[Daniel Ludwig]

robert,
first of all – your bitrate is much to high. 9.4Mbit will not work on burned discs, the max. bitrate would be 8.5Mbit (video and audio incl.).

what do you mean by letterboxed? anamorph 16:9 or letterboxed 4:3?!

PAL-DVDs will only be lower first as the source-material is DV-material, DV, DVCPRO25, DVCPRO50 or DVCAM. all other PAL-source is upper field first.

if the original is 16:9 letterboxed, you need to encode the MPEG2 as 16:9 using adobe media encoder or any other encoder.

cheers

danny

[Daniel Ludwig]

hey brian,
I guess this post will blow away your confusion.

yes – ken stones article is a bit older and things changed a bit! at these days he wrote the article there have been many bugs within encore (in fact there are still a lot), and there was big trouble with h264-files.

according to MPEG4-standart, pure (BD) H264 is a special part of the MPEG4-specs with very special technical requirements. but it has nothing to do with the (wrapped) quicktime-H264 (MOV)

blu-ray-spec allow MPEG2, H264 and VC-1 for video, and dolby digital (up to dolby true HD) and also DTS up to DTS HD Master Audio and uncompressed (multitrack) PCM-audio for the audio-files.

encore itself could only handle dolby digital sound (for stereo and multitrack) or PCM (WAV or AIF) stereo files.

IF you are talking about DVD-creation, you can only use MPEG2 (SD) and PCM or AC-3 audio or DTS-audio.

if you are going to author a DVD it would be good to post this at the start, otherwise you might get confusing answers! for example H264 is absolutly wrong for DVD, as it is no part of the DVD-spec – the main time I was thinking you would like to author a BD instead of a DVD.

transcoding could happen, if you have chosen a different project-setting/different transcoding setting as your assets are at the present time.

meaning: you got HD-files but need to create a DVD, or if you got H264-assets but your project-settings set to MPEG2, or you´ve chosen a 1920x1080p24-setting but your assets are 1920x1090i29.98.

you see, there are far too many reasons why transcoding could happen – I just could look into the crystal ball 😉

I hope all this will wipe away your confusion.

cheers

danny

PS: think about line-breaks in your next posting – it´s a bit hard to read mate 😉

[Daniel Ludwig]

hi nelson,
as I stated: it´s allways good to encode the assets prior authoring. this wont depend on what authoring-application you use or what media you are authoring (DVD/BD).

of course encore could transcode assets itself, like DVD Studio as well, but this makes no sence and you´ve got a better quality-control, as you can create custom transcoding-settings.

adobe media encoder and compressor both doing good encoding-jobs. in fact these are no high-end-encoders, but they are really OK.

if you would like to avoid transcoding over and over within encore prior burning, the most easy way would be to create a disc-image once and burn this as often as you need within toast.

cheers

danny

[Daniel Ludwig]

casey,
there are some lacks in your workflow….

1. canon is shooting H264-movies. conversion via streamclip to PRO RES or HQ is good, but LT is NO GOOD.

2. transcoding to MPEG2(HD) will give give you loose of quality (2nd generation), to go H264 will be better as it´s the better codec.

note: there is no possibility to rewrap or unwrap H264-quicktime to BD-spec-h264.

3. blu-ray spec supports:
1080p23.98, 1080p24, 1080i50 or 1080i29.98, so you need to go 1080i29.98, what is called 1080psf29.98 in your case, means progressive footage in an interlaced sequenz (you wont loose any quality).

to keep the specs in place, the most easy way would be using compressor-setting with 1080i29.98 – that means upper field first.

cheers

danny

[Daniel Ludwig]

john,
agree – it´s all about money 😉

if someone would like to go further just call eric or me – we can do the job for you…

cheers

danny

[Daniel Ludwig]

John,
there is a simple (freeware) one EasyBD, that could easily create muxed BDs, but you have no possibilty to create interactive menus or popup-features.

if you like to implement those features, and you don´t need mixed/multi-angle-features/BD-J then EasyBD Suite will be a good choice for you.

IF you need to go further, you choice would be EasyBD Studio or BD Author (full-spec-authoring)

cheers

danny

[Daniel Ludwig]

hi brain, hi nelson,
both workflows are “sub-optimal” -in other words NO GOOD.

the best way to start with encore is to encode your assets prior authoring!

if you both working on mac using FCP(7) you could encode your assets using compressor. it has a good setting for BD-spec-compliant H264-video.

alternatively you can use adobe media encoder using the h264 blu-ray-settings.

do NOT use MPEG4 presets, these are not BD-complient and your source will be transcoded again depending on encores project-transcoding-settings.

audio should be transcoded to AC3 and not AAC-audio, this is not BD-spec-complient.

be awared that your encore-project-transcoding-setting needs to be set to H264 and AC-3 (instead of PCM audio).

importing H264 will take a while, as encore creating meta-datas for the multiplexer while it´s importing the file.

let it keep on going – even if it will behave like it crash (spinning ball) – it will take quite a while.

note: menu-backgrounds (still- and motion-menus) will allways be transcoded to MPEG(HD), it doesn´t matter what input-file you´ll use.

cheers

danny

[Daniel Ludwig]

hi susan,
first of all – mac blu-ray-player wont play menus. there´s only one (tracing-tool) that could display menus – blustreak tracer from rivergate software.

https://rivergatesoftware.com/blustreaktracer

it could extend your programming, but you need to know movie-object-scripting (that´s the language behind your BD, while you are drag-and-drop within encore).

another question would be: how did you burn your BD? from within encore or on a seperate way?!

if you burned it using apple finder you´ll get the wrong media-format. BD-spec is UDF2.5 (universal disk format), so you need to burn it using encore or toast with the HD-extention.

cheers

danny

[Daniel Ludwig]

professional BD-authoring-applications no longer starting at 4k$.

look at BDEdit or EasyBD from DVD Logics, which cost 800 or 1200$

cheers

danny

[Daniel Ludwig]

it has nothing to do with encore – it´s the blu-ray spec! 1080p25 is not a part of it.

you can go 1080psf25 and encode it as 1080i50.

cheers

danny