Buring Blu-ray to dual layer DVD Disc

[Seth Estrada]

1)Dual layer DVD is totally up to the task of playing back high data-rate video. I’ve delivered 720p at >12 Mbps and had it play back perfectly on consumer Blu-ray players.

2)No. Match your source settings: 720 30p [29.97]. And be more generous on the data rate, if you have enough disc space, or consider splitting the deliverable into 2 discs so you can bump up the quality. Otherwise, what’s the point of delivering HD at the bitrate of standard def?

3)Try to stick with source footage settings all the way through to final output to avoid re-timing artifacts. If you find that for some reason the discs won’t play, then go back to your project, adjust the settings to PAL-compatible settings, highlight all media, and select the “Disable Resample” script, to get a more clean fit into the new timing.

4)Again, try to stay native to the source footage.

[John Rofrano]

Seth gave a great response but I’d just like to comment on your original question:

[Jack McGee] “Am I selling myself short?”

YES! Using DVD media may have made sense when Blu-ray burners cost $600 and discs were $25 each. Those days are long gone. Blu-ray burners cost $99 and discs cost $1.30. Stop playing around with DVD’s and produce proper HD media with Blu-ray. Anything less, IMHO, is cheating yourself.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Jack Mcgee]

Thanks for your response. It seems the burn setting BIT rates are fixed in sony vegas…so its either 8Mb,15 or 25MB.
Also it wont allow me to use AC-3 even though I have DVDArch. installed (says plugin not there etc)

I have thought about buying blu ray recorder…however I Live in “Rip Off Britain” where they are still too expensive for me at the moment. Everything here is many times more expensive than in US.

Thanks again for your advice – appreciate it

[Dave Haynie]

[Jack McGee] “1) Am I selling myself short? or would you say this is a valid method in which I am getting Blu-ray format without the need for blu-ray disc?”

Depends a great deal on the camera you’re using. If my “mini-HD” camera, you mean a digital still camera with video mode, or a “Flip” style camcorder, you’re probably doing ok. Most of these shoot in lower bitrate modes.

The one thing here: shooting at 720/30p and upconverting to 1440×1080/50i, you’re screwing with the frame rate. So there’s going to be some quality loss there, even with the uprezzing. Unfortunately, I’m not sure what I’d do with 720/30p video… Blu-ray supports 1080/60i, 1080/50i, 1080/24p, 720/60p, 720/50p, and 720/24p, but no 720/30p. One important step when buying a camcorder is knowing what you plan to do with the video afterwards. Maybe you have a better supported resolution option? Anyway, your best bets would be 720/60p or 1080/60i, for quality, if you have no other choices.

Last I heard anyway, it was nearly impossible to sell a DVD player in the UK without NTSC support of some kind (real NTSC and/or PAL60 output). It’s certainly likely that similar support is found on Blu-ray players. It’s an easy enough test.

As for being a valid method… Vegas or DVD Architect will certainly allow you to burn a Blu-ray file system onto a DVD. Just about any bitrate will play on modern computers, which all have fast DVD drives. For DVD players, no dice, they won’t play Blu-ray formats of any kind. For Blu-ray players, you have to issues. One is that BD players are not guaranteed to have better than 2x DVD support, so you’re limited to 18Mb/s on a DVD. Sure, it may work on some players, but not on others.

The second is more complex: Blu-ray on DVD is not very well supported by players, either. You really want the very similar AVCHD format, which is supported by nearly every BD player, but not by Vegas. You can find a free tool called MultiAVCHD which does this properly here: https://multiavchd.deanbg.com/

[Jack McGee] “4) I also have a HiDef Sony MiniDV camera which does 1080i – what template settings should I use for this to get a valid HD result?”

Standard HDV (not called MiniDV anymore) records in 1440×1080/50i or 1440×1080/60i, at least if you have a Sony camera (there was also a 720/30p mode, but not as well supported), in MPEG-2. You can render this to AVC at the same resolution and frame rate for Blu-ray compatibiltiy. It has to be in AVC for AVCHD discs, but also to fit well on a DVD9.

-Dave