[Chris Pettit]

OK, the latest:

Repeatedly contacted SONY support in a failed attempt to get firmware or driver update info on built in BD player/ burner. No help what so ever. They refuse to help me by email, insist that I log on via chat, when I do, the login refuses to acknoledge that my SONY model exists so I cant log-on. And these are the people who INVENTED this platform…

On another note: I downloaded the trial verison of Cyberlink BD Player, and it wont run either my BD-RE or even the store bought version! I get an error message that says my display is not BD compatable….My SONY display – the one that came with my SONY BluRay authoring MACHINE!!!!

I’ll keep posting as I go through this process in case anyone else is enduring the same pain.

[Chris Pettit]

Ouch. That is really scary. I continue to be concerned that CS3 could be my problem (or part of it), although I am in the process of taking the advice from this thread and updating my firmware.

The problem is that firmware updating has to start with the burner, and I cant find the update anywhere, even though it is mentioned all over the place. Everywhere I go the links to it are DEAD, and the SONY site is useless. I even tryed the link you just sent but I cant find it.

I’m sure that this will all eventually work itself out, but my original statement stands, at least so far. This standard sure seems like a mess to me.

I will continue to post as I learn things, thanks

[Chris Pettit]

Thanks, I’ve been searching all afternoon, and finding lots of dead links to the firmware. Sony site is no help, nothing new there.

Anyone know of a good firmware location for such things? I am specifically looking for

Matsushita BD-MLT SW-5582

[Chris Pettit]

Hi Warren.

I suppose that could be it, although it seems weird that both computers and a new set top player couldn’t play the disc.

Where do you go to get the updates?

Chris

[Chris Pettit]

Thanks Heath. All good suggestions, but I’m afraid they had occured to me before I posted. I have attempted to run the disc on 2 separate Blu Ray capable computers, both Vaio, but one is a laptop, and got the same result. (Using the InterVideo WinDVD BD player for Sony). While I have had some playback problems with the desktop, the laptop plays back store bought discs fine.

After that, I decided to take the disc down to my local Best Buy, and ran it on a brand new Sony player, no luck there either. The software suggestion makes sense as well, but if it won’t run on a brand new player, I’m inclined to think my problem lies elsewhere.

If CS3 is indeed reliable, and by most accounts it is, including yours, whats left? You mention BD-r and BD-RE compatability, but I have to assume they would be compatable with a new SONY player. The BD-RE I’m using is about 1.5 years old (came with the computer). Have they changed the media since then? Should I try new media?

Could it be the burner for some reason? I bought this particular set of computers for the Blu Ray capability, but they are also 1.5 years old. Do you have recommendations for external burners?

thanks again for all you time

chris

[Chris Pettit]

Thats it then! total confimation of what I did wrong. Fantastic, thanks again!

[Chris Pettit]

Thanks, I did do those things, basically went through each step, with bad results.

I have discovered a couple of things since my last post however that I thought I would post in case anyone else made the mistake I may have made:

The material I am working on is 3D content entirely generated from C4D. When I try dropping generic HD 720P footage into this process, it looks just fine (or as fine as DVCAM can) So there may be something about the footage itself, its highly detailed and I am used to looking at it clean, by comparison the 5to1 compression of DV looks bad natively.

Also, this may be where I went wrong: I assumed that when you import square pixel content into AE DV comp that you need to re-interperate the footage to NTSC DV(.9), and I think that is what I did. When I made sure the footage was left square, even though it is going into a NON-sqaure comp I got much better results. I’m still confused by that, but that appears to be the most likely culprit.

And lastly, I got much better results when I went with widescreen instead of letterbox. That was mentioned in a previous post, but my client said they needed 4:3. I have now talked them in to widescreen.

So I appear to have a solution, I can’t thank all those who helped me think through this enough!

C

[Chris Pettit]

Via firewire. Firewire to DVCAM deck, SVIDEO out to SONY monitor

[Chris Pettit]

I’m sorry, I haven’t been descriptive enough.

I am aware of the “screen” aspect ratio issues between 4:3 and 16:9. I have both expanded my 16×9 content so that it filled a 4:3 screen and shrank my content down so that it achieved letterbox form, both are options for this project. Not a problem. I also rendered out to 16×9 anamorphic as well.

The problem relates to the poor quality of the PIXEL aspect ratio conversion. No matter how I fit the square pixel content into a NON-sqaure pixel comp the results on an NTSC monitor are horrible. (the same content on the desktop looks fine unless I click the AE “toggle aspect ratio” button I’m talking about stair-stepping and “jaggy” edges etc AFTER rendering to the DV codec…. not simple aspect ratio problems

I have heard similar complaints from editors (I’m more of an animator)

Red Giants’ “Instant HD” seems to offer a software solution for the opposite direction, ie from DV to HD. And for similar reasons, but I don’t see any info on stepping down from HD to DV

Thanks

C

[Chris Pettit]

sorry, I, m not sure what you mean.

I created a new DV NTSC comp and then imported and “fit to comp” the source HD content, and it looked horrible. Is there something else you are recommending?

I did find some info since my post concerning a 720 x534 comp that is then dropped in a 720×480 DV comp to compensate for the tweaked pixel aspect ratio issues… Anyone heard of that fix?

Thanks!

C