[Brian Paterson]

Hi Again, Whilst waiting for a reply to my last post can anyone answer this simple question.
If I make a Blu Ray disc image with Encore will I be able to burn a Blu Ray disc using that disc image using toast 9. I just went into toast 9 to check if my new Blu Ray burner was being recognised ( which it is )
but when I clicked on Burn Blu Ray Video in toast it said the toast titanium 9 HD/BD plug in was required.
If I select ‘Copy’ in toast 9 I can select “Image file” without any messages popping up so presumeably I can burn to Blue ray from that menu using a Blu Ray disc image. Is this correct? I am just starting this process of making my first Blu Ray disc and as yet I have not made the disc image to test it out with but just wanted to try and work out the whole process before beginning and wasting disks etc.

brian paterson

[Brian Paterson]

Hi Michael thanks for the reply, excuse my ignorance re- mpeg4/H264 i am fairly new to all of this. Upon further research I see that Ken Stone does not recommend using H264 for building Blu Ray with Encore as it wants to transcode all of the H.264 files before building the project taking days to do and creating massive files.
I made a 5 minute ‘test’ reference file from final cut (because the original is two hours long.) The timeline sequence codec is xdcam ex 1080i50. I then took this reference file into Adobe Media Encoder and chose the Mpeg2 Blue Ray option from the menu to output a file to use in Encore to build the disk image. As I just said the edit I have completed in FCP is nearly two hours long hence me thinking of going the quicker route by making a reference file and ( please correct me if I am wrong) I though by eventually outputting a disc image from Encore ( if it will do that ) it wouldn’t then matter if the original reference material was moved or disconnected. ( is that right ?)
With regards to the four files output from Adobe Media Encoder on the Five minute test I did can you confirm which ones I will need to build the blu Ray disc image in Encore. The files are :- m2v.xmpses, an xmp file, a .wav file and a .m2v file – I am guessing the WAV file and the M2V file ( which has the apple compressor icon on it even though it was output from an Adobe application ) but what about the other two ? I have opened Encore and looked at it but have never used it, the whole process is a mystery and I am just trying to understand it to learn and form a simple workflow for the future. I seem to read about so many complicated variations and so many problems that it is all quite worrying and stressful, even before I begin.
Looking forward to your reply. Many thanks – Brian.

brian paterson

[Brian Paterson]

Thank you for the advice.
I don’t know of any one who has a blu-ray burner but with some research I may be able get access to one.
Another thought regarding the toast plug in- will allow burning to a blue ray disc ( which obviously can hold a lot more information ) I can’t find any information which says it won’t do this, only info about burning to DVD.
Thanks once again. Brian

brian paterson

[Brian Paterson]

Thank you for Juan your reply. Do you know if the quality is as good as that of a blu-ray disc made with a dedicated burner. I normally only make DVDs using iDVD. I output a disc image which I use in conjunction with toast to burn the disc. Can I do the same with burning an AVCHD disc or do I have to output a blu-ray file first using something like compressor. Is there a recognized standard working practice that is best.
Finally how short should the content be to work fine. I read somewhere that a standard disc could hold up to 1hour but 40 minutes was the recommended max. after which quality would suffer.
Finally one last question – when I make a normal DVD from 50i footage I never deinterlace and on a normal television there are no jaggies. However, never having made a disc to be played on a blu-ray player to be shown on a high def television set I don’t know how it will look if I do not deinterlace. Will I see jaggies if i do not deinterlace or will it be smoothed out in the same way that a normal TV does.
I would do some tests myself if I had a blue ray player and high def TV but sadly I do not.
Many Thanks BRIAN

brian paterson

[Brian Paterson]

Thanks for all your help and apologies for posting in the wrong forum. OOps!

brian paterson

[Brian Paterson]

Thanks Ron, according to articles I have read you can get up to an hour but can retain best quality up tp 40 minutes. Is this not correct.? Do I have to output from FCP as a blu-ray file or will toast convert it from my normal file. ( Normally I output a reference file and make a disc image using iDVD, which I then use to burn the DVD using toast.) Can you tell me if the quality is as good as burning to a blu-ray disc using a dedicated burner and finally one last question – when I make a normal DVD from 50i footage I never deinterlace and on a normal television there are no jaggies. However, never having made a disc to be played on a blu-ray player to be shown on a high def television set I don’t know how it will look if I do not deinterlace. Will I see jaggies if i do not or will it be smoothed out in the same way that a normal TV does.
I would do some tests myself if I had a blue ray player and high def TV but sadly I do not.
Many Thanks BRIAN

brian paterson

[Brian Paterson]

Thanks David,
I guess I was sort of half right in my thinking when I made a self contained quicktime movie as my master but still FCP crashes when trying to use that master to output a file using quicktime conversion.
A few months back I developed problems opening compressor and it looks like a complete reinstall of FCP7 to sort it which I haven’t had time to do so making a quicktime file ( to upload to vimeo) is the easiest way right now.
Thanks anyway for replying. I am going to try trashing my preferences next to see if that has any effect.
Finally.. am I right in thinking that if I use a self contained quicktime file as my master it would eliminate any differences between still images in the original timeline whether they are jpg or tiff or 300 dpi or 72 dpi. etc.

Regards
BRIAN.

brian paterson

[Brian Paterson]

With ref to my previous posting. I tried inputting to another computer but still no luck.
Can anyone tell me if the playback setting in the camera’s setup menu should actually be greyed out after selecting HDV or whether it should be flashing as it is on my own camera. Does the flashing mean it is not making contact? ? ? does anyone know.?
If it is not a cable problem or a firewire port problem then I am thinking that only leaves the camera’s built in fire wire connection.
If this has gone then it looks like I need a repairer but I need somehow to find out first exactly what the problem is. if there is anyone in the U.K. reading this who knows where I could get this looked at near or around London could you please let me know. ( I rang Canon but their service prices are sky high ) The camera has had little use so a service is not what I a looking for.

Many Thanks
BRIAN

brian paterson

[Brian Paterson]

Thanks Raphael,

I had read somwhere that it might stutter when written to DVD but I just thought I would ask anyway.

Thanks for your help

BRIAN.

brian paterson

[Brian Paterson]

Hi Craig,
None of my clients have complained ( as yet) about the length of time I take and they all love the finished product. But this is a new business for me and have only done half a dozen videos this year.
Before the Ex1 and even before high def ( when this was a hobby) I remember the joy of the edit when ideas came quickly and the manipulation of the clips matched the pace of the creative juices flowing from the freshness of it all.
Now I fall asleep whilst waiting for things to render and I have to sit here 14 hours a day seven days a week watching my life dissappear. (I have recently taken up the guitar again which I practice whilst waiting for things to complete so that’s a plus.)
But part of my transition into the professional world is my development of a more grand style of editing with many layers and dreamy transitions, all of which of course are very proccessor intensive.
To have it happen more instantaneously and to be able to do other things in my life would be good and so I need to find a quicker way of doing all of this, but times are tough and mony is scarce- both for me and my clients who are always on the point of not comissioning me at all because they are struggling to find the money.
If it were not for the fact that I have spent a considerable amount of money and several years upping my game to give a professional product then I might throw it all in and go back to creating art for a living.
(it’s tempting)
Ideally if I could speed it all up I could do both.
Love the quality of the Ex1 – Hate all the problems and high additional costs that are coming with it.

Thanks for all you help and advice.

With Kind Regards
BRIAN PATERSON.

brian paterson