AVCHD and Menus on DVD

[Bill Ravens]

I find it rather odd(or coincidental?) that I recently updated the firmware for my Samsung P1500 bluray disc player; and it, too, stopped playing BD authored DVD discs. I called Samsung and they had me return the player to the factory for "service". They told me I couldn't roll back the firmware. I still haven't received my BD player back.

[Larry Horwitz]

Originally Posted by Tom Roper

And what they are saying over at the doom9 forums, is that the tricked BDMV disks when authored with AVC video streams, have exactly the same playback compatibility, plays on the same players, doesn't play on others, as the AVCHD cousins.

I may post some links. It's unfortunate, BD-R/RE, AVCHD, nothing plays on all the Blu-ray players. Mention was made of the LG200 player, that originally played AVCHD disks in April, losing that ability with a firmware "upgrade" in June, only to have AVCHD compatibility return when re-flashing it with the older firmware.

Some are concluding that even BD-R/RE is intended for the PC, not intended for playback on standalone players. Standalone players have been targeted for playback of studio titles on BD-ROM exclusively. The LG200 has been mentioned as an example of that, that the recent firmware reserved memory space that formerly was occupied by code enabling AVCHD playback.

It's further speculated that only players from companies making AVCHD camcorders, chiefly Panasonic and Sony can be relied on to continue support for writable memory disks on standalone Blu-ray players.

The good news is you can watch the kids HD camcorder footage on yours. The bad news is that grandpa who bought his for watching Blu-ray movies, may not be able to.

I guess this rant of mine is sounding very tiresome, but I will only conclude by saying that Sony has had BluRay player hardware on the market for over 3 years now in the U.S. and longer in Japan, and should clearly define what it will play, what it won't play, and stop screwing with their customers. They have entirely abandoned the videographers and consumers in this regard, both HDV and AVCHD.

If this were purely a matter of DRM and protecting intellectual property, and the specs needed to creep in order to provide anti-piracy protection, that would be one thing.

But the un-ending changes to the feature set, in particular REMOVING FEATURES from a purchased product while allowing no back-ward firmware downgrades, is absolutely despicable.

I, for one, hope they fail to gain any market traction.

It's already obvious that any truly succesful format they succeed in deploying will be made obsolete by their own planned obsolesence a few years later so they can sell us yet another version of their studio movie content.

Larry

[Larry Horwitz]

Originally Posted by Tom Roper

You can't test for actual 24p output then.

But here's something you can try. Go into Vegas Pro and try to render something to AVCHD 23.976p. You can't. AVC h.264 yes, AVCHD no.

So back full circle to my comment about DVD Architect, you can't author AVCHD with it. Blu-ray BDMV yes, strangely even on legacy DVD media, but AVCHD no.

AVCHD doesn't output 24p. Blu-ray BDMV does. That's where the hack comes in, baits the player into giving permission to AVCHD, once it's inside switches to BDMV for full 24p support.

************************************************************

As an aside, all Canon HD camcorders which record true 24p(f), even the XH-A1 which I own, package the progressive frames inside a 60i stream with 2:3 repeat frame flags added. It's true 24p progressive, but it's been containerized. So when we say, "I'm watching true 24p," there is an actual distinction between that and the Blu-ray 1080/24p mode, whereby there are no repeat flags. The latter is negotiated between the player and HDTV monitor, and refreshes each frame typically at 72 hz (3:3 cadence) or 120 hz (5:5) cadence, but the symetry in the cadence (versus uneven 3:2) is what eliminates the so called "judder frame."

You really don't have a way of testing for it. Either way, you are getting the 24 fps look of film, but without having a 1080/24p monitor, it's not obvious to you that 24p (3:3 or 5:5) playback is not happening from AVCHD.

Thanks Tom for the info and clarification. My monitor does not sweep at any integral multiple of 24 Hz vertical rates, either 72 or 120, as far as I know and thus, as you say, I do not see 24p in the true manner.

Larry

[Tom Roper]

Originally Posted by Larry Horwitz

I guess this rant of mine is sounding very tiresome, but I will only conclude by saying that Sony has had BluRay player hardware on the market for over 3 years now in the U.S. and longer in Japan, and should clearly define what it will play, what it won't play, and stop screwing with their customers. They have entirely abandoned the videographers and consumers in this regard, both HDV and AVCHD.

If this were purely a matter of DRM and protecting intellectual property, and the specs needed to creep in order to provide anti-piracy protection, that would be one thing.

But the un-ending changes to the feature set, in particular REMOVING FEATURES from a purchased product while allowing no back-ward firmware downgrades, is absolutely despicable.

I, for one, hope they fail to gain any market traction.

It's already obvious that any truly succesful format they succeed in deploying will be made obsolete by their own planned obsolesence a few years later so they can sell us yet another version of their studio movie content.

Larry

Very well said Larry. That's not a rant, but an honest frustration. I'm glad to hear someone else say it for me as well as you did.

I'm also disheartened to hear what Bill Ravens reported about his Samsung 1500. I can just imagine that whatever disclaimer he had to "I agree" to exempted them from responsibility for whatever the "upgrade" broke in order fix.

Anyway, we've gotten off topic, I think the thread has run its course.

[Larry Horwitz]

Originally Posted by Tom Cadwalader

I am interested in knowing how creating menus on AVCHD is working out for folks. In particular when playing back on the newer generation Sony players. Using Toast to burn AVCHD on a regular DVD the menus are not working. Some Toast users also report that menus are not working on Blu-ray disc either? Most of the users appear to be using the newer Sony players. Are the non Apple users fairing any better with their burning software?

Tom and Tom,

We are indeed way off the original topic and I apologize for fueling if not causing the digression. The short answer to the original post is not a very happy one for an Apple owner, and the rest of my commentary has been mostly irrelevant, at least as far as the original post is concerned. Come to think of it, it may be irrelevant, period..........

Enuff from me.

Over and out......

[Tom Cadwalader]

My thanks to all of the responders to my post. It seems that any success on the windows side of the Blu-ray format may be a moving target. On the Mac side things are even more bleak because of fewer options. The only real bright spot for me so far in all of this is the fact that SD DVD's played on a Blu-ray player to a HDTV looks very good, because of the upscale effect.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Tom Roper

Anyway, we've gotten off topic, I think the thread has run its course.

I'm totally confused. Can we go back to this simple statement, "If you choose Blu-ray, you can burn to BD-50, BD-25, DVD8.5 and DVD4.7, by choosing from the dropdown box. If you choose to burn Blu-ray, you can burn to an .iso image or directly to disk." This claim was also made by someone demoing Vegas at CES.

Let's ignore 23.98 without pulldown. Let's ignore AVCHD sources. Let's ignore trying to burn an AVCHD disc.

Can DVDARCH 5.0 (latest version) burn H.284/AVC (with a 4.1 Profile) at 50i/60i to DVD8.5 and DVD4.7 with menus?

And, can current firmware play such discs?


PS1: can 23.98 with pulldown be carried this way?

PS2: Will it burn 720p work?

PS3: Can 720p be: 25p, 30p, 50p, and 60p?

[Larry Horwitz]

Remarkably, Steve, the answer to your first 2 questions are "Yes" and "Yes". In the case of of your seecond question, I would qualify the "Yes" by noting that Sony's latest set-top player does play them (at least mine does!) but (as Tom Roper as pointed out) the PS3 (with the last 2 revs of firmware) does not. It is unknown how pervasive the support for these disks truly is, given the constant flux of set-top players and firmware "upgrades", among which is the Samsung upgrade which disabled such playback........

I am not entirely certain as to the answers to your postscript questions 1-3 so I will leave them to others who may want to venture a guess or have actual experience.

Larry

[Don Blish]

I have been doing HDV since Mar`07 but always suspected that Hollywood would cause chaos in the playback area. My BDP-S1 and PS-3 continue to play my content (mpeg2 via DVDitProHD) but my Blu-Ray laptop "updated" keys recently and has quit playing them.

To guard against future "updates", you migh do as I do and keep the last compatible player firmware on your PC or optical disc. If some they remove something, you can then do a "factory reset" to blow it back to rev.1.0, and reload just the last working one. I hope it never comes to that.

[Larry Horwitz]

Don,

In general I obey the very same practice as you suggest. Some equipment, however, will not allow firmware "downgrades" to an earlier version, and have no "Reset" to force them to an original "Factory" setting. The Sony Playstation is a perfect example. The PS3 only can be upgraded, and, once upgraded, is stuck at that version or higher.

Moreover, the PS3 seeks out a wireless network even if theEthernet cable / port is unconnected, and "calls home" unless the network is password protected. Clearly Sony wants to make its equipment forcefully seek updates.

And, of course, the latest BluRay disks have clear warnings which in some of my personal experience are totally accurate, telling you that unless your player is updated that this BluRay disk will not play.

You are thus forced to either update your player or attempt to return a disk for a refund.

This entirely stinks!

Larry

[Tom Roper]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

I'm totally confused. Can we go back to this simple statement, "If you choose Blu-ray, you can burn to BD-50, BD-25, DVD8.5 and DVD4.7, by choosing from the dropdown box. If you choose to burn Blu-ray, you can burn to an .iso image or directly to disk." This claim was also made by someone demoing Vegas at CES.

DVD Architect doesn't care what media it writes to. You can burn a BDMV on DVD4.7 with menus, it obliges. Whether you can get it to play or not, depends.

Let's ignore 23.98 without pulldown. Let's ignore AVCHD sources. Let's ignore trying to burn an AVCHD disc.

Can DVDARCH 5.0 (latest version) burn H.284/AVC (with a 4.1 Profile) at 50i/60i to DVD8.5 and DVD4.7 with menus?

It can, but it will recompress your AVC source file. Is it better to not convert your video to AVC. Keep your source in its native codec, or lossless intermediate. Let DVD Architect do the final render to AVC h.264

And, can current firmware play such discs?

It depends. I've made them work in PS3, BDP-S350 and BD35. I've not made them work in Samsung 1500 or 2500.

PS1: can 23.98 with pulldown be carried this way?

I think so, if you let DVD Architect render it. It has a very high quality AVC encoder, unlimited bit-rates, frame rates all except 25p. It has few other controllable parameters, very slow but outstanding quality, highly variable vbr, must be 2-pass at least. For XDCAM, I trialed a 25mbps test, the bit rate varied between 2 and 50 mbps without choking the player (PS3). The quality of that render was unbelievably clean.

PS2: Will it burn 720p work? Can 720p be: 25p, 30p, 50p, and 60p?

Yes, for 720p your options are 59.94p, 50p, 24p, 23.98p but not 25p, and not 30p either.

DVD Architect does not burn AVCHD, only Blu-ray BDMV.

[Tom Roper]

Larry,

If you read the help files on DVD Architect, it states that it does not burn AVCHD, only Blu-ray BDMV. It will permit these burns on any writable disk, DVD4.7/8.5 BD25/50, but if you burn BDMV on red laser media, it will only play as a data disk on the PS3. You can play the menus or the main feature, but either way you will have to navigate to the folder containing the video file. That is unless you apply the hack, in which case it plays with full menu functionality on the PS3.

I believe that you are under the assumption that AVCHD playback on the PS3 was disabled a couple firmware revisions ago, but I do not believe that to be the case. DVD Architect never burned AVCHD, and the disclaimer was always there that BDMV would not play on the PS3 from red laser media.

Again, that is all fixed with the hack that I have started a separate thread on at DVInfo.net.

[Tom Roper]

For Steve Mullen,

I think I've answered your questions. Vegas Pro WILL smart render HDV and XDCAM-EX, and DVD Architect will host them for input but DVD Architect will NOT accept your AVC h.264 files without recompressing them.

DVD Architect will render to a AVC h.264 in the final output, any bit rate, with menus, any media. If you've got the patience, it delivers the quality, highly variable VBR encoding.

There are a couple of minor hacks involved to make these menu'd DVD4.7 disks play on most everything, which I have covered HERE . As you read that thread, keep in mind it works for mpeg2 as well as AVC. Since Vegas smart renders HDV, and DVD-A also passes the video through without re-encoding it, menu'd HDV is incredibly fast and easy, end to end.

I wish Vegas had the superior AVC encoding engine instead of DVD-A, but that's just the way it is.

[Tom Roper]

Originally Posted by Don Blish

I have been doing HDV since Mar`07 but always suspected that Hollywood would cause chaos in the playback area. My BDP-S1 and PS-3 continue to play my content (mpeg2 via DVDitProHD) but my Blu-Ray laptop "updated" keys recently and has quit playing them.

To guard against future "updates", you migh do as I do and keep the last compatible player firmware on your PC or optical disc. If some they remove something, you can then do a "factory reset" to blow it back to rev.1.0, and reload just the last working one. I hope it never comes to that.

Very Excellent Advice!

[Tom Roper]

Originally Posted by Larry Horwitz

Don,

In general I obey the very same practice as you suggest. Some equipment, however, will not allow firmware "downgrades" to an earlier version, and have no "Reset" to force them to an original "Factory" setting. The Sony Playstation is a perfect example. The PS3 only can be upgraded, and, once upgraded, is stuck at that version or higher.

Moreover, the PS3 seeks out a wireless network even if theEthernet cable / port is unconnected, and "calls home" unless the network is password protected. Clearly Sony wants to make its equipment forcefully seek updates.

And, of course, the latest BluRay disks have clear warnings which in some of my personal experience are totally accurate, telling you that unless your player is updated that this BluRay disk will not play.

You are thus forced to either update your player or attempt to return a disk for a refund.

This entirely stinks!

Larry

I was so happy after reading Don's post. Now you've bummed me out! I think there has to be a reset to factory though, and just don't connect the network.