Adobe Encore Bluray says its burning blank bd-r to full capacity mbps specs but disc looks partway burned???

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Kevin,

I’ve not burned that many Blu-ray discs, and they have all been 1080i material. Never tried burning SD video to a Blu-ray. That said, you’re not going to fill a 25GB disc with just 90 minutes of SD material.

First thing to remember is that Encore does not put the original .mov file to disc, so its size doesn’t matter. It’s going to transcode to a DVD-legal or Blu-ray legal format first. Meaning MPEG-2 or H.264 that fits the disc specifications.

When creating a DVD, the upper limit of video and audio combined is in the neighborhood of 9.8Mbps I believe. Doesn’t matter if only using 5 minutes of video, you can’t increase the data date. You’ll have a lot of empty disc.

So now on to Blu-ray. From Premiere, I tried an Export to “H.264 Blu-ray” format, and changed the settings to 720×480, and the top allowable data rate dropped from 35Mbps down to 12Mbps. So apparently 12Mbps is the highest possible data rate for SD material being burned to Blu-ray.

And there is a point of diminishing returns – meaning beyond 12Mbps, the SD material would not look any better encoded at higher data rates, 12Mbps is about as good as it can get. Full HD has 5x as many pixels as SD, with a top rate of 35Mbps, which is barely 3x the data rate of the SD, so that makes sense that the SD can’t get any better.

I’ve attached a screen shot of export settings showing that 12Mbps is the max allowable.

I recommend never transcoding your video with Encore. Meaning don’t feed it .mov or .avi or .mp4 files. Give it the “final” and legal format for the media being burned. So from Premiere, export using “MPEG-2 DVD”, “H.264 Blu-ray” or “MPEG-2 Blu-ray” as appropriate. What you output will be burned without further conversion/transcoding.

You may need to use a “bitrate calculator” to figure out the optimum data rate for the length of your movie to make sure it will fit the media being used. There are free ones online. For DVD, best to not approach max for best compatibility, don’t go above 7 or 8Mbps. A quick rule of thumb is 560/minutes = data rate for DVD. Use a calculator for Blu-ray.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Keith Dubose]

Thanks for explaining things a bit further here.

So basically you’re telling me that I cannot use 30-35mbps with what i have?? but rather a lower setting for better compatibility?? (For the record, most of my burns have played on 4 different players including PS3 and 4). Although the other players seem to play the film at better quality than the PS products for some reason.)

Its funny because most people have all told me to use the higher setting and use VBR-2. I’d also really like to understand better what the difference between vbr-1 and 2 is cuz googling it didn’t really explain it too well.

As far as going back to re-export things, Im not sure if I’ll be able to but will look into it. Essentially I just really want my original mov file to play just as crisp as my mac plays it on a physical format if possible.

Also what about transcoding my media files on Media Encoder first, then dumping them to Encore and set them to do not transcode so it just writes??

[Keith Dubose]

Also what does the 3.1 to 4.1 level determine on the burn?? I’ve always been using 4.1 on the suggestion of my peers.

[Keith Dubose]

So I’ve done some calculations here on the 12mbps rate you’re recommending here via Media Encoder and its actually bringing the file size down to just above 8GB when the file is really 13.2 GB.

But when I do the custom Blu-Ray Legacy preset, it allows me to customize the mbps over 12 all the way up to 35 which then makes my 13.2 mov file 24.242GB. just under a full bluray capacity.

But then again, you’re saying it won’t have any difference on quality and may cause some play ability issues on some players?

[Jeff Pulera]

When you say “the file is really 13.2 GB” do you mean the .mov source file? If so, that is irrelevant. Your source could be uncompressed 100GB, doesn’t matter. DVD and Blu-ray use specific highly-compressed formats and that will dictate the max file size according to program length.

There would be absolutely no point in compressing SD video as H.264 at 35Mbps if you could…serious overkill. And keep in mind that any Blu-ray disc you burn, regardless of content (SD or HD) is not going to play on any DVD players, must be BD player only.

Are you unhappy with your DVD quality when using 2-Pass VBR with 6.0 average? That should look pretty darn good. Just not sure what result you are chasing after.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Keith Dubose]

I see. And yes I knew that it wouldn’t play on dvd players. I was specifically referring to Blu-Ray players.

What I’m trying to do is to get it to play as crisp and nice as the mov is playing it on quicktime on either the mac or the pc.

And since dvd only holds 4.7 GB (or 8.5 on Dual Layer) I thought that theoretically speaking a bluray would handle my file at “full quality.”

I never tried 6 mbps on a dvd as I was told by several peers to go at 25 mbps on my first encore burns years ago. And those def looked good enough but on several shots, they werent as clear as they were on computer playback.

Some of the bluray tests I’ve done have slightly improved visuals on some of those shots already. But since I haven’t done it through the premiere or media encoder way yet I won’t know until I try it your way and the other way.

And I’ll just admit that I”m a bluray fan. I get it, I should’ve done this thing all in HD, but like I said I was limited to what I had to work with. All I’m trying to do is present what I was able to do in its best presentation I can.

I will definitely do an encode with what you’re suggesting here and see if it helps. Thank you again for explaining things a bit further here.

PS

Although what are the differences between VBR 1 & 2 and 4.1 vs 3.1??

[Jeff Pulera]

VBR is Variable Bit Rate. 1 is for one-pass, 2 for two-pass. Two pass analyzes the video on the first pass, looking at complexity of content for each scene, to help determine how to best allocate the available bits. The second pass does the actual encoding.

This means that simple scenes are encoded at a lower bitrate, and complex scenes get a higher data rate. For instance, a simple title page will look great at a low rate, then the “savings” or extra bandwidth can be applied to a different scene that can use the extra quality.

For MPEG-2 DVD, you have Min – Target – Max. So for example 2 – 6 – 8, since you average bitrate for the 92 minute video would be 6. Some scenes will be encoded higher than 6, some lower, to average 6Mbps in the end.

For H.264 Blu-ray, the options are only for “Target” and “Max”.

As for the 3.1 or 4.1, those are “levels” and I can’t tell you the difference. I use presets for encoding and don’t touch controls that I don’t understand. Data rate is the one I will adjust of course – beyond that, you start messing with GOP settings and such, you can cause problems for yourself.

About someone telling you to encode DVDs at 25Mbps, there is no such thing.

I’d go ahead and make a DVD with 2-Pass VBR, settings of 2-6-8 and see what happens. That will fill the disc. If using motion menus or other overhead, you may need to lower the average bit rate a little to accommodate.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

P.S. – “And I’ll just admit that I”m a bluray fan.”

I get that, but typically we’re talking HD content. Keep in mind that Blu-ray players, and most newer DVD players, have hardware up-scaling built in. Just connect to TV via HDMI and get “HD” from your DVD! The (standard def) DVDs I make look superb on a 60″ plasma.

Jeff

[Keith Dubose]

I have. On a plasma, lcd and a new 4k tv. They look decent enough on dvd but the playback on the computer looks way better. And so far the bluray looked better in some areas than the dvd on the same formats. It’s kinda complicated I’ll admit.

But eventually I may have to try what you said with putting a lossless codec file of my film through premiere, doing the whole export to m4v from there, and seeing what that does.