Newbie questions: Best video file format, Bluray and DVD project

[Jeff Pulera]

I’ve been using Encore for years, authoring a LOT of DVDs, but just a handful of Blu-ray and none recently.

Do you edit with Adobe Premiere? If so, when Exporting from Premiere (or using Adobe Media Encoder itself), under export Format you will see H.264 Blu-ray and that will create the proper output files that Encore wants for making a Blu-ray, which will not need transcoding (recompression) in Encore. That is the goal, to create what Encore wants to avoid having it done twice which hurts quality! There will also be various Presets available (frame rate and frame size), like 720p24 or 60, 1080i, or 1080p24. Options of 1080p60 and 1080p30 are not offered.

After choosing Format and Preset, one thing you should look at before exporting is the video Bit Rate. This affects both quality and file size. You of course want a good quality, but without making the file too large to fit the disc! There are bit rate calculators online such as https://dvd-hq.info/bitrate_calculator.php

You do have to be careful about what numbers you put into the calculator since any input error will mess up the output as well. And remember to add up the total duration of all clips going to disc when figuring bit rate for individual clips (meaning apply that master bit rate to all clips). While you can go up to about 40mbps for Blu-ray spec, no need for that – you may find that 20-25 provides excellent quality (and your movie needs to fit the disc…) and the idea is not to push the limits, especially with burned media and that can cause playback issues with some players.

Figuring bit rate may be more complicated for you if using HD for main movie, but having extras as SD clips at a much lower bit rate. You’ll figure it out. Speaking of SD clips – they can be included on a Blu-ray and do NOT get converted to HD when authoring, however the Blu-ray player will upres on the HDMI output anyway so you will have HD going to the TV display in any case.

So I haven’t ever added SD content to a Blu-ray, but from other posts I’ve read I believe you can just use the MPEG-2 DVD format (and Preset appropriate to the footage like NTSC DV Widescreen) and that will be “legal”, except the bit rate can be higher than DVD allows, which is 8. Like maybe go to 10? There is a point of diminishing returns, meaning at some point higher data rate will no longer improve the quality and I think about 10 is the number for SD. But again, not my area of expertise.

For DVD – in Adobe, export as MPEG-2 DVD (not just MPEG-2, must be the DVD variant). And choose Preset to match footage, whether 4:3 or Widescreen, Interlaced or Progressive. Max video bitrate is 8 for DVD.

For audio, I use the default .wav file. Note that Media Encoder is going to output TWO files, being .m2v video and .wav audio and that is how Encore likes it. Encore will then transcode the audio to Dolby AC-3 automatically for you. Of course that also makes the audio file much smaller, so don’t let the initial size of the .wav scare you. Use the bit-rate calculator of course again to figure out what quality will fit the disc. Higher bit rate = larger files.

While it IS possible to first author a Blu-ray, and then tell Encore to make a DVD from it, really NOT recommended at all! Just doesn’t magically come out the way you might hope. It’s more work, but author the DVD separately from scratch, including prepping all video assets as MPEG-2 DVD (this means your HD sources as well).

What is the length of video you intend to put on DVD, with extras? Will this go to duplicator? I’ve never actually created a dual-layer DVD as I see way too many headaches and issues on the forums. So have always stuck with DVD-R 4.7GB media and no issues then, with DL you need to set up a layer-break and that can be problematic and also makes it harder to get duplicated, would recommend to find out exactly what dupe house needs first if you are going with DL master.

For TESTING purposes, blank DVDs are pennies apiece so I don’t worry about waste that much. However, what I now do is to Build an IMAGE from Encore, which creates an .iso file on your hard drive. This is a perfect copy of how the data would be laid out on the actual disc, then open that .iso in VLC Media Player to test menus and chapter and such before burning.

When you do burn a test DVD, check it on an actual DVD player unit and TV set. Never test/proof a DVD on the computer, since software players will often play a DVD that has issues that would not work on a set-top player, so you can be fooled. Meaning a disc that is not DVD-legal (authored wrong) could seem fine on the computer but does not work in an actual DVD player.

If new to Encore, watch tutorials and start with DVD to get your feet wet. Once you learn your way around, only then try Blu-ray. Authoring process is pretty similar, but blanks cost a lost more so play with DVD first to get good at it.

Back to Audio – when using the bit rate calculator and it asks for audio bit rate, that is not the .wav that you export initially, but rather what will the Dolby bit rate be on the disc? Without looking, from memory, I believe DVD is 224k and Blu-ray is 384k, but double check yourself.

Hope this helps

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Another tip – before encoding and authoring say a 2-hour movie to disc, just encode a sample clip of a few minutes duration, at the intended bit rate for the larger video. Use that to play with and make test discs with, to save a LOT of time.

This will help you tweak the workflow/encoding steps and check resulting quality. Otherwise you might have a lot of lengthy renders and waste a lot of time refining the process if doing 2-hours each time. You can tell just as much with a 2-minute clip as a 2-hour clip if using the same encode settings.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Dan Mcguire]

Thanks for being so generous with your time and explaining this to me.
So clearly I will have to create two separate projects and separate video archives.
I wonder if the Photoshop layered menus can be the same for both projects?
If I create a menu scaled for HD will Encore accept them for a DVD project and scale them properly?

THANKS!

[Jeff Pulera]

As mentioned, while it’s possible to share assets between Blu-ray and DVD projects, has its issues. I believe menus are one of them, since DVD uses anamorphic widescreen so the menu graphic dimensions don’t scale correctly from HD menus. Just really consider it two independent projects for best results.

Thanks

Jeff

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Brittney Millaway]

Do you have a suggestion for exporting from Adobe for iDVD? You suggested exporting from Adobe for DVD with MPEG2 format…. but iDVD does not support this. I need a 1280 x 720 QuickTime file and cannot figure out how to do this.