Blu Ray - Odd Behavior

dtudela wrote on 3/29/2014, 6:29 PM
Hello. This is my first time posting on this forum although I have posted a few times on the Vegas Pro forum. I have successfully made quite a few DVDs over the last few years using Vegas Pro and DVD Architect and just finished my first Blu Ray disc. The disc played back beautifully and the video looks great. However, I discovered that when pushing the PAUSE and the SKIP forward/backwards buttons on the Blu Ray Player remote I get the message “Not Available” on the TV screen. The “play”, “stop” and “next buttons work O.K. I first suspected a faulty remote control. (New player installed just this week).

Troubleshooting steps as follows:

1. In DVD Architect 5.0 preview all the remote buttons function as expected.

2. The Blu Ray player remote buttons work as expected when I play a professional Blu Ray disc.

3. I then played DVDs (SD & HDV footage) I’ve authored and burned over the last few years. All remote buttons function perfectly—so I rule out a faulty remote.

4. I created 2 new projects, rendered, prepared and burned Blu Ray discs. The results were the same—non functioning buttons.

So, the problem is unique to my authored Blu Ray discs. Strange behavior indeed. I am at a loss as to what I should be looking at next.

My workflow -- Edit in VP 12; render using template for mpeg-2, blu-ray 1440x1080, 60i 25 Mbps video stream; Dolby Digital AC-3 pro; author using DVD Architect 5.0; prepare & burn.

I realize this is one of those odd problems but thought I would throw it out there in hopes someone may have some insight. I apologize for the long post but tried to offer as much info as possible as to my workflow in hopes it might offer a clue.

Thanks in advance
--Darrell

Comments

videoITguy wrote on 3/29/2014, 9:16 PM
Please read this:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=22&MessageID=887979
dtudela wrote on 3/29/2014, 10:31 PM
Thanks VideolTguy for the reference. That doesn't sound good. My video is a simple single movie with no whistles & bells & menus etc.. I could live without the skipping forward/backwards capability but the pause button for me is essential.

Is there a general consensus among forum participants for a good alternative Blu Ray authoring software? Since I have only used DVD Architect Pro I'm not thrilled about learning another software but can't deal with the status quo either.

I greatly appreciate your input.

--Darrell
PeterDuke wrote on 3/30/2014, 3:04 AM
The skip (fwd/back) function only fails with some Blu-ray players. My old Panasonic is one of them, but my new LG is not. My Dune media player also functions correctly.

I took to using TMPGEnc Authoring Works, which is affordable, but a bit clunky to use. It does not integrate nicely with Vegas output like DVD Arch does, requiring tedious setting of scene/chapter points. Now that I have a new player that works, I have gone back to DVD Arch to make BDs.

Another work around is to put all your scene buttons on the initial menu and have no sub-menus, but that may not be pretty if you have a lot of scenes.

Another plus for TAW is that it does not re-render HDV (MPEG2) files, unlike DVD Arch, so if you are into HDV you might bear that in mind.
dtudela wrote on 3/30/2014, 6:18 AM
Thanks Peter, good info to digest. Since there seems to be players that will work with DVD architect I probably will opt to buy a new player. The model I recently purchased through Amazon is a Samsung BD-5100 . . . works flawlessly with all DVDs and professional Blu Rays but not so with DVD arch.

Since you say your LG works for you would you mind sharing the model number?

Thanks
--Darrell
PeterDuke wrote on 3/30/2014, 6:08 PM
It is a 3D BD/DVD Player with TV video recorder, model HR936T. I actually bought it just for the recording function, because you can record TV to an NTFS USB disk as well as its internal HDD, making it easy to transfer videos to a computer. The 3D BD player was a bonus.

At the time this topic first surfaced, it seemed that Sony BD players tended to work properly, but subsequently someone claimed otherwise, so that may not be universally true.

I suggest that you take a troublesome BD that you have burnt to your favourite store and get a cooperative assistant to try it out for you on the model you like.

P.S.
I am reminded that I once did the same thing for a portable BD player to see if it would play DVDs at good resolution, unlike most of the junk that was available at the time. (It did!) The assistant first asked if the videos were pornographic, because someone had done that to her before. They weren't of course, but I was surprised at the cheek of some people who would do that.
dtudela wrote on 3/31/2014, 9:27 PM
Well, I broke down today and purchased TMPGEnc Authoring Works and created my first Blu Ray disc with it. It looks awesome and plays great on the same player that had issues with the disc authored in DVD-A. All the buttons on the remote work flawlessly. I am happy that I found an alternative, although I would prefer to use DVD-A if it worked. Hope Sony will consider fixing the bug in DVD-A.

Thanks to all that shared their knowledge . . . it's greatly appreciated

--Darrell

FrontierDK wrote on 4/17/2014, 4:08 PM
As far as I can read everywhere, there's no more work being done to DVD Architect. Even the new Vegas 13 is shipped with the old DVD Architect 6.0 build 237 - no patches, no fixes, no nothing.

My oppinion? Sony owns all their is about blu-ray, they also have DoStudio and Blu-print - so the knowledge and economy is there. But the will to do it certainly isn't :-/

I couldn't get my files to work either, so I scattered the new for quite some time and bought a cheap Scenarist BD 5.7.2 on Ebay - and the same mux'er is present in Scenarist BD, but in a newer version, and it doesn't have any of the same issues.
PeterDuke wrote on 4/17/2014, 8:30 PM
I wonder whether the BD Association has been tightening screws, trying to squeeze more money out of its product and/or reduce pirating. If we can't play or make our own BDs, we can't copy commercial discs. This could be a factor that contributes to the lack of will on the part of SCS and others.
videoITguy wrote on 4/17/2014, 9:34 PM
two different things entirely. Blu-ray as a distribution medium (from Hollywood as an example) is entirely the best path - but the market is changing ever more to the Netflix model and it really erodes development in the physical media market. So fewer manufactures producing equipment and the features on equipment are expanding faster for the media player idea and now.. to include the upcoming 4k model.
Burn-media is still a sought after model for testing Blu-ray independent production. That is the world of Do-Studio where professional authoring is headed. The hobbyist level at which SCS was largely with DVDAPro and even to some extent Adobe with earlier versions of Encore were maxed out on the returns of further development.