Blu-Ray Authoring Problems and Solutions I've Run Into

jawnlocke wrote on 5/4/2025, 1:22 PM

Hi, I've been making DVDs and Blu-Rays in DVD Architect the past few years and it's been a massive pain. I feel as though I've run into every issue I possibly can, so I figured I'd share some of my problems and solutions with you so you don't have to go through the trial and error I've had to. This is all for version 5.0, but may apply to other versions, who knows.

PROBLEM: Whole screen blinks when text is on screen.
CAUSE: Bit Rate is too low.
SOLUTION: Up the bit rate

PROBLEM: An unknown error occurred, ending your prepare and outputting nothing.
CAUSE: Most likely file format issue. It would get hung up on MP4 files when rendering but not MOV. Not sure why.
SOLUTION: Don't use MP4. Just output something like MOV and let DVD Architect compress it itself.

PROBLEM: DVD Architect attempt to find discs to write to when you press 'Make Blu-Ray" or "Make DVD". This causes it to freeze.
CAUSE: DVD Architect attempt to find discs to write to when you press 'Make Blu-Ray" or "Make DVD". If you have any drives/discs attached it may get overwhelmed, causing it to freeze.
SOLUTION: Unplug your drive/disc before preparing files.

PROBLEM: Everything outputted as black.
CAUSE: Memory issue. When opening about 6 or so files it uses up all the memory and outputs all menus and such as black. DVD Architect 5.0 can only use 2gb of RAM.
SOLUTION: Patch the .exe with the 4gb Patch from ntcore.com. This allows the program to use 4gb instead of 2gb. Bless mmediaman on the Vegas support forums. https://ntcore.com/4gb-patch/

PROBLEM: Videos outputting frozen on a single frame (the beginning one)
CAUSE: I believe a render issue. Tends to happen with videos that have very little movement in the first few frames so I'm guessing it just assumes the whole thing is like that.
SOLUTION: Delete them from the project and reimport. It should render them better. It helps to open them before rendering and scrub through a few frames first to load it into memory. I think. Might be placebo.

PROBLEM: Disc plays on PC but not on PS4.
CAUSE: This could be a file structure issue if you're not using a proper program, but should output fine if using DVD Architect. Is most likely a speed issue.
SOLUTION: Output at 4 instead of 6x for maximum compatibility. If this fails use the program IMGBurn to burn your disc with the prepared files from DVD Architect. But the BDMV and CERTIFICATE folders into the source. Click options tab and make File System UDF and UDF Revision 2.50. You can add stuff like Volume name and such in labels under UDF and other labels.

In short, this is how I made my Blu-Ray disc. 

INPUT: .MOV files encoded in H.264 with Linear PCM audio at relevant frame rate (23.976). 

DVD Architect rendered everything out to proper format (end result is m2ts files)
Bit rate 35 or something (this overkill as 25 bit should look just fine).
4gb patch from ntcore.com for increased memory.
Prepared folder from DVD Architect. 
Throw folders (not disc image) into IMGBurn under UDF 2.50 at 4x. 
Burn.
Test.
Done.

Hope this helps!

Comments

vkmast wrote on 5/5/2025, 7:59 AM

Re the ntcore.com 4gb patch, please see this related thread and also e.g. here.

vkmast wrote on 5/6/2025, 8:00 AM

Interested users please note also that you should be creating DVDA ready (compliant) files from Vegas.

(Mentioned shortly here in the "related thread" linked above.)

Jack S wrote on 5/6/2025, 8:59 AM

@jawnlocke An even simpler solution. Render to blu-ray compliant video and audio files in VEGAS Pro as @vkmast stated. Create your project in DVDAS. Create an ISO from the project. Burn the ISO to blu-ray using a third party burning application (not DVDAS) on a rewritable blu-ray. Proof view it, then burn it to a read only blu-ray at the lowest speed. I've been burning blu-rays for quite some time now and never had a problem using this method.

My system
Genshin Infinity Gaming PC
Motherboard Gigabyte H610M H: m-ATX w/, USB 3.2, 1 x M.2
Power Supply Corsair RM750X
Intel Core i7-13700K - 16-Core [8P @ 3.4GHz-5.4GHz / 8E @ 2.50GHz-4.20GHz]
30MB Cache + UHD Graphics, Ultimate OC Compatible
Case Fan 4 x CyberPowerPC Hyperloop 120mm ARGB & PWM Fan Kit
CPU Fan CyberPowerPC Master Liquid LITE 360 ARGB AIO Liquid Cooler, Ultimate OC Compatible
Memory 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5/5200MHz Corsair Vengeance RGB
MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB - Ray Tracing Technology, DX12, VR Ready, HDMI, DP
System drive 1TB WD Black SN770 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD - 5150MB/s Read & 4900MB/s Write
Storage 2 x 2TB Seagate BarraCuda SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 7200RPM
Windows 11 Home (x64)
Monitors
Generic Monitor (PHL 222V8) connected to GeForce RTX 4060 Ti
Generic Monitor (SAMSUNG) connected to iGPU

Camcorder
SONY Handycam HDR-XR550VE

cbrillow wrote on 6/21/2025, 3:16 PM

Wow, making my first visit here in two or three years, and am delighted to see a very recent thread on burning Blu-rays with DVD Architect. It's because I've just embarked upon a journey to update from one seriously-outdated optical disc format - DVD - to another - Blu-ray. Pretty sad, eh?

I'll have a couple of questions, and maybe some helpful information to share with others, eventually. (I hope...) Meanwhile, I need to read through the related thread mentioned here and see if anyone has already run into my issues and had them solved.

Fun reading some of the older posts and seen a lot of familiar names. Hope most of these old-timers are still around!

Disappearing down a rabbit hole for now, will be back with questions if I'm not seeing them pre-solved for me...

EricLNZ wrote on 6/21/2025, 8:06 PM

@cbrillow If you use compliant files, as recommended by many, you shouldn't have any problems.

cbrillow wrote on 6/21/2025, 9:32 PM

@cbrillow If you use compliant files, as recommended by many, you shouldn't have any problems.

Thanks for your comment. But that's kinda like saying all you have to do to hit a curve ball is to watch the way it's spinning and get your timing right... 😉

I just got my (external USB) Blu-ray drive on Thursday night and did the necessary fooling around to figure out how to get it working with DVDA 6. I've always had great success buring DVDs directly from DVDA, and was dismayed to see that it wouldn't even recognize this new drive.

Trying 'Make Blu-ray' caused a temporary hang, during which time it disconnected the drive from the USB port, and then reconnected it, saying that there was a problem with the device connected to the port. But at this point, I was able to create an ISO file and burn it with ImgBurn, BurnAware Premium, (a Giveaway-of-the-Day acquisition from 2018) and the trial version of Nero.

For a more comprehensive test, I loaded a very complicated dual-layer DVD project with five 25-minute TV programs, a B&W movie that could be played on its own or threaded into one of the TV show episodes via playlists, scene selection menus, menu transition videos, an Easter egg, alternate audio commentary tracks for 4 of the episodes, pictures in an Extras folder, etc. It was a widescreen DVD with the menu structure and the movie in16:9 and the 5 TV episodes in 4:3.

During the prep, it threw an error because Blu-rays don't support the Extras folder. After I removed that, it made the ISO, although it took a buttload of time, rendering all those mpg-2 files. Plus, that was on my 2013 computer. So I just let it run all night.

Couldn't burn it, but it played (sorta) ok in VLC. (No copyright protection, so it didn't need the decryption libraries that make VLC reluctant to play commercial Blu-ray content...

But I'm having very strange results trying to update the DVD project to a Blu-ray project, meaning using the original video components, many of which were restored and uprezzed to 1440 x 1080 at 59.97fps before being hacked down to mpeg for the DVD version.

I'm reading about what DVDA wants, and Vegas is providing some strange results, depending upon whether it's Sony, Magix or Main Concepts rendering the video. This explains the comment about it being easy, if you do it right...

After some more carefully-documented tests, I'll show you what I mean...