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SD files on a Blu-ray Disk?
I currently am putting together a video of our trip to Israel a year ago fall (yes, I have been busy editing other, “PAYING” projects). Anyway, it was shot on mini-DV tape (SD, 4X3). I plan to distribute the finished product to my “tour-mates”, who anxiously have been waiting. I shot around 16 hours’ worth of footage, and even in the editing process probably will have 10+ hours of video that I want to include in the project. Rather than burn 5 to 7 (or more) 2-hour DVDs per set, is it instead possible to burn this footage, in SD, on Blu-ray disks? In other words, can I author in SD and burn to Blu-ray instead of standard DVDs, or does every formatted video (and not just data files) that is burned in Blu-ray have to be authored specifically as a Blu-ray disk? Please let me know if I am not clear on my question, beacuse if this physically is possible it will save me a lot of time and materials. Thank you in advance.
Rich Kutnick
VIDEO IMPRESSIONS -
10 Replies
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I’ve never done it, but it should work. I just ran my Bitrate Calculator and got the following encoding bitrates for 600 minutes of video on a single-sided BD disc:
Maximum 46400 kb/s
Average 5050 kb/s
Minimum 2000 kb/sYou do realize, though, that it will only play on a BD player.
Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com -
Are the SD files formatted for Blu-ray or DVD? If the former, I can understand why they require a Blu-ray player for viewing. However, my question is about the latter: can SD files authored for a DVD be burned on to a Blu-ray disk and be played back on a standard DVD player? Will this work?
Rich Kutnick
VIDEO IMPRESSIONS -
The h264 codec provides great quality as a lower bitrate than mpeg2. I’ve done several vhs conversion jobs for clients that wanted dozens of vhs tapes crammed on a few blu-rays and found that 5mbps works well. For those I think I used Sony’s avc codec for the video and AC3 for the audio.
Lately though I’ve found people are preferring to just get 640×480 mp4 files at the same bitrate on an external hard drive, which they then go around and copy to all the family members’ computers so everyone can have a copy without the expense of duplicating blu-rays. Something to consider in this age of smart phones and tablets we seem to be getting into.
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Great info, guys, but all of this STILL points to playing back Blu-ray-formatted files on a Blu-ray player. What about my primary question? Can one burn SD files on to a Blu-ray disk that is formatted as a DVD-Video (SD) AND play it back on a standard DVD player?? In other words, can a Blu-ray disk even be formatted for DVD-Video, and if so will this disk then play back on a standard DVD player??
Rich Kutnick
VIDEO IMPRESSIONS -
Stephen sort of did answer that question, saying that it will still only play on a Blu-ray player. You can put mpeg2 DVD-formatted video on a blu-ray disc for sure, but the “blu-ray” in blu-ray discs is because they use a new type of blue laser to read the optical disc, as opposed to the older red one that dvd’s used. Aside from just the color of the beam, it’s new technology and isn’t backwards compatible with old stuff.
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Thanks for the clarification. I just was not sure if Stephen was answering my question directly, but I now understand that ANYTHING put on a Blu-ray disk, be it video or just plain data files (such as jpegs), must be played back on a Blu-ray player due to the differences in lasers. So thank you, too, Stephen. If all of my intended recipients, then, don’t own a Blu-ray player, I guess I will just have to send them a load of DVDs if I want them to receive the authored version, correct, or is there any other way to record authored files other than on a DVD or Blu-ray (such as on a thumb drive or SD card)?
Rich Kutnick
VIDEO IMPRESSIONS -
If by “authored” files you mean a DVD-style menu system with chapter stops, then there really isn’t anything as convenient as DVD/Blu-Ray like that. If you wanted to though, you could certainly break up the chapters into individual mp4 files, number and label them in a specific order and distribute them on a usb drive.
It’s handy to have chapter stops but I certainly enjoy the ability to click a mouse quickly on the timeline to jump around.
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So if there is no software to create a menuing system for files on a thumb drive, why can’t I just create NTSC DV AVI files to put on the thumb drive? Wouldn’t this be the easiest thing to do for those that don’t have a Blu-ray player yet want to view my SD project?
Rich Kutnick
VIDEO IMPRESSIONS -
Well you certainly can do that, but NTSC DV avi files for 10 hours of footage are going to be massive so you’ll have to break them up into short segments and buy a lot more usb sticks. DV avi is a great format if the people you’re giving them to need to edit the footage themselves, but if they’re just going to watch them I’d recommend standard definition mp4’s.
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Just happened to stumble across this post and maybe you can help me.
I have about 10 hours of SD 720X480 29.97fps footage from different sources (DVCam, MiniDV, VHS etc) that I need to fit on as few Blu Rays as possible. the footage was all captured in dv avi and when I try transcode it to mpeg2 I lose much of the audio. What would be the best way to cram all 10 hours on to one or two Blu rays? Thank you
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