Blu Ray to Standard DVD-R, Yes You Can

papaterry33 wrote on 6/25/2010, 2:35 PM

Since there seems to be quite a bit of uncertainty on this subject I thought I'd simply report my success with putting Blu Ray content on standard DVD discs.

With DVDA I am burning 20+ minute Blu Ray movies with menus, incl Scene Selection, etc, on Taiyo Yuden DVD-R discs for about 30 cents apiece and playing beautifully on Sony BD S370 (180 bucks). My Panasonic players would not play them and my sons PS3 treat them as a data disc and will play the files in the folder when you open the BDMV> Stream folder & click em.

In Vegas Pro 9, render settings I use:
MainConcept mpeg2 > produces an .m2v file.
Template: BluRay 1920x1080-60i 25mbs.
Separate Audio Render: Dolby Digital Digital AC3 Pro.

The 30 cent disc looks and sounds as good as the 3 dollar BR disc and I don't need to wait til I have a large enough project to fill up the 25gig disc & "get my monies worth."

So.... with this software and the right blu ray player you can put your short BR movies on standard DVD with great result and save the "big disc" for the big project.

For what it's worth,

Terry

Added Note, 12 AM, June 26:
Please be warned of a very disappointing revelation about the Sony BD s370 that I have praised above in my original post. As soon as you perform the "Network Update" your player will no longer recognize your Blu Ray DVD! That's progress, yes? The update you were waiting for. This was confirmed by the store owner where I purchased the player, as he played my disc one minute, did the update and witnessed the loss of function for himself.
He exchanged a new one for my "updated" one and I have a decision to make as I learned tonight that the update is required for the streaming of movies, etc! Shall I keep the player and forget about those features? It sure is a great player and does what I bought it for. I probably will keep it unless someone out there can point me to another one that can take its place, that plays the BR DVDs. I know the Oppo 83 is reported to do this, but $500? And it lacks the streaming feature as well.

I'm listening.
Thanks,
Terry

Comments

Rob Franks wrote on 6/25/2010, 2:43 PM

If you use the Sony AVC (h.264) codec you can get 30 minutes on a disk.

Laurence wrote on 6/25/2010, 4:21 PM

There is a format called an "AVCHD disk" which will play back on Sony and some other Blu-Ray players. It won't play back on other players like my Philips Blu-Ray player however. As far as I can see, this whole thing is a lot like the old SVCD format which was popular when DVD-Rs were $10 a piece, but has sort of faded into oblivion as the prices of DVD+-R media has fallen. I expect the same thing to happen with Bluray and HD formats that are written to DVD+-R media. It is an interim solution, but not something that will be used much in a few years as BD-R prices fall as they are bound to.

farss wrote on 6/25/2010, 4:35 PM

" It is an interim solution, but not something that will be used much in a few years as BD-R prices fall as they are bound to. "

I wouldn't be so certain of that. Many of the consummer Sony cameras now work with a USB DVD burner to make those disks. You don't even need a PC, just plug burner into camera, edit in camera and burn your HD content to a disk that plays. So far no complaints from anyone that the disks will not play in any BD player.

We rent these out as a package and the're quite popular.

Bob.

Sebaz wrote on 6/25/2010, 6:47 PM

Anybody who wants to do this has to be sure that they don't use DVDA to author these discs, unless you plan on having only Sony Blu-ray players for as long as the format exists. If you want them to be able to play on most players, you have to use MultiAVCHD (free program) and either author them there, or run the BD structure through it to make it AVCHD compatible. I know this because I have tons of BD5s and BD9s that I can play in my old Sony Blu-Ray player but not in my newer Panasonic, unless they are authored as AVCHD. The BD5 (and I assume neither does BD9) authoring mode of DVDA doesn't work with Panasonic.

papaterry33 wrote on 6/25/2010, 11:40 PM

Added Note, 12 AM, June 26:
Please be warned of a very disappointing revelation about the Sony BD s370 that I have praised above in my original post. As soon as you perform the "Network Update" your player will no longer recognize your Blu Ray DVD! That's progress, yes? The update you were waiting for. This was confirmed by the store owner where I purchased the player, as he played my disc one minute, did the update and witnessed the loss of function for himself.
He exchanged a new one for my "updated" one and I have a decision to make as I learned tonight that the update is required for the streaming of movies, etc! Shall I keep the player and forget about those features? It sure is a great player and does what I bought it for. I probably will keep it unless someone out there can point me to another one that can take its place, that plays the BR DVDs. I know the Oppo 83 is reported to do this, but $500? And it lacks the streaming feature as well.

Rob,
What template are you using along with the Sony AVC option?
Any trouble with your chapter markers not being properly saved with the file?

Terry

PeterDuke wrote on 7/1/2010, 2:47 AM

I read somewhere that AVCHD discs (DVD medium) should be limited to about 18Mbps for good compatability due to the limitations of the DVD spec. What do others think?

LJA wrote on 7/1/2010, 6:55 AM

Yes, I limit mine at 19Mbps to allow for 18Mbps video and some room for audio. My Sony BDP-S300 won't play smoothly disks recorded at much higher rate. I haven't tested to see at exactly what rate it fails; however I know it fails badly at 25Mbps.

TeetimeNC wrote on 7/1/2010, 7:31 AM

>Anybody who wants to do this has to be sure that they don't use DVDA to author these discs, unless you plan on having only Sony Blu-ray players for as long as the format exists

Sebaz, I render Blu-Ray to DVD-R using DVDA and play them on on my LG BD390 without problem. I have also taken these to Best Buy and a friends house and they did play fine on other players, although I don't remember now what brand they were.

/jerry

R0cky wrote on 7/1/2010, 8:01 AM

I use DVDA to burn them to DVD+Rs and they play fine in my Denon player - which incidentally will not play AVCHD bluray on DVD+R, haven't tested it with BD-R yet.

However, if I use PowerDVD to play them on my PC the menus are defective - no images and only one button (invisible) works. If you push the button it will play however. PowerDVD plays them fine if on BD-R.

On a related topic, for curiosity's sake I tried burning a standard DVD file structure to a CD-R and it plays fine on the computer but none of my 5 DVD players will play it.

john_dennis wrote on 7/1/2010, 5:34 PM

"As soon as you perform the "Network Update" your player will no longer recognize your Blu Ray DVD! "

I recently had exactly the opposite results with DVD Architect authored HD on DVD-5 (BDMV, DVD-R) with my daughter's Samsung BD player. All my disks played after the network firmware update where they didn't play prior to the update.

My Sony S-550 still works but I'm at least one update behind.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 7/1/2010, 7:18 PM

> Many of the consumer Sony cameras now work with a USB DVD burner to make those disks. You don't even need a PC, just plug burner into camera, edit in camera and burn your HD content to a disk that plays. So far no complaints from anyone that the disks will not play in any BD player.

So let me be the first to complain. ;-) I have a Sony VRD-MC5 which will make AVCHD discs directly from my Sony CX-12 camera without any PC but the discs won't play on my Samsung BD-P1400 Blu-ray player.

I'm convinced this Samsung is the biggest piece of junk I have ever has the displeasure to have owned. It takes longer to boot up than my PC and on some Blu-ray discs it goes into some kind of mode that takes forever before the first menu comes up. I have the latest firmware. I think I'm going to get a Sony Blu-ray player. Maybe the S370 mentioned here or the S470.

~jr

amendegw wrote on 7/2/2010, 4:58 AM

@JohnnyRoy: "So let me be the first to complain. ;-) I have a Sony VRD-MC5 which will make AVCHD discs directly from my Sony CX-12 camera without any PC but the discs won't play on my Samsung BD-P1400 Blu-ray player"I have a Samsung BD-P1600 and have been unsuccessfully burning AVCHD disks using DVDA. However, those produced using Nero or Cyberlink appear to play just fine. Is the problem Samsung or DVDA? I'd like to know.

Edit: Just to be perfectly clear, I'm referring to AVCHD on standard DVDs (not BluRay disks).

...Jerry

Tom Pauncz wrote on 7/2/2010, 11:26 AM

JR,
I have the S360 in my edit suite to play BD discs and have not had any issues with it all. The price wasn't bad either. :-)

I think I paid ~$C150 around last Xmas. And it does play BD content burned to DVD-R..

Tom

Melachrino wrote on 7/3/2010, 12:50 PM

I concur.
I bought the Sony S360 a while back after verifying that it played my BD5 flawlessly, with menus, chapters, music, etc. in full HD. I author my BD5's in DVDA 5. I edit in Vegas Pro 9.
Another forum has instructions on how to massage the BD5's to be compatible with other (not all) BlueRay players using Imgburn. But, since it does not provide 100% compatibility, I have warned family and friends to get a Sony S360 or similar BlueRay player to retaing compatibility. Maybe when blue ray discs become affordable at about 50c apiece then it will be another story ....

Rob Franks wrote on 7/3/2010, 5:49 PM

"I have the S360 in my edit suite to play BD discs and have not had any issues with it all. The price wasn't bad either. :-)"

Not sure if this is fact or fiction... (heard it third hand) but from what I understand Samsung issued a firmware upgrade that kills avchd disk playback. IF it's true then I would hazard to guess it's a licensing issue.

By far the best Blu Ray player from conception to date is the PS3. Boots up in seconds, plays a wide array of media, you can stream to it.... the list goes on. With the PS3 out there I fail to understand why anybody would buy something else.

My only complaints with it is the fact that it's some what restricted in terms of analog I/O's and it can't do DTS-HD (7.1)

pascualjr wrote on 7/4/2010, 12:26 AM

I have absolutely no problems with my Samsung BD-P1500 blu-ray player playing AVCHD content burned onto DVD -R using DVDA 5 with full menus. The player has been updated to the latest firmware. I also have no problems playing the same discs on the BD-1590 & BD-1600.