I am no expert by any means. However, for what it is worth, the only solution that I have seen may be with DVDit Pro HD.

http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/dvdit/hd/overview.html

It is $500

I bought a BD burner a while back (which is why I'm on the HD DVD side at present! :)

Between a LG burner and DVDit pro I spent about $1200 and i blew about $250 in disk blanks. I tried Sony disks, Verbatim, and Fuji (SL only... the DL were too expensive)... and I didn't have a whole lot of luck! Granted I did not have a player and was reduced to running the disks down to Best Buy and trying them out in their floor models. I couldn't get any kind of reasonably playback on the computer (maybe that 's my video card... ATI1950) Couldn't get a thing going in the Sony players, or the PS3. The guy did state that their PS3 had not had the latest firmware updates which MAY have played a role in that failure... I don't know. I could get a playback in the Samsung machine but the image was blurry and quite jumpy. But after $250 in blank disks I had had enough and returned the burner.

This was about 6 or 8 months or so ago, and maybe things have advanced since then, but I'm not willing to waste any more money on it until somebody else proves it's working.

There is a guy on the Avid forums as well that has tried it and has basically come to the same conclusion. But the best thing is to do some reading on the DVDit forums.... there are some guys over there that certainly have more money to blow in playing around than I did!

blink

We understand from your repeated rants about Blu Ray that you have been burned (no pun intended) by this. That's OK. Can you imagine that someone would want to start a thread about Blu Ray burning software that doesn't include you ranting about your failures though?

Do you really think that any of what you posted has anything to do with the topic of the original poster? Well, there were two words that was relevant, "DVDit pro".

I understand that you are ticked off after spending a bit of cash on this, but do you really feel that you have to constantly butt into any thread that is just reasonably close to the topic of Blu Ray and rant about your misfortune? Do you not understand that your behavior is what is called trolling, and that you add nothing at all of value?

Do as I did when I ranted about you in another thread, when I realized it was a bad rant, I went in and deleted the post. Show us that you are a man, delete this rant, it is off topic, it is pointless and it is only meant to create noise.

Oh, and yes, I will delete this response to your rant when your rant is gone so that we can keep the thread on topic.

Terje,

I actually found his response helpful. It shed some light on what he has already tried and points me to another place to pick up some more information on the discussion. I too am thinking about purchasing a burner but do not know what to look for or what will work as of yet... so, telling me what hasn't worked so far is a good thing in my book.

j razz

Show us that you are a man, delete this rant, it is off topic, it is pointless and it is only meant to create noise.

Oh please Terje... grow up will you?

It wasn't a rant... it was pure statement of fact that answers the OP's question. What would you like me to state... that everything was rosey??

John,

A few months ago I purchased a Lacie d2 Blu-ray burner and Roxio's DVDit Pro HD software. I began experimenting with burning both SL and DL Blu-ray media. The SL Blu-ray media were Sony and the DL Blu-ray media were Panasonic. All of my disk authoring was done in DVDit Pro HD. In the final step of the authoring process, I save the project as a Blu-ray disk image. I then used Nero Ultimate 7 to burn the Blu-ray disk image to the Blu-ray media. I chose this path rather than burning in DVDit Pro HD because DVDit Pro HD will not yet handle DL burning to Blu-ray media. All of my Blu-ray created disk were played on my Sony BDP-S1 blu-ray player which has the latest firmware installed. All of the disks that I created (at least six) played fine with one exception. When I tried to play DL disks created at bit rates higher than about 18,000, I found that the video on the disk skipped from time to time. I lowered the bit rates to 18,000 and the DL Blu-ray disks played fine. In short, I found both the Lacie d2 Blu-ray burner and the DVDit Pro HD to perform as advertized. Incidentally, the drive in the Lacie d2 Blu-ray burner is actually a Matusihita drive although I cannot remember the exact model number.

I will say that the menus which can be done in DVDit pro HD are rather basic. They are not bad, just not especially elegant or fancy. In contrast, when I prepared HD DVD menus on RL disk in Uleads Movie Factory 6+, the motion menus are really quite nice.

I hope these comments help.

Tom

IFA 2007: Corel adds BDMV and AVCHD support to Ulead software:

World’s first DVD editing software to achieve certified support
by Stuart Miles

3 September 2007 10:00 GMT - Corel has announced its Ulead DVD MovieFactory and Ulead VideoStudio are the world’s first DVD editing and authoring applications to achieve certified support of both Blu-ray Disc Movie Video (BDMV) and Advanced Video Codec High Definition Standard (AVCHD) formats.

The announcement, which was made this week at IFA 2007 in Berlin, Germany, means users can produce DVD projects in BDMV, AVCHD or standard DVD formats.

Registered users of Ulead DVD MovieFactory 6 Plus can purchase an update which includes BDMV, AVCHD and HD DVD Advanced Content formats for £9.99 via Corel's website.

However Ulead VideoStudio 11 Plus users will be able to download an update that includes BDMV and AVCHD formats for free.

The update is available today in Japan while the English language version will be available in early September. German and French languages will follow in early October with Traditional Chinese scheduled for availability in mid October.

http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/9881/10905/corel-bdmv-avchd-ulead-software.phtml

Looks like cheap BDMV authoring coming.

Tnw2933, thanks, you save me some typing. Your results are about what mine was except that I noticed the PS3 handled higher bit rates. I think the encoder setting at +18000 are generating too many long/short GOPs for some players,trying to jam more data between display frames.

I find DL BDs great for Libraries, sharing HD and other materials between remote editors or "others", ---------- was using harddisks to move info between sites, but BD handles airport and transportation a lot easier.

But as Triw2933 stated, menus are very basic in PRO HD (being the first), which is the nature of a new market.

I have downloaded and installed the plugin for DVD Movie Factory 6+ which allows for authoring both Blu-ray and HD DVD disks as well as burning Blu-ray authored projects to red laser DVDs in the AVCHD format. The program could already burn HD DVD's to RL disks even before this new plug-in pack. I was quite excited to see this plug-in pack because it looked like it would obviate the need for the complicated work flow of having to use two different authoring software packages for Blu-ray and HD DVD authoring.

However, even after using the program for only a few hours, my excitement is moderated by the following observations:
(1) When burning Blu-ray content to RL disks, one can only employ the "create to disk" option. It is not possible to burn the Blu-ray content to a folder as it is for HD-DVD.
(2) AVCHD disks are limited to a bit rate maximum of 15,000 whereas Blu-ray content created for Blu-ray media can be as high as at least 25,000, although this is probably important only for video having very fast and frequent motion. Disks created at 25,000 might well not play on my BDP-S1 either.
(3) My first two attempts at creating Blu-ray content for RL disk as an AVCHD disk resulted in a blue screen of death on my Intel my dual core 2.67 GHz machine -- something that I have not ever had happen on this machine prior to this activity. It turned out that the BSOD indicated the file causing the problem to be an ASUS video card monitoring utility which I simply uninstalled and DVD Movie Factory 6+ then seemed to run OK. It is 83% of the way through creating and burning after some two hours. The BSOD's were occurring at the 1 min 25 sec point.
(4) This new plug-in for Movie Factory 6+ does not appear to support dual layer red laser disks -- a big disadvantage vs. burning in Nero 7 Ultimate which does support such disks. I will eventually try a DL RL disk with the new plugin, however, just to see what happens, but I am not optimistic.
(5) I still am unsure exactly how to get an HDV video file into Movie Factory 6+ such that MF6+ does not insist on recompressing the file before burning -- a very very slow process.

I am posting this here because of the clear interest in burning high definition media on to both Blu-ray and HD DVD media as well as burning both to RL disks. The Ulead/Corel DVD Movie Factory Forums is pretty much useless with no evidence of any support from the makers of this software. Messages to Ulead Tech Support are never answered.

I had truly hoped that Sony would release a version of DVD Architect with Vegas 8 that would allow the authoring of Blu-ray content on both Blu-ray media and RL media and I was deeply disappointed to see that more than a year after the release of the first Blu-ray DVD players, Sony Madison have, for whatever reason not yet incorporated this into their software which means I have had to look elsewhere.

Having purchased Final Cut Studio 2 and a Mac I am now hopeful that Apple will release DVD authoring software that will allow for the complete authoring of HD DVD and Blu-ray media, but so far that too, remians, an unfulfilled hope. Perhaps by Christmas, but I am not holding my breath.

Tom

John,
you've probably already found this but in case anyone else goes searching here, most of the answers are in the Knowledge base under Answer ID 2808. I'd post the link but it's very loooong.

Bob.

Farss--Bob, you know the rules, all-things Sony is evil and only AVS forums postings from HD DVD drones contain the truth! ;-) How could you reference a Knowledge Base fill with "lies" ? '-) For your punishment for this act------ go have a couple of cold ones and kick back! :-)

I have downloaded and installed the plugin for DVD Movie Factory 6+ which allows for authoring both Blu-ray and HD DVD disks as well as burning Blu-ray authored projects to red laser DVDs in the AVCHD format.I have also downloaded this new plugin.
(4) This new plug-in for Movie Factory 6+ does not appear to support dual layer red laser disks -- a big disadvantage vs. burning in Nero 7 Ultimate which does support such disksMy selections read AVCHD 1.4G / 2.6G / 4.7G / 8.5G
(2) AVCHD disks are limited to a bit rate maximum of 15,000 whereas Blu-ray content created for Blu-ray media can be as high as at least 25,000, although this is probably important only for video having very fast and frequent motion. Disks created at 25,000 might well not play on my BDP-S1 either.My plugin for AVCHD is maximum bit rate 18000kbs, Blu-ray media HD-Mpeg2 is 60000kbs maximum bit-rate
The Ulead/Corel DVD Movie Factory Forums is pretty much useless There are professionals and knowledgeable persons in every forum. They don't always have the time to answer all the posts or frequent the forum.

4eyes,

Can you make menu with DVD Movie Factory 6+ after installing that plug-in when authoring BDMV for Blu-ray?

I need to burn HD discs of at least two to four hours in length
=================
John,

Why not use multiple discs? Cheaper and easier. Do the customers actually care one way or the other?

John

Mozartman,
I have just recently installed this update, thus my experience with this add-on pack is somewhat limited but I these are my results so far.

Yes, I'm am able to make a BDMV menu disk with this software (chapters & motion menus).
When starting out you select either BDAV or BDMV. Depends if you start from the launcher screen or directly access the editing screen. It you don't have a BD Disk Burner you start the program with no disks in any of the burners for this option to appear,depends.

I create a BDMV harddisk structure of the blu-ray disk. No option for ISO file. I guess you could use Nero to burn the BDMV structure to BD ( using UDF 2.6 custom physical partition, this works for the AVCHD disks I create in nero or MF) I do this since I don't have a Blu-Ray Disc Burner for BDMV disk. Not sure if I would trust MF writing to a $20.00 BD, nero seems to always work.

I do all my editing in the Sony software, insert the hdv.m2t file, set my project settings to exactly match my source video settings except for the audio which I change to 5.1@448kbs.
In the rendering stage my version only says converting audio, never converting video (unless you edit or trim the video).

Problem for many is the trial doesn't have any of these options, you would need to buy the software (MF6+, plus - not standard, install, then download & install patch 2 (important update), then buy the highdef burning add-on pack $20.00). I haven't installed the program in Vista yet, only xp, if you do render the video or re-encode it the program does make use of a quad-core cpu. Personnally I don't recommend the software to many because it's manuals and help system are basic & vague. The software doesn't always install properly, depends on your computer setup I guess. The software isn't even close to being as stable as my experience with the Sony Media Software.

Personnally I would suggest an OS backup before installing something new and a program that installs some new services that run TSR. Especially if you are use to the stability of Sony Software.

Pinnacle Studio 11 also has red laser BDMV capability now, and traditionally speaking, you have more options, menus, transitions...etc than Ulead (you get to pay more for it though).

I have NOOO idea how well it works since I have done very little in the way of blu ray burning these days. But you can probably get some reliability info on there forums.

4eyes,

Thank you for correcting some possible errors in my post above. While I did note that the possible AVCHD selections are AVCHD 1.4, 2.6. 4.7 and 8.5G, implying that DL disks are supported, I have not yet actually tried to burn a DL disk with this plugin. It remains to be seen (unless you have done it) whether the plugin correctly changes to the second layer without causing a glitch. Somewhere in the Help (F1) section of the program I found a listing of all disk types supported and DL was not mentioned as a supported disk type. That is why I am uncertain whether the plugin actually supports 8.5G RL disks. I hope you are right as this significantly enhances the value of the plugin if it supports DL RL media.

I thought that I saw that my AVCHD disk was limited to a maximum bit rate of 15K, but thanks for correcting me on this. I have not found that Blu-ray media created in DVDit Pro HD at bit rates above 18,000 will play back without stuttering on my Sony BDP-S! player so I did not even check the plugin closely to see the maximum bit rate for the software to create Blu-ray media.

There may well be professionals and knowledgeable people in the DVD Movie Factory Forum as you suggest, but if so they are quite silent. When I purchased and began using DVD Movie Factory 6+ several months ago, I posted several questions which were either not answered or for which the answers proved to be incorrect. I even point blank asked the question if Ulead technical support ever responded on the Forum and was told by a responder "no". Perhaps I should have stated more precisely that for me the DVD Movie Factory Forum had proven useless.

Tom

I didn't know the Ulead Movie Factory 6 Plus HD plugin pack with the AVCHD authoring capability was available yet. I've been waiting for it and it's already out! For anyone else who is interested, you can find it http://www.ulead.com/dmf/plugin.htmhere.[/link]

Tom,
One would think that tech support would be active in the forum. Exactly the opposite, you will only receive answers from other users. I also noticed the majority of users are still using SD cams and only a few are using HighDef. MF6+ first release was buggy, couldn't even insert TS formatted video exported from Vegas or VMS, always had to be PS format (more un-necessary conversions). Didn't encode correctly either, I shelved it until some patches were released. Latest patch fixes many previous problems. Maybe activity on their forum will increase now that the program appears to be working better.

As far as H264 encoding goes, I've found that depending how much motion is in the video you can use a relatively low bit-rate and get excellent results. I was under the impression that the H264 codec could produce same quality hd-mpeg2 at lower bit-rates, so far with the disks I've made this does appear to be true & I like being able to retain the fielded information without de-interlacing hassles. So H264 on a compatible player as a final format can produce some great video at lower bit-rates, I wouldn't worry about going over 15MBS, you will most likely want to drop the bit-rate lower unless your using ultra high quality like James Bond Movie.

Vegas uses 15MBS as the default, I've found that 15MBS would be used on some pretty good quality source video. Depending on your target of clients I would definitely try lower bit-rates because AVCHD can still look fine at 1440x1080@8MBS. I also make SD 720x480 or 720x576 H264 of the HD videos encoded at 2-4MBS, the video look fine for simple viewing. I'm also getting purple blochs in my h264 encodes in Vegas, encoding from HDV video (HC3 cam).

I'm taking a guess here, but that DVDit Pro software that says BDMV on red-laser looks to me like it's fooling the Sony players into thinking it's a AVCHD disk to bypass the players firmware BDMV detection. Then in the streams folder under the BDMV folder the program is multi-plexing hd-mpeg2 video instead of h264 in the .m2ts transport container. Both formats use the same transport container .m2ts . I realized this when someone posted that the disks created by DVDit Pro would only play on some players & PlayStation3 being one that didn't work. The PS3 shows it as a data disk while the other players display the disk as an AVCHD disk. I have made these disks and they wouldn't play in my PS3 with the same results. I bet they would play in some of the other Sony players.

You can manually create these BDMV disks without chapters by replacing the h264 files with mpeg2 files in the streams folder that resides under the BDMV root folder & burning the disk as physical partition UDF only 2.5 or 2.6. Only IF the DVDit Pro BDMV red-laser disks play in your player.

One thing I see in MF already is yes you can burn a DL dvd, but have to do this in MF. Iso & image folder options are greyed out. Never liked that program burning my disks, cannot change the BookType either. For AVCHD my options to create harddisk folders is greyed out.

When burning disks in MF6+ in the disk burning screen click on the lower left "I" Icon to display drive burning options, drop the burn speed down for more reliable burning if your forced to use MF6+ to burn, The "MAX" setting isn't reliable.

Did anybody try HDV with Movie Factory 6+ HD plugin pack?

Yes, captured in Vegas, added music, exported to .m2t file (smart-render off).
Insert into other prog, no re-compression for hd-dvd etc.

Bye, Off to the Giant's / Eagles game, the real world of video..... LIVE!

4eyes,

Thanks for all the detail in your latest post. This is very helpful to me in creating Blu-ray media on RL disks and in using MF6+ in general. With one exception I agree with all of your comments and they mirror exactly my own experience with this program. Like you, I found it a real nuisance to have to transcode .mt2 files before placing them into MF6+ and I am delighted to see that the new plug-in has made this unnecessary.

I am not doing any of this for clients, just as a hobby. I do have a Sony VPL-VW100 LOCOS projector displaying on a 96 in. diagonal Stewart StudioTek 1.30 screen which produces a truly splendidly sharp and detailed image as a full 1080p LOCOS projection system so quality is important to me even on my own little video projects.

Your info on h254 encoding bit rates is quite helpful. Thanks for posting that. With my own Blu-ray media (both that created on Blu-ray media and on RL disks) I really cannot see any difference in the quality of a disk encoded at 25K and one encoded at 15K possibly because the material I am watching is high resolution scanned images from film with the only motion being that from zooming and panning the images. I also created one video project (HDV shot with my FX1) on Blu-ray at 25K and on RL at 18K and I could see no difference in my home theater between the two disks. Both looked very very nice indeed.

I think you are correct on your assumptions about how DVDit Pro HD is creating blu-ray media on RL disks by fooling the players into believing they are seeing an AVCHD disk. I know my Sony BDP-S1 says "AVCHD disk" after loading one of these RL blu-ray media disks created in DVDit Pro HD.

It is great to know that with the new plug-in we can burn dual layer blu-ray media on DL RL disks. I had not yet had a chance to try this so your feedback is helpful there as well. I don't like the fact that one cannot burn an image file to a folder with MF6+ in the AVCHD mode and that all such options are grayed out, but I did discover that if an error occurs when the program has finished preparing the project and is starting to burn, you at least do not have to start over and go through all of the project preparation again like you had to do before this latest plug-in. I discovered this when I tried to reduce the speed of my internal DVD burner to 8X from its maximum and got a burn error. I simply put a new disk in and let it burn at maximum speed and it picked up right at the burn stage and did not have to re-prepare the project (which had taken almost two hours). Be careful therefore if you use the option in MF6+ to reduce your burn speed from the drive's maximum speed. That did not work for me.

Thanks again for all of your interesting and helpful information.

Tom