Burning BD-5/9 discs plays on BD and PS3

[Steve Mullen]

I made a BD-5 disk with 25Mbps MPEG-2 data rate. (Peak rate above 30Mbps.) Played with a quite a few glitches with PowerDVD. Wouldn't play with WinDVD -- which matches the behavior that the PS3 exhibits.

I know how to alter folders to make it work, but really what's the point? Sony's AVC encoder at 16Mbps should look just as good.

Unfortunately, after trying half a dozen times to smart render an .m2ts file in Nero 8, only one didn't hang. And, when it hangs, you don't get an error log. Others are reporting the same hang during the "transcode." Why is it transcoding during a smart render?

Need to confirm that making BD is really reliable.

Looks like MF is the only to make AVCHD and Nero 8 the only way to make BD. The former passes AVC while the latter passes MPEG-2. Both, used with Vegas provide 5.1 and menus.

[Tom Roper]

Jeez Never mind Steve, now I understand. You meant .m2ts AVCHD. There is also a flavor of mpeg2 (192 byte TS) which carries the .m2ts suffix.

I'm going to try this myself, Sony 16mbps AVCHD and see if Nero smart renders it without hanging. Standby.

[Steve Mullen]

I created 4 .m2ts files in Vegas. Of these 3 passed thru fine. One hung. It could be that Sony is making a bad file, but nothing that can be done about that. Thankfully, MF6+ passes it thru fine.

[Tom Roper]

Nero passed AVCHD without re-encoding, it autoplays when inserted into the PS3, the audio plays but the video doesn't.

If I just copy the source file onto a USB jump drive (no Nero authoring), the PS3 plays it fine.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Tom Roper

Nero passed AVCHD without re-encoding, it autoplays when inserted into the PS3, the audio plays but the video doesn't.

If I just copy the source file onto a USB jump drive (no Nero authoring), the PS3 plays it fine.

1) When I made an AVCHD disc with MF it had the correct single BDMV folder. If there is a Certificate folder in a red-laser disk, supposedly the PS3 considers it a data disk. But, if the audio is playing that wouldn't seem to be the problem.

2) When you say you copied the "source" file -- I assume you mean the .m2ts file. Correct?

3) Therefore, it looks like Nero may not be building a folder structure that the PS3 expects. Have you tried PowerDVD and WinDVD and Nero Showtime.

I ask, because when I made a BD with Nero it had problems with all but ShowTime. I made a mental note that perhaps Nero doesn't make fully Kosher DVDs.

I wish I could get Sony MPEG to pass through MF because I've used MF for a long while making HD DVD. I would really prefer to keep using it for BD. I don't like using Nero and I don't trust it. I think it may work fine passing AVCHD through from a hardware encoder.

[Tom Roper]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

1) When I made an AVCHD disc with MF it had the correct single BDMV folder. If there is a Certificate folder in a red-laser disk, supposedly the PS3 considers it a data disk. But, if the audio is playing that wouldn't seem to be the problem.

I don't think Nero gave a certificate folder on the red laser disk, but I still don't think that's it. When TSMuxer 1.8.4b creates BDMV it INCLUDES the certificate folder in the compilation. In any case you are correct, it auto-played a black screen with full audio.

2) When you say you copied the "source" file -- I assume you mean the .m2ts file. Correct?

Correct. The source file compiled by Vegas. Once passed by Nero into the STREAM folder, I would call it the object or target file. It would be interesting to see if the object file would play on the PS3 if copied onto a usb jump drive. I suspect it will not, because my experience even though something smart renders it can still muck with the file headers.

3) Therefore, it looks like Nero may not be building a folder structure that the PS3 expects. Have you tried PowerDVD and WinDVD and Nero Showtime.
I ask, because when I made a BD with Nero it had problems with all but ShowTime. I made a mental note that perhaps Nero doesn't make fully Kosher DVDs.

No. I will try Nero Showtime, but I don't have the others.

I wish I could get Sony MPEG to pass through MF because I've used MF for a long while making HD DVD. I would really prefer to keep using it for BD. I don't like using Nero and I don't trust it. I think it may work fine passing AVCHD through from a hardware encoder.

I have 100% confidence in Nero. It's proven to me it won't work every time!

[Steve Mullen]

I just played the Sony > Nero BD to my HDTV via HDMI from WinDVD BD.

Absolutely perfect playback. When I play only to computer screen there are tiny motion stutters -- which are there even with Hollywood movies. As soon as it feeds a real HDTV the pix is perfectly smooth. The Sony MPEG-2 is perfectly clear even on the "pine needle pans."

I love adding 5.1. audio. I found some spooky music and mixed it so it was not all the way to the rear and it has great room ambiance.

The Nero menus sure aren't professional, but they rarely are in such products.

PS: did you mean to say your 100% confident?

[Steve Mullen]

I had a chance to play the Sony > MF6+ AVCHD clips. Again, perfect playback.

WinDVD BD that plays AC3 thru a USB sound "card" to my receiver -- and seems to be the ONLY DVD player that does under Vista -- would not return to the MENU after playing each clip. However, PowerDVD does -- so Nero was making the disc fine.

Now to try to see if I can sneak 24p thru.

[Tom Roper]

Using the same AVC 1920x1080i60 DD5.1 source file from Vegas Pro 8.0(c) that Nero Vision fails with, gives perfect playback when authored with Ulead MF6+ HD Pack.

MF6+ passes the native AVC file without re-encoding it, and creates a menu structure that plays on the PS3. Nice.

A few negatives for MF6+...no motion menus, won't author to folders, won't play from DVD+RW.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Tom Roper

A few negatives for MF6+...no motion menus, won't author to folders, won't play from DVD+RW.

So we have both confirmed that Nero fails with streams from Vegas. I remember that if you uncheck burn disc, the folders were created. MF can't burn them, but one of the Nero programs can.

24p looks like it might be hard to get to BD using MPEG-2 because with Vegas 9 one can't modify the MainConcept encoder preset. Can you modify it in Vegas 8c Pro?

=====================

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[Larry Horwitz]

Tom and Steve,

I'm finding this thread to be a bit confusing, and am asking your help to clarify just what is being discussed here.

BD5/BD7 disks are ***not*** AVCHD disks, and yet I get the consistent impression that both of your are merely authoring AVCHD disks with MF6+ and Nero as your most recent examples, using either transcoded mpeg2 (from Vegas) or AVCHD as your sources.

I understand that Tom's method of using tsMuxeR.exe can be used to make true BD5 or dual layer BD9 disks, but I don't get the impresion that this is what is being compared and described.

For whatever it is worth, my own experiences with transcoding mpeg2 onto an AVCHD format h.264 disk have been far less than impressive. I would hardly use the word "perfect" to describe any of them, since the very best of them with Sony or TMPGE's fine codecs still makes it visually obvious that the original mpeg2 has suffered quite a bit after being transcoded, even with high h.264 bitrates. In particular, colors are muted and edges are softened, and new motion artifacts have been added. Direct instant comparisons using concurrent direct playback of the original mpeg2 content from either the camcorder or HD DVD / BluRay blue laser disks against the AVCHD disks makes such a comparison very easy to perform visually, as does the still frame captures and enlargements which clearly show the degraded crops of the transcoded video. I find Nero to be very unattractive as regards how it handles transcoded mpeg2 as input for making AVCHD disks and would certainly never recommend it for that purpose.

As Steve's very first sentence of this thread begins: "Those not coming from AVCHD sources -- really shouldn't want to make AVCHD discs.", a comment I agree with entirely.

Are we really talking BD5/9 disks in this thread?

Larry

[Larry Horwitz]

The certificate folder, at least in the case of AVCHD disks, is apparently unneccesary. Of the 7 programs I use here to author AVCHD disks, only 2 even create a certificate folder, and in one of those (from Pinnacle 12) the folder has zero bytes of content.

In addition, all 4 of my AVCHD software players as well as my 3 hardware BluRay set top players / PS3 do not care whether the certificate folder is there or not.

Larry

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Larry Horwitz

For whatever it is worth, my own experiences with transcoding mpeg2 onto an AVCHD format h.264 disk have been far less than impressive.

Are we really talking BD5/9 disks in this thread?

Larry

No one is talking about MPEG-2 to H.264. Input to Vegas is ProRes 422 HQ, Canopus HQ, DNxHD, or uncompressed -- all from PC or OS X NLEs.

Two separate paths from Sony Vegas: MPEG-2 to BD burned by MF6+ and AVCHD to red-laser burned by Nero.

Neither MF or Nero can encode with the quality that matches that from Sony Vegas. (Same crappy encode as from Pinacle and CyberLink.) And, we found Nero can't be trusted to pass-through AVCHD from Sony, whereas MF can.

As Tom and I worked-out these these two paths -- we may have come to the conclusion there's no need to worry about BD-5/BD-9.

PS: There is NO Certificate folder for AVCHD -- only for BD.

[Larry Horwitz]

Thanks for the clarification Steve. Then the Sony Vegas mpeg2 to BD path you are burning with MF6+ is a red laser disk? I have yet to find a way to make a red laser disk which plays unless I transcode to AVC. Nor have I found a way to do so with the recently released Corel Movie Factory 7 Pro either. What is your method?

I agree entirely that neither MF6+ nor Nero has an encoder equal to Sony's. TMPGE does also use the MainConcept h.264 encoder with excellent results.

Yup, the certificate folder is indeed unneccesary for AVCHD. Seems like PowerDVD version 8 rejects those disks which incorrectly contain it such as those burned from Pinnacle Ultimate 12. Removing the folder restores the disks to being playable.

Larry

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Larry Horwitz

Thanks for the clarification Steve. Then the Sony Vegas mpeg2 to BD path you are burning with MF6+ is a red laser disk? I have yet to find a way to make one which plays.

I agree entirely that neither MF6+ nor Nero has an encoder equal to Sony's. TMPGE does also use the MainConcept h.264 encoder with excellent results.

Yup, the certificate folder is indeed unneccesary for AVCHD. Seems like PowerDVD version 8 rejects those disks which incorrectly contain it such as those burned from Pinnacle Ultimate 12. Removing the folder restores the disks to being playable.

Larry

Looks like the are huge variations in encoder quality and what applications think need to be created. And, variations in what players look for.

Then we add in what some believe is Vista preventing "untrusted" applications from outputting digital data from DVDs and BD. So, AC-3 can't flow through a SPDIF port. So far only WinDVD BD will do so under Vista. Another example, Vista prevents playing DVDs in a "clone" monitor arrangement. All part of MS meeting DRM requirements. Something OS X can't do, which is why their can't be BD players for the Mac.