Error: Making AVCHD Discs

Peter_Pan73 wrote on 12/26/2011, 4:59 PM
Hi everyone, hope someone can shed some light on this for me.

My issue is this: Vegas 11 Movie Studio isn't letting me burn AVCHD discs for some reason now.

I do not have a Blu Ray burner on my workstation. In the past anytime I wanted to make a HD quality disc for display on my HDTV, I would burn from the timeline as Blu Ray Disc using a regular DVD+R disc. My videos are always short and don't exceed the storage limits. Always in the 1920x1080 60i format. When I make AVCHD discs it produces HD/Blu Ray quality on a regular DVD Data Disc, which can be read and played on Sony Blu Ray Players which support AVCHD format.

I had no problems doing this in Sony Movie Studio 10 Production Suite but I have recently upgraded to Movie Studio 11 Production Suite. Now every time I try this I get an error which says, "Please place a writable Blu Ray into the drive and press OK to continue." This happens when I try to render image and burn to the drive while making an AVCHD disc. This is a pretty easy method of burning HD discs without actually using Blu Rays so I'm kind of befuddled. At first I thought well maybe it's the batch of DVD's I am using but I just opened another pack with the same results.

I really don't think it has anything to do with the template settings as I've burned hundreds of these before on most of the formats.

Does anyone know why this is happening or if it's affecting other users as well? Right now I'm considering it a bug in the software. I have the latest build (283) of the software as of today.

I also have all the latest drivers for my computer, HP Pavilion Slim Line Athlon Dual Core 64 bit, Windows 7. Not the greatest for long videos but most of mine are from 5 to 15 minutes in length.

Comments

vkmast wrote on 12/27/2011, 4:35 AM
Peter_P,
yes, you seem to be right. They probably did finally drop the AVCHD disc in build 283 altogether. It has not been 'officially supported' for a while though I gather.
One can only speculate on the reasons. Wouldn't count out the BD burner/player market.
I tried successfully the following workaround.
Movie Studio HD 11 Platinum build 283: when you use Tools / Burn Disc / Blu-ray disc, choose Render image only and make a note of the file path to find the .iso file later.
Take the file to the free ImgBurn software to burn the AVCHD disc (DVD).
Hope this works for you too.
alain38330 wrote on 12/27/2011, 9:53 AM
I am using VMS10 and never tried to burn DVD in HD mode (AVCHD) directly.
I will try that.

Meanwhile, this can help you short term:
what I was doing to create DVD AVCHD is:
- creating on the HDD the m2ts AVCHD file (format Sony AVCHD 16M/s)
- input this file to tsMuxer (free software) and ask for AVCHD disk creation.

TsMuxer is then creating the two folders required for an AVCHD disk.
No re-rendering, very quick, be carefull not to overpass 4.x Gigas.

You then have to burn these 2 folders at the root of a standard DVD
I do it with Windows 7 (64bits) burner.

Never try to create menus or fancy stuffs but the movie is HD and perfect.
vkmast wrote on 12/27/2011, 10:09 AM
VMS 10 HD Platinum is able to make the AVCHD disc, no problem there. It just asks for a writable disc, whereas VMS HD 11 build 283 asks for a Blu-ray disc, likePeter P says. The workaround I described works nicely with .m2ts files for me.
big daddy wrote on 12/27/2011, 12:15 PM
The removal of AVCHD production is a marketing decision made by Sony for the VMS11/DVD Architect bundled product line. More specifically it is DVD Architect builds 150 and later where DVD media are disallowed for bluray disc builds.

I removed build 150 and went to the previous DVDA build and the AVCHD or bluray on DVD media works just fine. If you are interested in using DVD media I suggest rolling back DVDA to build 120 (iirc) and you should be okay.
vkmast wrote on 12/27/2011, 1:41 PM
big daddy,
I believe by previous DVD A Studio build you mean build 128. I don't think either that build or VMS 11 Plat build 220 are at present any more to be found even in http://download.sonymediasoftware.com/current/ . So to roll back you need to have the original install discs or downloads as back-ups somewhere of course. If I remember correctly, VMS 11 first build (220) still allowed AVCHD discs. Personally I never updated DVD A Studio after b128.
Peter_Pan73 wrote on 12/27/2011, 1:54 PM
Thanks guys for the input. I know I can go outside of Vegas to burn the image if I have to but it would be more convenient if I could just do it within VMS.

I checked DVD Architect and I still have build 128. I also have VMS 10 Production Suite.

Anyhow this morning I went back to my older VMS 10 Platinum projects and they will burn AVCHD/Blu Ray to DVD with no problem!

Kind of sucks though knowing my latest projects in VMS 11 won't do that straight from within. Wonder if there's any chance Vegas will put that back into the software? It was a nice feature to have.
Peter_Pan73 wrote on 12/27/2011, 11:15 PM
Thanks again for the help guys. I'm just posting this for other people who might have the same issue. Would still prefer it housed in Vegas, but oh well.

I use Active Free ISO Burner to make AVCHD's now since Vegas 11 seems unable to do so. Just go to Tools, Burn Disc to Blu Ray, Render Image Only. The default settings (Sony AVC) appear to be fine for HD projects.

Load the .ISO image from the path you saved it into the below software to burn the AVCHD Disc (HD/Blu Ray Quality).

http://download.cnet.com/Active-ISO-Burner/3000-2646_4-10602452.html

There's the download....

I have the Sony BDP S580 Blu Ray/AVCHD/DVD player....has built in WIFI. Great player. You can load up .wmv and most digital media files and play them with a USB flash drive into the system so you don't waste burning DVD's BR's etc to see how they look on your HDTV. Has been a huge time saver and an asset to entertainment at home if you really like making your own stuff.

TOG62 wrote on 12/28/2011, 3:21 AM
I don't know that it would affect you, but some contributors reported that their Sony players would not play discs created by DVDA after they had their firmware updated. It might be wise to avoid doing this unless you have a pressing need.
big daddy wrote on 12/28/2011, 2:06 PM
I just tried an AVCHD-DVD5 disc in a PS3. The PS3 mounted it as a data disc not as a video disc thus I was not able to use the menu navigation from the PS3 player. I was able to dig thru the directories and find the top level menu items and play them as individual video streams. This is another datapoint confirming Sony players don't play nice with AVCHD discs authored by DVDA. The disc plays as a video disc (fully functioning menus) just fine in my LG BD player.

I assume projects authored by DVDA on to BD-R/E media will work in Sony players but now this has me wondering if that is the case.
Peter_Pan73 wrote on 12/28/2011, 11:16 PM
The menu problem hasn't been an issue for me as I've basically been burning 5-8 minute music videos to AVCHD DVD straight from the timeline without menus, chapter marks etc. I don't even go into DVD Architect when I make them.