it shows AVCHD format. They never work, the player jsut gives a message to the affect "DVD disc - wrong format". I've tried it with Mpeg-2 as well, but no luck. I have had perfect results burning to a DVD+/-R in HDDVD using Ulead DVD Movie Factory 6+, but no luck trying to make a blueray playable file with either Ulead MF or Vegas 8 Pro. However; I borrowed a Sony PlayStation 3 and my avchd disc played just fine on it.

Any Info or helpful ideas would be most appreciated.
Thanks for your time in reading this - PK

[George Kroonder]

Originally Posted by Paul Kepen

So what is UDF format?

Universal Disk Format is a file system, a way to write data to a disk. Like FAT16, FAT32, HFS+, FS3, NTFS, etc. (some may sound familiar)

You can write UDF to CD's and DVD's and it is the standard format for BR.

An ISO file is a file representation of a disk, so you can have an ISO file which contains an UDF file system with BR data (or some other combo). You can then write the whole ISO file to a physical disk (or vice versa).

George/

[Robert Young]

Yes, the ISO Disk Image is the key for a simple, non technical workflow to get a playable disk, no matter if DVD, or BR on a DVD-R, (or BR on a BD, for that matter).
You must import the compliant movie file into a DVD authoring program and actually author a disk. Then you instruct the software to "build" a Disk Image .ISO file instead of building and burning to disk. Actually, the authoring software has already built the Disk Image file, you are really just instructing it to save the file as a descrete entity on your HD. Once you have the ISO Image file, if it's a BR Disk Image, you then need software that will burn it on a DVD-R, rather than insisting that it be burnt to BD. Some authoring programs will do this and some not (Adobe Encore will not). ImgBurn is a simple, free program that will do it.