[Jonathan Harris]

Yes i am encoding just once – I was referring in the earlier email that i had tried each of those methods of compressing (one at a time) before burning the disc – the the option to recompress in encore or toast turned off in those specific test.
I am standing back from the monitor and the image is clearly pixelated and artifacts appear where there are non on the master footage. Even after adjusting for gamma the quality of the image is still unacceptable.
I am finding that people are stating similar quality acceptance as you are and I now wondering if i am just demanding Blu-ray to actually look like it should rather then accepting the obvious quality drop.

If anyone out there has thoughts please feel free to add to the post.
again i am currently trying to use FCP, Toast 9, CS4 Encore and LaCie external burner to create a HIGH QUALITY blu-ray disc. I am willing to try other compressor software but i am stuck with the burner.

thanks

[Jonathan Harris]

Thanks for the fast reply –

I have tried everything you are asking. Including dragging in an uncompressed file per export/ quicktime movie via FCP.
With Toast 9 – I tried using it to compress and create the disc resulting with the image being too dark and very pixelated.
per some suggestions on this and other forums i turned off the Toast 9 recompress feature and compressed using Compressor
or creating a master quicktime file of the project.
Again Really dark image on all monitors and very soft/pixelated image.
I also tried CS4 encore – using it to compress the material and also bringing in previously compressed material via compressor. Again each video results in a very dark contrast image and very noticeable loss of quality.
I have tried compressing 1080i 60 HDV to dvcpro, 422 apple pro res,H264, mpeg2 and other formats before bringing into either toast 9 or CS4 Encore to compress with them and Compressed those various formats in compressor and imported those files to Toast and Encore.
Each and every time the image quality is greatly reduced and the image is very dark.
The only image that looked okay thus far on blu-ray was an HD template included with Encore. I built one disc using the animated menu with a play button. The menu appeared fine but the footage was horrible. All the media I am working with looks amazing on my HD monitor when i view from my editbay or an HD quicktime via output from my DVI port into HDMI input on an HD lcd tv screen. I know its not the footage. In fact i have had to screen all HD material for one client off my laptop into their HD projector in order to screen their media since blu-ray is not producing disc the way it should. And again all this footage appear perfect in that output.

Can you possibly tell me the exact process you take your media through – included the specific settings in the compressor software you are using. i would love to try and replicate that process and see if i can then adjust the gamma per the other thread you mentioned.
Thanks
Thanks again for the help –

[Jonathan Harris]

Andrew –
I am also using the LaCie d2 CS4 and Toast 9 – not 10.
I have been very frustrated trying to create a work flow that produces sharp Blu-ray discs. The BD disc when playing back appear VERY dark like the contrast has been knocked up and the image is NOT close to the original HD material. I am shooting and capturing into FCP HDV 1080i 60
footage as well as DVCpro HD media. Currently i am simply trying to output an HDV project to bluray and each effort either compressing via Compressor, toast or Encore results in horrible looking media.
Can you possibly email/post your current work flow with this external burner, toast and cs4 so i can try and duplicate your process.
ANY ADVICE would be greatly appreciated as this has been a frustrating few days…

Best