Can someone offer advice for a workflow for me?

[Don Greening]

[Eoin Ryan] ” I believe I might need to use Encore or some other software? “

You would need to use Encore if you want simple menus on the disc but that means buying the whole CS4 suite just to get it. I think Toast 9 will author a Blu-ray disc now as well but it acts more like a “first play” DVD where you insert the disc and it’s starts playing the movie.

[Eoin Ryan] “Can I edit in Final Cut Pro, export the high def file to my desktop and transfer that over to the PC Laptop and burn it in Encore?”

You can edit in FCP and encode your Blu-ray content with Compressor. Then transfer to PC.

– Don

[Chris Babbitt]

Supposedly, Toast will do a simple menu. I intend to find out for myself very soon.

[Michael Slowe]

Don, I currently encode DVD’s in BitVice and only use Compressor to produce the ac3 audio file. Since BitVice cannot yet encode for Blu-Ray which version of Compressor does this and is it any good because I don’t think their SD DVD’s are as good as those encoded with BitVice. I heard that version 9 of Toast burns Blu-Ray but I didn’t think it encodes. Or do we stick with SD DVD’s for the present and play them in an upscaling player for improved quality?

Michael Slowe

[Craig Seeman]

The Adobe Suite is available for Mac (including Encore).

The Toast 9 idea interests me too. In my case I’d like to encode in Episode. I believe Toast does its own encoding but I’d be interested to see if it can handle elementary streams (and what kind). Don’t forget with Blu-ray video you can have MPEG2, H264, VC1, Elementary streams.

[Don Greening]

[Michael Slowe] ” I heard that version 9 of Toast burns Blu-Ray but I didn’t think it encodes.”

Hi Michael,

With the release of Toast v.9.0.2 there’s no reason for Mac users to wait any longer if they can live with authoring a simple Blu-ray disc that will play in just about any set top Blu-ray player. You just can’t view your finished disc on the Mac. At least not yet. You still need to buy a Blu-ray player to watch your finished product.

I’ve discovered that Toast 9 will indeed create simple Blu-ray menus using still frames and buttons, in addition to authoring a “first play” BD. Toast 9 does does have encoding capabilities but if you drop a movie into the program that has already been encoded using one of the acceptable formats (such as H.264) then you can skip the encoding process within Toast 9. The program will even accept a MOV file and will encode that to a particular Blu-ray format that you can specify before the encode is started. The cost for all this is about 80 bucks USD plus an additional $16.00 for the Blu-ray plugin that you need to actually author and burn a Blu-ray disc. Toast 9 does other stuff besides Blu-ray so some folks don’t need to buy Blu-ray capability if they don’t want to.

Toast 9.0.2 will author BD-RE media (re-writable) and BD-R media which works the same as DVD-R.

– Don

[Chris Babbitt]

Thanks for that, Don. Are you actually doing it successfully?

[Rafael Amador]

Yeap Toast can do it but you better make the encoding with Compressor or any other application.
The feedbacks I have from the Toast compression are no good at all.
Another thing that is no much clear is that you can put H264 in those BR. In theory yes, but I know that, at least with Encore, it only works for MPG-2.
In the FC forum Walter Biscardi have posted few times about his workflow. Hi had already authored few BRs with Encore.
Cheers,
Rafa

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Don Greening]

[Chris Babbitt] “Are you actually doing it successfully?”

I’m not jumping in until the new year. Just been doing my research, is all. I’ve decided I can’t wait for Apple any longer.

Here’s a step by step workflow in 2 parts, Chris:

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/taming_the_wild_blu.html

– Don

[Chris Babbitt]

Yes, that article is my inspiration as well. In fact, I’m thinking about taking the big leap and attempting the installation of an internal drive.

[Michael Slowe]

Thanks Craig and Don. I believe that Toast 9 can only run on the new Intel Macs and currently I’m on the older G5 but will probably be up grading for this very reason. I don’t want to play the Blu-Ray on the computer, just produce the discs as a production with no menus needed. Do these Blu-Ray players play standard DVD’s as well? I heard that not only do they play them but they ‘upscale’ at the same time, true or false?

Michael Slowe