Full BluRay function on DVD blank disk

[Joe Bowden]

You’ve gotten farther with this than I did.

Encore doesn’t support burning a Blu-ray project to DVD, so any attempts to do so require trailblazing of exporting a BD folder or image and then burning it with other applications.

Sorry I can’t help more.

[Brian Kennell]

I’ve never done Blu-ray-project-on-DVD with menu’s, but I’ve created short Blu-ray projects, exported them as ISO images, and burned them to DVD. Use ImgBurn (www.imgburn.com) to burn the iso. its a great program.

[John Rich]

Brian,
I’m not sure what you mean by a BluRay “Project”. If you just mean playing a movie clip on Playstation3 or some other BluRay player, then you could do it your way or mine succssfully. What I was hoping for was some way to make an entire BluRay project including menus play on a DVD.

Do you think ImagBurn could do that?
Thanks,
John

JOHNR

[Brian Kennell]

By “project” I mean a Blu-ray project in Encore. I put a series of timelines (all HD H.264) that were linked in serial fashion to each other. Played correctly in my Blu-ray player.

What I’m suggesting is for you to try exporting your project with menu’s as an ISO image and then burn it to a DVD using ImgBurn…

[John Rich]

I had burned an BluRay .iso image using Encore as well as the BluRay Folder, but couldn’t figure out how to burn the image using Nero (I burned a DVD using ROM ISO but it wouldn’t play on my PS3).

I looked at the ImgBrn website and couldn’t see where there was a BluRay burning module.

I would really appreciate it if you would suggest the exact steps how I could use ImgBrn to do this. Since, I’m not willing to spend the amount it requires to use the BluRay disks, and I really want to put the HDV footage on a disk right now I’m at an impasse.
Thanks, for your help.
John

JOHNR

[Brian Kennell]

John,

I did a little test tonight and it worked fine.

I opened a new Blu-ray project in Encore CS3. I then setup my project just how I wanted, motion menu’s and all. It was all simple HDV clips strait from the camera, even the motion menu’s. When i was satisfied how the menu’s (i used an encore preset), buttons and such worked, I exported the project as a Blu-ray Image file (.iso). I then used ImgBurn to burn this ISO image to the DVD. ImgBurn doesn’t care what the contents of the image are, so don’t worry about writing a blu-ray project onto a DVD, It just cares if the image will fit on the DVD. Make sure it’s less than 4.7GB! :o)

The resulting DVD plays just fine in my Sony BDP-S300. The HD footage is the same quality as its Blu-ray counterpart. I’ve never tried to play blu-ray on a PS3, so that might be a separate issue.

Hope this helps.

[John Rich]

Brian,

I had already done a BluRay .iso, so I downloaded ImgBurn which was an incredibly easy program to use compared to Nero (kind of a wierd noise at the end).
Then I burned the .iso image to a regular DVD+R which I happened to have around using a regular DVD burner. It showed up on my PS3, but would not play as a DVD with menus.
Then I took the disk down to the local Best Buy who happened to have a Sony BDP S300 player hooked up to an HDV set and the disk played perfectly with the menu active and everything.

It was a very simple menu and as you did, I just used a short clip of HDV from the camera to hook to the button which in my case was an MPEG2 format clip.
Thanks a lot for walking me through that.
I have a couple more questions if you don’t mind. 1. I assume you have the BDP S300 hooked up to a HDMI cable into your TV. Is that correct? 2. It looks like the BDP S300 will play all kinds of disks, according to their ads including DVD’s and uprezing DVD’s. Again, is that your experience? 3. Finally, do you have your BDP hooked up to a digital tuner for the surround sound?
Again, thanks for the tips. I think you should publish this somewhere.
John

JOHNR

[Brian Kennell]

John,

Yes, I have the S300 hooked up to my HDTV via HDMI.

I know for a fact that it will play DVDs, DVD-Rs, DVD-RWs, BDs, BD-Rs, & BD-REs. I use BD-REs to test projects before I burn a $15 disc! Some players may need a firmware update to play recordable discs. I don’t know why the Sony website says it won’t play recordable discs.

No, I don’t have an AV receiver or digital tuner hooked up to the BDP-S300. I just use the audio that comes thru HDMI.

I’m glad you got it working! Kinda weird how the PS3 doesn’t play the Blu-ray content correctly…

[John Rich]

Brian,

I can’t figure out the PS3 thing either. Apparently it has an operating system made from Linux which could be the problem. One of the main “selling points” of the PS3 was that it would be a “BluRay Player”. It does play commercial BluRay disks and “uprezes” regular DVD’s.

I have not been able to find anybody at SONY to call about this, and their forums apparently aren’t interested, so I guess I’ll never find out.

One final thing, is I saw you filmed in H.254 and I was wondering if you thought that better than the MPEG2 that I get out of my HV20?
Thanks again,
John

JOHNR

[Brian Kennell]

Yes, definitely. H.264 is a much more efficient codec than MPEG2. You can fit more video on a DVD or Blu-ray without a loss in quality. Takes more to time to encode however.

I would conservatively suggest that an MPEG2 bitrate of 20Mbps is visually equivalent to an H.264 bitrate of 15Mbps. That being said, I always encode my HD content w/ H.264 @ 20Mbps.