Cine to BR & DVD at DVinfo.net

Dale Guthormsen · March 29th, 2009, 08:18 AM

I just finished my first project using cineform. It is 3 30 minute sessions. I used cineform becasue of the heavier post work, not because my computer can't run m2t files at speed.

It all has worked farely well.

It was shot interlaced.

I rendered a mainconcept mp2 for the dvd and I was terribly dissappointed in the blocking and coarseness. Far worse than having gone m2t to dvd.

What is the best route to producing the dvd quality from cineform. I use Vegas.

I have not burnt the blu ray, it should present no problems.

Can I render is as a MP4 file save it to a dvd rom so they can view it on their computer?

thank you.

David Newman · March 29th, 2009, 09:24 AM

It is always best to make a CineForm master first, and use that to produce you distribution format(s). Make a 1080i/p CineForm AVI of your project, then review the quality of your master (should be very good.) For BluRay, this is the file to encode from. For SD DVD output resize your 1080i master file. There are reasons to did it this way as many NLEs biggest flaw is in their scaling techniques, introducing aliasing that making DVD encodes look terrible. You can use Vegas for this scale, but many prefer to use VirtualDub for it better controls. You want to make a SD Master AVI, so again you can review quality before the DVD encode. For SD DVD you need to think where you want a progressive or interlaced frame formatting, it is harder to get interlaced DVD looking good from a high bandwidth HD source. I never do interlaced outputs, so other might need to advise you on the get scaling settings for interlaced done converts. None of this actually has anything to do with CineForm, you would do the same thing with uncompressed source to get the best results. Once you know where you NLE is producing a bad scale or poorly filtering the interlace frame, you can simplify the steps.

Related, Premiere Pro has similar issue when scaling to SD, here is my blog entry on the subject CineForm Insider: Mastering 24p DVDs from HD using Premiere Pro.

Stephen Armour · March 29th, 2009, 10:24 AM

In Premiere CS3, we bring the fullsize AVI master back in after rendering, then downscale using the Adobe encoder to downscale and output our .m2v and .wav files. They import quite nicely (separately) into Encore for burning to disk.

As you stated, we've also had the very best SD DVD output using progressive. Interlaced just doesn't cut it, and it's very rare to find a DVD player that can't play the disks.

I have a question for David: what kind of probs will our 1920x1080 30p masters present to us when we try to do them as BR? It appears the current BR specs don't call for 30p. Is that right, or is my info just too old now?

David Newman · March 29th, 2009, 10:32 AM

BluRay encodes 30p as 60i, it doesn't have a 30p profile, but neither does SD DVD. Not really an issue.

Robert Young · March 29th, 2009, 01:36 PM

My experience is similar:
For Blu Ray, Adobe Media Encoder (CS3) does a great job of converting CFHD 1920 30p or 60i to BR 1920- mpeg or h.264
For DVD, I downscale the 1920 CF avi to SD.avi 30p or 60i from Premiere "Export Movie" using the Cineform compressor, then transcode the SD.avi file to m2v 60i with Procoder 3.
One striking thing I have noticed: shooting and editing in square pixel 1920x1080 format (XDCam EX and AVCHD), my final DVD quality is noticably better than I was able to get from "pixel shifted" 1.3 par 1440x1080 HDV- at least when using these simple workflows.

Dale Guthormsen · March 30th, 2009, 08:45 AM

David,

Following your directions, I went to render a master in cineform avi.

IN my Vegas program I look under AVI and i see nothing that indicates that the codec is in there.

I have neo scene, is there something i missed about getting that plugged into my Vegas program?

I shot in HDV 60 interlaced. In properties i have it as 1080 P with deinterlacing as interpolated.

I am not sure of where to go from here.

some direction would be awesome!!

Thank you.

David Newman · March 30th, 2009, 09:05 AM

The codec is there otherwise you are not using CineForm, the encoder and decoder are the same component in Vegas. The codec is listed as a video for windows component. If you can't find it you need to talk to support.

Dale Guthormsen · April 1st, 2009, 07:48 AM

David,

I went to support and as it turned out the

CFHD.dll file is not to be found in the vegas or system 32 folder. I am waiting back for a response to see if I need to reinstall Neo scene.

As I wait: I tried placing all three 30 minute sessions on one timeline to burn on full blu Ray.

When I import part 2 and 3 it renders them and places them nicely, but I can't burn a blu ray using mainconcept (though all three will burn on their own)

Question: Does the render of the cineform avi (when I import them to the new timeline) change them so they are not compatible???

Oh yea, I wasn't sure how to get back to support on the same ticket, so I brought the ticket up and added a comment and hit submit. Is that the right procedure?

thank you

Idar Lettrem · April 6th, 2009, 11:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Young

For DVD, I downscale the 1920 CF avi to SD.avi 30p or 60i from Premiere "Export Movie" using the Cineform compressor, then transcode the SD.avi file to m2v 60i with Procoder 3.
One striking thing I have noticed: shooting and editing in square pixel 1920x1080 format (XDCam EX and AVCHD), my final DVD quality is noticably better than I was able to get from "pixel shifted" 1.3 par 1440x1080 HDV- at least when using these simple workflows.

robert : happy to find exactly the same workflow and experience here - (applying levels 16-235 in procoder + adjusting saturation and luma a little bit)

Dale Guthormsen · April 9th, 2009, 06:12 PM

Good evening,

All is well in the universe. Between support and Davids help I am on the right path and all is well.

I reinstalled neo, that put the codec back in the computer, It was right where David directed!!

I just finished an hour program, heavy color correcting, image stabilization, Noise reduction and a few effects. Processed out of the cineform avi to mainconcept and the images are downright awesome!

Far superior to what i would have got natively!!!

It has been worth the time and effort to sort out!!!

Thank you everyone for the assistance!!!

Ivan Seso · May 3rd, 2009, 02:12 PM

I am a new one on this forum and my first post will be long. But my questions will be short and simple. I have PAL HV30. My first idea for HDV cam was to use Vegas smartrendering for HDV and to keep things fast and simple. But I found that things are not so simple. So I searched the internet and found Neo Scene, Neo HD and this forum. I used trials, experimented, and found some interesting conclusions. On first sight, man would think that cheaper Scene would be enough for my consumer cam, but I found something else. Here is what I found upon on experiments with two trials:

1) HD to SD Video
I have some friends who don't have BR player yet so I must give them SD video. I read much about HD to SD conversions and tried everything in Vegas and some other programs but I was never happy with such SD video. Interlaced SD Video from Vegas was sharp, but had artifacts. Progressive SD video from Vegas (interpolate fields option) was very good, but with it specific strobe look. But when I scaled with HDLink (from Neo HD) for first time I saw why many people said that it will be the best SD video I have ever seen (better than from any SD cam). So, I learned that HDLik is much better scaler than Vegas. It was for me the first big reason to go for Neo HD.

2) HD Video
I have PS3 and 37 inch 1024x768 plasma. When I play HV30 m2t files directly like data files on PS3 and plasma (no matter is it from DVD or HDD) I have perfect and stable picture. PS3 now has new 50 Hz option for that. Also, when I play HV30 directly through HDMI on plasma everything is OK.

But when I play authorized so called dummy AVCHDs (it is the special way you can burn and author mpeg2 HD files on ordinary DVD and maybe only PS3 will play that) than I see little flickering. I would say flickering is not so big, but it is noticeable, and whole picture is sometimes more unquiet then with m2t reproduction on PS3. It happens mainly on thiny vertical bright lines and I would say when cam has little vertical movement (or even when cam is stable but there is many small objects in scene).

I am not sure what will be with real Blu-Ray discs. I don't have Blu-Ray burner yet and will know result only when I buy it. I said before that I have dummy AVCHD with mpeg2 video. All my test m2t files and my m2ts files from dummy AVCHD are in fact the same and directly from the cam and are smartrendered (in Vegas and in authoring program). So I think, it has nothing with my files (m2t reproduction and reproduction on PC is OK), it is my PS3/TV setup compatibility problem (or dummy AVCHD problem).

I found that when I render in Vegas from HDV directly to mpeg2 1920x1080i and when after that I author dummy AVCHD I don't have flickering and video looks quiet like it should. But I can see weaknesses of mpeg2 rendering and can see by my eyes that video is losing quality even after first render. You must watch very close and intensive and I am not quiet sure for sharpness, but clearly I could see that colours are little washed out.

When I used Cineform and upscaled HDV to 1920x1080 with HDLink and rendered that in Vegas from Cineform 1920x1080 to mpeg2 1920x1080i, and when I authored dummy mpeg2 AVCHD I don't have flickering and video looks like it should. And now I don't see by eyes any difference in quality between original m2t (1440x1080) and rendered 1920x1080 files.

It is my second big reason to go for Neo HD. HDV 1440x1080 video must be scaled to something before it reaches plasma or LCD panel and quality of video depends not only on video but also on BR/TV setup. In my case, HDV video is scaled more than once between PS3 and HD Ready plasma before it reaches plasma panel. And there is many different setups out there. Ideal setup would be without scaling (for example full HD to full HD), but HDV must be scaled at least once in every possible setup. So I think, maybe is the best to scale it with Cineform to something (1080i or 720p).

So my questions would be: Am I thinking right and is it good way to make Blu-Ray from HDV cam to make full HD 1920x1080 mpeg2 Blu-Ray discs (especially if you have Neo HD)? And theoretically (and practically), do I lose something in quality if I scale HDV to full HD with HDLink?

Dale Guthormsen · May 5th, 2009, 07:48 PM

Ivan,

With Vegas you can cut bluray right onto a dvd (no avchd as far as i know) and i have had no artifacting doing it this way. Why introduce extra compression of avchd, or is it you are trying to get a lot more data on the dvd? say 40 minutes??

Ivan Seso · May 6th, 2009, 01:10 PM

Dale,

Thank you on your answer. But you didn't understand me well. It is my fault because my post was too long and complicate and not so precise in terminology.

What I am doing is in fact mpeg2 video with mpeg2 menus (BDMV format) on ordinary DVD. Such format in fact don't exist. Original HDV mpeg2 video from cam is not rendered at all. There are some tricks to fool PS3 that it thinks it is AVCHD (mpeg4) video, but it is not. Only on PS3 you can play that, other Bluray players will not.

It is good optinon if you want to spare some money and don't buy BD-Rs yet. But you are not compatible with others because only people with PS3 can watch such a dummy AVCHD video. That's why I call it "dummy" AVCHD - it is not AVCHD, structure of BDMV format is like AVCHD but with mpeg2 (HDV) video and menus.

What is interesting is that my PS3 plays same m2t data files from DVD OK, but when I made such dummy mpeg2 AVCHD on DVD PS3 plays it differently, with some little flickering on vertical thin bright lines. Nobody would maybe never notice that but I do (because I saw that PS3 plays m2t better).

When I buy BluRay burner (and it will be very soon) I will see will it happen with real blu ray. But you gave me a great idea to try - I have forgotten (and have never used that option) that Vegas can burn BDAV format on DVDs - it was because I wanted BDMV format with menus. I must try BDAV, because my PS3 did never see BDAV.

I didn't find an answer on my problem on many forums, but I believe I will find it one day - at least when I buy Blu Ray burner and full HD plasma. Internet is good, but sometimes you must pay to know the answer. But it is here Cineform forum. I think for Cineforms that maybe Neo HD (not Scene) is better investment because of much more options.

For example, people on many forums are speaking about best workflows from HDV to SD with Vegas. They say that it will be the best SD video you will ever seen - but it is simply not true. I tried everything, but Vegas don't scale HDV to SD interlaced as good as Cineform. When you don't have Cineform (or something similar) it is much better to scale down with cam (not with Vegas or other NLE program) and HV30 does it very good and you get very clean interlaced SD video without artifacts - but it is of course not very practical if you want to make HD and similar SD copy of the same HDV video (and such SD video is a little softer than scaled down with Vegas or Cineform).

Ivan Seso · May 6th, 2009, 03:51 PM

I have just tried and burned one Bluray BDAV format with Vegas. Vegas did it well, but what I don't like with this method is that Vegas need to render original 1440x1080 HDV video to do that (in so called "1440x1080 BluRay template"). ULEADs, for example, don't do that - they don't need to rerender HDV video to author for Bluray.

Sadly, PS3 sees such a disc like a data disc and can't play it in BluRay format (only m2ts file from strem folder like data file). I know that some other BluRay players can do that. And now I remember on some discusions from other forums when people were angry because Vegas can make such BluRay BDAV disc on ordinary DVD, but PS3 (which is also Sony) can't play that. But from the other side, PS3 can play mpeg2 video with full motion mpeg2 menus burned in AVCHD format on DVD (which is reserved for mpeg4 only) and other players don't.

So, I am sometimes very sad and miss good old days of SD video when you could play everything and everywhere - with HD video you realy must still be very careful in decision which cam (which format), which software and which setup (TV and player) to buy.

In my case, I believe the problem is in my setup (TV and PS3) or only in TV or in PS3. They don't like 1440x1080 video and somewhere in scaling (first PS3 needs to scale and after that plasma needs to scale again) I have flickering. When I rendered in full HD mpeg2 problems have gone. And from here was also my idea that for that reason I prefer Neo HD more than Scene.

Thomas Moore · December 21st, 2009, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Newman

It is always best to make a CineForm master first, and use that to produce you distribution format(s). Make a 1080i/p CineForm AVI of your project, then review the quality of your master]

Hope you don't mind bumping your old quote, but I have a question related to it.

What if you shot in progressive (1080p or 720p) should you make a progressive Cineform Master or a Interlaced Cineform Master?

If your going to DVD?

If your going to Blu-Ray or Web?

March 29th, 2009, 08:18 AM	#1
Dale Guthormsen Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Saskatchewan Posts: 3,048	Cine to BR & DVD I just finished my first project using cineform. It is 3 30 minute sessions. I used cineform becasue of the heavier post work, not because my computer can't run m2t files at speed. It all has worked farely well. It was shot interlaced. I rendered a mainconcept mp2 for the dvd and I was terribly dissappointed in the blocking and coarseness. Far worse than having gone m2t to dvd. What is the best route to producing the dvd quality from cineform. I use Vegas. I have not burnt the blu ray, it should present no problems. Can I render is as a MP4 file save it to a dvd rom so they can view it on their computer? thank you. __________________ DATS ALL FOLKS Dale W. Guthormsen

March 29th, 2009, 09:24 AM	#2
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	It is always best to make a CineForm master first, and use that to produce you distribution format(s). Make a 1080i/p CineForm AVI of your project, then review the quality of your master (should be very good.) For BluRay, this is the file to encode from. For SD DVD output resize your 1080i master file. There are reasons to did it this way as many NLEs biggest flaw is in their scaling techniques, introducing aliasing that making DVD encodes look terrible. You can use Vegas for this scale, but many prefer to use VirtualDub for it better controls. You want to make a SD Master AVI, so again you can review quality before the DVD encode. For SD DVD you need to think where you want a progressive or interlaced frame formatting, it is harder to get interlaced DVD looking good from a high bandwidth HD source. I never do interlaced outputs, so other might need to advise you on the get scaling settings for interlaced done converts. None of this actually has anything to do with CineForm, you would do the same thing with uncompressed source to get the best results. Once you know where you NLE is producing a bad scale or poorly filtering the interlace frame, you can simplify the steps. Related, Premiere Pro has similar issue when scaling to SD, here is my blog entry on the subject CineForm Insider: Mastering 24p DVDs from HD using Premiere Pro. __________________ David Newman -- web: www.gopro.com blog: cineform.blogspot.com -- twitter: twitter.com/David_Newman

March 29th, 2009, 10:24 AM	#3
Stephen Armour Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Natal, RN, Brasil Posts: 900	In Premiere CS3, we bring the fullsize AVI master back in after rendering, then downscale using the Adobe encoder to downscale and output our .m2v and .wav files. They import quite nicely (separately) into Encore for burning to disk. As you stated, we've also had the very best SD DVD output using progressive. Interlaced just doesn't cut it, and it's very rare to find a DVD player that can't play the disks. I have a question for David: what kind of probs will our 1920x1080 30p masters present to us when we try to do them as BR? It appears the current BR specs don't call for 30p. Is that right, or is my info just too old now? __________________ http://lightinaction.org "All in the view of the LION"

March 29th, 2009, 10:32 AM	#4
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	BluRay encodes 30p as 60i, it doesn't have a 30p profile, but neither does SD DVD. Not really an issue. __________________ David Newman -- web: www.gopro.com blog: cineform.blogspot.com -- twitter: twitter.com/David_Newman

March 29th, 2009, 01:36 PM	#5
Robert Young Trustee Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Coronado Island Posts: 1,472	My experience is similar: For Blu Ray, Adobe Media Encoder (CS3) does a great job of converting CFHD 1920 30p or 60i to BR 1920- mpeg or h.264 For DVD, I downscale the 1920 CF avi to SD.avi 30p or 60i from Premiere "Export Movie" using the Cineform compressor, then transcode the SD.avi file to m2v 60i with Procoder 3. One striking thing I have noticed: shooting and editing in square pixel 1920x1080 format (XDCam EX and AVCHD), my final DVD quality is noticably better than I was able to get from "pixel shifted" 1.3 par 1440x1080 HDV- at least when using these simple workflows. __________________ Bob

March 30th, 2009, 08:45 AM	#6
Dale Guthormsen Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Saskatchewan Posts: 3,048	David, Following your directions, I went to render a master in cineform avi. IN my Vegas program I look under AVI and i see nothing that indicates that the codec is in there. I have neo scene, is there something i missed about getting that plugged into my Vegas program? I shot in HDV 60 interlaced. In properties i have it as 1080 P with deinterlacing as interpolated. I am not sure of where to go from here. some direction would be awesome!! Thank you. __________________ DATS ALL FOLKS Dale W. Guthormsen

March 30th, 2009, 09:05 AM	#7
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	The codec is there otherwise you are not using CineForm, the encoder and decoder are the same component in Vegas. The codec is listed as a video for windows component. If you can't find it you need to talk to support. Attached Thumbnails __________________ David Newman -- web: www.gopro.com blog: cineform.blogspot.com -- twitter: twitter.com/David_Newman

April 1st, 2009, 07:48 AM	#8
Dale Guthormsen Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Saskatchewan Posts: 3,048	David, I went to support and as it turned out the CFHD.dll file is not to be found in the vegas or system 32 folder. I am waiting back for a response to see if I need to reinstall Neo scene. As I wait: I tried placing all three 30 minute sessions on one timeline to burn on full blu Ray. When I import part 2 and 3 it renders them and places them nicely, but I can't burn a blu ray using mainconcept (though all three will burn on their own) Question: Does the render of the cineform avi (when I import them to the new timeline) change them so they are not compatible??? Oh yea, I wasn't sure how to get back to support on the same ticket, so I brought the ticket up and added a comment and hit submit. Is that the right procedure? thank you __________________ DATS ALL FOLKS Dale W. Guthormsen

April 9th, 2009, 06:12 PM	#10
Dale Guthormsen Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Saskatchewan Posts: 3,048	Good evening, All is well in the universe. Between support and Davids help I am on the right path and all is well. I reinstalled neo, that put the codec back in the computer, It was right where David directed!! I just finished an hour program, heavy color correcting, image stabilization, Noise reduction and a few effects. Processed out of the cineform avi to mainconcept and the images are downright awesome! Far superior to what i would have got natively!!! It has been worth the time and effort to sort out!!! Thank you everyone for the assistance!!! __________________ DATS ALL FOLKS Dale W. Guthormsen

May 3rd, 2009, 02:12 PM	#11
Ivan Seso New Boot Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Zagreb Posts: 17	I am a new one on this forum and my first post will be long. But my questions will be short and simple. I have PAL HV30. My first idea for HDV cam was to use Vegas smartrendering for HDV and to keep things fast and simple. But I found that things are not so simple. So I searched the internet and found Neo Scene, Neo HD and this forum. I used trials, experimented, and found some interesting conclusions. On first sight, man would think that cheaper Scene would be enough for my consumer cam, but I found something else. Here is what I found upon on experiments with two trials: 1) HD to SD Video I have some friends who don't have BR player yet so I must give them SD video. I read much about HD to SD conversions and tried everything in Vegas and some other programs but I was never happy with such SD video. Interlaced SD Video from Vegas was sharp, but had artifacts. Progressive SD video from Vegas (interpolate fields option) was very good, but with it specific strobe look. But when I scaled with HDLink (from Neo HD) for first time I saw why many people said that it will be the best SD video I have ever seen (better than from any SD cam). So, I learned that HDLik is much better scaler than Vegas. It was for me the first big reason to go for Neo HD. 2) HD Video I have PS3 and 37 inch 1024x768 plasma. When I play HV30 m2t files directly like data files on PS3 and plasma (no matter is it from DVD or HDD) I have perfect and stable picture. PS3 now has new 50 Hz option for that. Also, when I play HV30 directly through HDMI on plasma everything is OK. But when I play authorized so called dummy AVCHDs (it is the special way you can burn and author mpeg2 HD files on ordinary DVD and maybe only PS3 will play that) than I see little flickering. I would say flickering is not so big, but it is noticeable, and whole picture is sometimes more unquiet then with m2t reproduction on PS3. It happens mainly on thiny vertical bright lines and I would say when cam has little vertical movement (or even when cam is stable but there is many small objects in scene). I am not sure what will be with real Blu-Ray discs. I don't have Blu-Ray burner yet and will know result only when I buy it. I said before that I have dummy AVCHD with mpeg2 video. All my test m2t files and my m2ts files from dummy AVCHD are in fact the same and directly from the cam and are smartrendered (in Vegas and in authoring program). So I think, it has nothing with my files (m2t reproduction and reproduction on PC is OK), it is my PS3/TV setup compatibility problem (or dummy AVCHD problem). I found that when I render in Vegas from HDV directly to mpeg2 1920x1080i and when after that I author dummy AVCHD I don't have flickering and video looks quiet like it should. But I can see weaknesses of mpeg2 rendering and can see by my eyes that video is losing quality even after first render. You must watch very close and intensive and I am not quiet sure for sharpness, but clearly I could see that colours are little washed out. When I used Cineform and upscaled HDV to 1920x1080 with HDLink and rendered that in Vegas from Cineform 1920x1080 to mpeg2 1920x1080i, and when I authored dummy mpeg2 AVCHD I don't have flickering and video looks like it should. And now I don't see by eyes any difference in quality between original m2t (1440x1080) and rendered 1920x1080 files. It is my second big reason to go for Neo HD. HDV 1440x1080 video must be scaled to something before it reaches plasma or LCD panel and quality of video depends not only on video but also on BR/TV setup. In my case, HDV video is scaled more than once between PS3 and HD Ready plasma before it reaches plasma panel. And there is many different setups out there. Ideal setup would be without scaling (for example full HD to full HD), but HDV must be scaled at least once in every possible setup. So I think, maybe is the best to scale it with Cineform to something (1080i or 720p). So my questions would be: Am I thinking right and is it good way to make Blu-Ray from HDV cam to make full HD 1920x1080 mpeg2 Blu-Ray discs (especially if you have Neo HD)? And theoretically (and practically), do I lose something in quality if I scale HDV to full HD with HDLink?

May 5th, 2009, 07:48 PM	#12
Dale Guthormsen Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Saskatchewan Posts: 3,048	Ivan, With Vegas you can cut bluray right onto a dvd (no avchd as far as i know) and i have had no artifacting doing it this way. Why introduce extra compression of avchd, or is it you are trying to get a lot more data on the dvd? say 40 minutes?? __________________ DATS ALL FOLKS Dale W. Guthormsen

May 6th, 2009, 01:10 PM	#13
Ivan Seso New Boot Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Zagreb Posts: 17	Dale, Thank you on your answer. But you didn't understand me well. It is my fault because my post was too long and complicate and not so precise in terminology. What I am doing is in fact mpeg2 video with mpeg2 menus (BDMV format) on ordinary DVD. Such format in fact don't exist. Original HDV mpeg2 video from cam is not rendered at all. There are some tricks to fool PS3 that it thinks it is AVCHD (mpeg4) video, but it is not. Only on PS3 you can play that, other Bluray players will not. It is good optinon if you want to spare some money and don't buy BD-Rs yet. But you are not compatible with others because only people with PS3 can watch such a dummy AVCHD video. That's why I call it "dummy" AVCHD - it is not AVCHD, structure of BDMV format is like AVCHD but with mpeg2 (HDV) video and menus. What is interesting is that my PS3 plays same m2t data files from DVD OK, but when I made such dummy mpeg2 AVCHD on DVD PS3 plays it differently, with some little flickering on vertical thin bright lines. Nobody would maybe never notice that but I do (because I saw that PS3 plays m2t better). When I buy BluRay burner (and it will be very soon) I will see will it happen with real blu ray. But you gave me a great idea to try - I have forgotten (and have never used that option) that Vegas can burn BDAV format on DVDs - it was because I wanted BDMV format with menus. I must try BDAV, because my PS3 did never see BDAV. I didn't find an answer on my problem on many forums, but I believe I will find it one day - at least when I buy Blu Ray burner and full HD plasma. Internet is good, but sometimes you must pay to know the answer. But it is here Cineform forum. I think for Cineforms that maybe Neo HD (not Scene) is better investment because of much more options. For example, people on many forums are speaking about best workflows from HDV to SD with Vegas. They say that it will be the best SD video you will ever seen - but it is simply not true. I tried everything, but Vegas don't scale HDV to SD interlaced as good as Cineform. When you don't have Cineform (or something similar) it is much better to scale down with cam (not with Vegas or other NLE program) and HV30 does it very good and you get very clean interlaced SD video without artifacts - but it is of course not very practical if you want to make HD and similar SD copy of the same HDV video (and such SD video is a little softer than scaled down with Vegas or Cineform).

May 6th, 2009, 03:51 PM	#14
Ivan Seso New Boot Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Zagreb Posts: 17	I have just tried and burned one Bluray BDAV format with Vegas. Vegas did it well, but what I don't like with this method is that Vegas need to render original 1440x1080 HDV video to do that (in so called "1440x1080 BluRay template"). ULEADs, for example, don't do that - they don't need to rerender HDV video to author for Bluray. Sadly, PS3 sees such a disc like a data disc and can't play it in BluRay format (only m2ts file from strem folder like data file). I know that some other BluRay players can do that. And now I remember on some discusions from other forums when people were angry because Vegas can make such BluRay BDAV disc on ordinary DVD, but PS3 (which is also Sony) can't play that. But from the other side, PS3 can play mpeg2 video with full motion mpeg2 menus burned in AVCHD format on DVD (which is reserved for mpeg4 only) and other players don't. So, I am sometimes very sad and miss good old days of SD video when you could play everything and everywhere - with HD video you realy must still be very careful in decision which cam (which format), which software and which setup (TV and player) to buy. In my case, I believe the problem is in my setup (TV and PS3) or only in TV or in PS3. They don't like 1440x1080 video and somewhere in scaling (first PS3 needs to scale and after that plasma needs to scale again) I have flickering. When I rendered in full HD mpeg2 problems have gone. And from here was also my idea that for that reason I prefer Neo HD more than Scene.