I'm trying to burn AVCHD video onto DVD-Rs. I can burn the identical content onto the identical discs with PowerDirector and they play fine. When I do the same thing with VMS or DVDA the discs burn without any error report, but won't play.

The specification says: "Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum software has everything you need to produce movies in spectacular high definition and burn to DVD or Blu-ray Disc". Perhaps I misunderstand, but this is a feature of many competitive programs.

Mike

I'm not the smartest HD guy but no one else is responding... Can/have you made SD DVDs with DVDA? Do they play in your BR player?
Jesse

I'm not the smartest HD guy but no one else is responding... Can/have you made SD DVDs with DVDA? Do they play in your BR player?
Thanks for your continued interest. Absolutely no problem there, I've made dozens of SD DVDs with DVDAS. I think the fact is that this program simply isn't capable of authoring AVCHD DVDs. I'll have to continue using PowerDirector unless or until this functionality is added to DVDAS.

Mike

Does your Panasonic BD player support AVCHD? I have no problem playing HD DVD on my Sony BD player made on vms 9 Make shure the player supports AVCHD. There is usually a Logo on the box.

As stated, my Panny plays AVCHD discs made with PowerDirector. What settings to you use to create your discs in VMS 9?

Mike

I just received my package today for Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 10.0

I have been using a Sony BDP-BX2 Blu-ray player connected via HDMI to an Emerson 32 inch 720p HDTV. I have been most curious about reported problems creating high definition AVCHD disks on conventional media in the new Studio version of DVDA 5.0. After installing, registering and looking around I created an auto-play Blu-ray disk project in DVD Architect Studio and imported a ten minute HDV .m2t file. In this new release SCS has allowed more flexibility in their disk creation templates and, in my opinion, has made it easier to make a balky or non-playable AVCHD disk. Rest assured though, after choosing the correct parameters DVDAS 5.0 made a beautiful AVCHD disk which played without problems on the Blu-ray player and on my PC using Media Player Classic Home Cinema edition.

That's the only thing I have done so far and, so far, I'm happy!

Oh yeah. It did occur to me that I should share my disk burning template.
When you get to the 'Make Blu-ray Disc' dialog window you will see a somewhat obscure button named 'Optimize....' Click it and the 'Optimize Disc' dialog window pops up. Select another button named 'Project Properties...' In the 'Project Properties' dialog window you can select most any of the listed items and some sort of selector mechanism will present itself. This was not intuitive for a relative noobie on Vegas like myself but once I caught on I realized the whole world could be changed from here!

You don't need to change the whole world but you definitely need to change the 'Target media size (GB)' to 4.70 for single-layer DVD and the 'Bit rate (Mbps)' because the default is 18 Mbps and is likely to stutter. The highest bitrate in the timeline burning on VMS9P was 16 Mbps so this seems odd to me. You can change the bit rate much higher, which might be appropriate for Blu-ray media but I set mine to just over 15 Mbps via the slider adjustment. The resultant disk looked beautiful to me!

Interesting that you have achieved a playable AVCHD disc where others have failed. Of course it may be due to a difference in the hardware and software players you're using.

Just to be sure, please expand on the project settings you used. I have obviously set the disc size and bitrate. Did you select AVC as the video format? What about aspect ratio and frame rate?

Thanks
Mike

I have made a number of DVDs that play HD on the blu-ray player. The short answer is to make a BD disk, but burn to DVD. Note that my first project did not play on my Samsung BD; it did play after firmware update to the player.
My projects are jpg slide-shows, perhaps with some video mixed in.
VMSP 10 project =
Template HD 1080-60i (1920 x 1080; 29.97 fps )
Width = 1920 Field order = upper first
Hgt = 1080 Pixel AR = 1.0 ( square )
Frame rate 29.97 fps
Render quality Best
Deinterlace none
Render to ::
save as = Sony AVC ( *.mp4, *.m2tx, *.avc )
file name = *.m2ts
template = AVCD 1920 x 1080-60i [ select the ‘=’ item to match your project ]

DVDA 5 project =
Disc format BD blue-ray
Media 4.7 gb
Video format MPEG-2
Bit rate 8 – 9 mbps [ -according to KenJ62 post, above, this can be increased to 15 Mbps or so]
Aspect ratio 16 : 9
Resolution 1920 x 1080
Frame rate 29.97 fps
Audio PCM stereo

The HD takes a l..o..n..g time to render in VMS. The *.m2ts files rendered in VMSP do not recompress in DVDA; make certain your material fits to DVD (about 50 mins). DVDs look great on BD; menus work as expected.
HTH,
Bob
edit: the *.m2ts files include the audio; no need for second render for audio.

Thanks for all the information. I appreciate your taking the time.

I've tried this and many other variations (apart from being PAL settings) but no dice.

I think this creates a Blu-ray format disc, not AVCHD format.

Cheers
Mike

I think this creates a Blu-ray format disc, not AVCHD format.

Then why does my Blu-ray player report DVD-R AVCHD?

There are minor differences in the folder structure but Blu-ray disks can be encoded with either an MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 bit stream. My player correctly recognizes AVCHD. Not sure what the implications are for PAL.

I will expand on my process.
File/New/Single Movie
Disc format: Blu-ray Disc
Project video format: AVC 1440x1080-60i, 16:9 (Note this is for an HDV source. You don't really want to mess with the pixel aspect ratio - leave it alone. If your source is 1920x1080 or PAL frame rate then select those)
Project audio format: PCM (Note that no AC-3 is available - an oversight which causes larger output files)
Load file(s)
Click 'Make Blu-ray Disc' button/Burn/Current project/Next
Optimize.../(Note the default video bit rate)/Project Properties
Adjust target media size
Adjust bit rate (15 Mbps seems like plenty for me)
Click OK/OK/Next
Select Burn Parameters/Speed: (I never burn at the rated speed of my DVDs. I burn 8X disks at 4X and 16X disks at 12 X - less returns that way)
Finish (my projects have been taking ~3X the project time with a Quad-core Q9400 @ 3.2 GHz)

To isolate problem, I would try to play the disk on a Sony BD player.

Well I have finally managed to make a fully compatible disc using multiAVCHD to process an m2ts file from VMS 10. I can't explain why DVDAS doesn't do this on my system, but it doesn't.

Mike

"Well I have finally managed to make a fully compatible disc using multiAVCHD to process an m2ts file from VMS 10. I can't explain why DVDAS doesn't do this on my system, but it doesn't."

It is good that you found the solution by yourself.

Indeed, the root problem is that DVDA can make HD on regular DVD discs (BD5) with the AVCHD format. HOWEVER, for reasons that only Sony can explain, these discs only play in PS3 or other Sony BlueRay players. These discs will not play on other brands as attested by innumerable tests at Best Buy. On the other hand, by massaging only the headers in multiAVCHD then the resulting conventional DVD discs with the HD content (BD5) will play in most other Blueray players. There are some Blueray players that even with the massage they reject the discs right away without reading the headers. Samsung and Insignia, for example, come to mind.

Since you have a Panasonic player, you must massage the DVDA header in multiAVCHD. You also say that you work in PAL. At that point I pass.

I just started using VMS10 and haven't burned a single disc. I switched from PowerDirector because it has it's limitations. I do like its ability to convert formats and burn to DVDs flawlessly. What about taking the finalized video in VMS (saved as a .avi), then import them into PD and burn to disc as a AVCHD?

Let me know what you find out.

Aaron

Hi KenJ62:

I see where you provided your DVDAS-5 parameters.

Can you provide your SVMS-10 render parameters as well? I too have HDV footage and I've been playing around with the render parameters to try to find the best HD output combination for the creation of and HD disk on DVD as you described.

Thanks!

Kim

I've gone round & round with this issue for a while now and although I agree with KenJ62's approach my experience has been that the final results depend on firmware in the Blu-Ray player that you use.

In my case my player is a PS3 game console. When it sees a DVD disk prepared the way KenJ62 suggests it treats it as a data disk, not a video disk. This means I can see all the various files on the disk and play the individual video files, but none of the menu or navigation structure works.

DVDAS itself does not have the ability to make AVCHD disks; its only options are for DVD or Blu-Ray. Consequently I have never tried to play a real AVCHD disk in my PS3, but my guess is the PS3 would not accept one as a video disk.

I've seen other posts from people with different Blu-Ray players. Some have success with AVCHD disks and some do not. One person said his player stopped accepting AVCHD disks after he did a firmware update.

It's a messy situation for sure.

Hi Kim,

Perhaps this is simplistic answer, but - it doesn't matter. Unless you want DVDAS5 to "smart render" the footage you would still select Blu-ray disk using the AVC codec. If you use HDV sources the bitrate will be ~25 Mbps and you will have to re-render, either in Vegas or DVDAS. Rendering at 15 Mbps in Vegas then DVDAS will likely not have to - kind of a toss up as to total time required.

I recommend rendering AVCHD to DVD disk at a bitrate of ~15 Mbps although with top rated media you may be able to go as high as 18 Mbps. Any faster and the red laser will not reliably read the disk. I don't think you could see the difference and no sense making a coaster. If you use HDV sources then leave the pixels at 1440x1080, otherwise use 1920x1080.

Regarding the Blu-ray compatibility issue, I have considered starting a new topic on this because we really need a dependable standard for playing HD content burned on conventional DVD media. I don't really care what is being burned or how, just as long as we can give a disk to family or friends who have even low cost Blu-ray players and have a reasonable expectation they will work.

My scientific wild guess is that we are the (sometimes) benefactors of the earlier adoption by BDA, Blu-ray Disk Assn, of the BD5/BD9 specification which, according to Wikipedia was never utilized because the retail prices of full Blu-ray pressed media rapidly dropped. The folder structure and the file naming convention are far more in line with real Blu-ray disks. The confusion comes in because full commercially pressed Blu-ray disks can have either mpeg-2 or mpeg-4, a la H.264/AVC which is named AVCHD. Clear as mud - I know!

Both these Blu-ray players play my AVCHD disks without any problems:
Sony BDP-BX2 firmware 11.1.002
LG BD270

My buddy on muvipix.com said his Blu-ray player quit playing his AVCHD disks after a recent on-line update:
Sony BDP-S370 firmware M03.R.623

However, he also said he burned an AVCHD to his HDD and then used the free utility AVCHD-patcher on the folder structure and then burned his disk - and then the disk played! You can check it out here:
http://muvipix.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=7969&p=71464#p71451

These problems need to be sorted out and resolved. Perhaps next week I will have the time to start a new topic.

-=Ken=-

Ken,

Just to clarify, my Sony BDP-S370 continued to play some AVCHD after the firmware update, but stopped playing the BD AVC Video on DVD authored in DVDA(S). Sony wanted me to exchange my player for something else since it's still under warranty, but I think I'll just keep it, unless the next firmware update clobbers my fixes with AVCHD-Patcher 1.06. There are only a few bytes in the index files that matter to my player.

Hey, my buddy Robert,

continued to play some AVCHD after the firmware update What 'other' AVCHD still plays? Perhaps you were referring to AVCHD made by other apps such as Magix? If so, do those disks have the /AVCHD/BDMV folder structure and the movie file have an 8.3 filename? That would be helpful to know.

I am slowly catching on - but I think Vegas creates a BD5 or BD9 disk. If that's true, and if BD5/9 is approved by the BDA, then it ought to be supported. Right?

Hey, my buddy Ken,

The only thing that makes a difference to my player as far as MEP vs DVDAS5 goes is the contents of the file "index.bdmv."

Both MEP and DVDAS5 have a file that is not 8.3: MovieObject.bdmv

The structures aren't exactly the same, but that doesn't make a difference, because all I need to do is fix index.bdmv that DVDAS5 burned, and the player plays the disc.

I just painstakingly copied the file/folder structure from my recent Blu-ray and AVCHD disks. They are identical!

The unfortunate confusion factor is in the terminology. We are NOT creating AVCHD disks in DVDAS5! We are creating Blu-ray disks using the high definition AVC/H.264 (AVCHD) "codec" on conventional red laser DVD media. It is properly known as BD5 and BD9 - which is different than an AVCHD "disk". An AVCHD disk has an altogether different file and folder structure (and is obsolete, as far as I care). It makes you wonder what the Blu-ray player is telling us when it identifies the disk as AVCHD. Who cares what codec was used to create the video!

You can create Blu-ray disks using either an mpeg-2 codec or an mpeg-4 codec (or the VC-1 codec, if anyone cares). The BD5/9 specification was adopted by the BDA but, as far as anyone knows, it has never been used to press commercial red laser disks with high definition information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#BD9_and_BD5

I hope this gets straightened out. I hope the industry retains support for BD5/9.
I still don't know what AVCHD-patcher does.

"Perhaps next week I will have the time to start a new topic"

Check the Doom9 forum. This subject has been covered ad nauseam there and they have tested all kinds of AVCHD patches and Blueray players. Look at their table of results.

The bottom line is that the only thing that needs to be edited is the index folder, which AVCHD patcher does. I have tested it and it works "mostly" but not universally.

There are a couple of Blueray players, Insignia and Funai come to mind, which do not even read the header or index in the BD5 DVD's but reject the discs right away for not being Blue Ray.

Thus, at this momente, there does not seem to be a universal and 100% compatible way of making BD5's even though they are clearly specified in the Blue Ray organization specs. Seems that Blueray player manufacturers have their own agenda or royalty avoidance schemes ...