Best codec for Blu Ray

[Walter Biscardi]

[simon Morgan] “I’m wondering if anyone is finding that converting the FCP movies to H264 before encoding or any other format works better.”

No, this is a horrible idea. When you compress for DVD or BluRay disc you want to start with the highest quality possible. Compressing your ProRes or DVCPro HD to H.264 adds a level of compression. Then you compress it again for the disc.

You make your compression for disc directly from your original source. We have made BluRay discs from both DVCPro HD and ProRes originals. They both work fine.

H.264 is a final destination format, not an intermediate.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Chris Borjis]

In your situation the best codec for blu-ray is mpeg2.

[Scott Dempsey]

Ok I have a question. Say I have an HDCAMSR tape, 4:4:4, obviously high quality… and yes I have the drives and dual fibre channels to handle that bandwidth… but my question is if I were making a blu-ray from this material, how should I load it? I would think full 4:4:4 uncompressed would be overkill right? I am thinking ProRes HQ….

[Walter Biscardi]

[Scott Dempsey] “I am thinking ProRes HQ…. “

Uncompressed HD or ProRes. Not ProRes HQ.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

Read my Blog!

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[Robert Moore]

Hey, if you own the equipment, or full access to the HDCAMSR, or have it already on hard drive and ready to export/compress for BluRay…. that will provide you with the very best results! I would not convert to a ProRes format, if you don’t have to.

Compress right from your uncompressed HDCAMSR captures.

Robert Moore
Santa Monica, CA 90402
Email: robert.moore@woomza.com
WebSite: https://www.woomza.com

[Chris Liddell]

i know this is an old thread, but….

why not PRORES HQ as pre-Bluray codec ???

[Chris Liddell]

Actually given I shot this @ 1080p 4:4:4 on Sony F35s and am aiming to max out the Blu-Ray playback bitrate i think I’ll render out all my 16bpc After Effects comps as ProRes 4444, and hence my mastering FCP timeline and final outputs ProRes 4444 too.

What say ye?

[Chris Liddell]

thanks for tuning in robert…

the 1080 RGB source are just the green screen raw footage… all the leg work is being done in AE and rendered out for final edit/sync in FCP

I’ve been outputting all my AE as ProRes HQ to FCP… but am considering RE-doing the “FINAL” renders from AE as PRORES 4444 with it’s 330 mbps if anyone can confirm this is really going to give me an edge over the 220 mbps PRORES HQ option.

i think i’m going to post this as a new topic so it gets a bit more attention

thank you

[Ebony Butler]

Hi guys, I am doing my head in trying to make blu ray copies of my film for festivals…

I used compressor initially to reduce the size of my Prores 4444 master – using the blu ray video settings. But that file doesn’t seem to work with any standard blu ray burning software – such as toast or even some others… wondering if I was doing that right? I then tried Mpeg 2 and seagate audio – which of course exports fine – but these blu ray programs don’t seem to recognise the audio?!

Now I am trying a stack of other formats but I really don’t want to reduce the quality too much – compressing down to Prores 422LT etc – and then I have found that’s too big so now I am trying a high quality h264 export from the press 422 file which is killing me but I have no other option right now (that i know of) and my film is huge – 75 minutes long. Plus the only blu-ray disc I have right now is 25GB – and that’s another thing – these BR discs re not so easy to find! Office Works and JB both don’t have them – I can’t believe it!!

Getting a bit pee’d with it but I’d love to be able to work it out. I’ll likely go back and get a pro to do it – but last time i was charged $250 for 1 DVD…

You guru’s have any thoughts? Free software that works?(I am on a mac but have purchased an external blu ray recorder / player)

Thank you… Ebs (PLZ excuse my spelling and grammar, I’m tired, frustrated and have a deadly tomorrow for a festival overseas!)