my first Blu-ray actually burnt

megabit wrote on 12/14/2007, 2:51 AM

OK, so I have rendered a 1h:30mins HDV project using the 1440/24p template and burned it in my new Vaio's burner - first BD in my life! All wen well, and is playing fine...Except for this:

I'd like to stretch my projects, consisting of 1080/25PsF clips, so that - after changing the project settings from 25 to 24fps - the duration is unchanged (Bob has explained the method to do just that). However, I cannot seem to able to stretch the project as a whole (3 video and 2 audio tracks), even after having grouped everything! So I thought I'd try to nest the whole project into a new one, already 24fps - now the stretching works, but I'm loosing the 5.1 Dolby audio! I don't know why, but nesting the project only brings one audio track in (the original stereo, recorded with the camera mic); my Cinescore generated music which in original project I redirected into surround channels don't come through at all!

Why is that? In the original project, all is fine, i.e. I can pan the original audio to the front, and the generated music to the back speakers...

Comments

farss wrote on 12/14/2007, 4:31 AM

You can only strecth clips, not a whole project.
You could render out to a new file and strecth that or I suppose nesting would work as well.
For your audio problem try Enable Multichannel Mapping. I've not done this but it should enable what you want.

Personally I would have done the frame rate conversion on all the media to new files and edit those but I can see with HD where that could be a problem.

Pity that BD doesn't support 25p.

Bob.

megabit wrote on 12/14/2007, 4:45 AM

Thanks for your reply, Bob.

"Enable multichannel mapping" checkbox is only available when rendering, while I am opening the original .veg file inside a new, 24fps, DD 5.1 project - no chance to enable anything....I'm only getting a single stereo track.

Of course I can just render audio separately and insert it back to the nested project replacing its sound track - but I'm curious wheter a more straightforward method exists. Why do the other audio track disspear while nesting?

farss wrote on 12/14/2007, 5:12 AM

You're right, sorry.

Because nesting takes the output of one project into the project it's nested into. So one would think you could take the 5.1 output from a project into another however that would need to appear into a 5.1 track and Vegas doesn't do that as far as I know.

You could simply render to a multichannel audio file I think and bring that into the project with the nested video. Warning it will not sync, you'd have to adjust its playback speed.

Bob.

megabit wrote on 12/14/2007, 5:20 AM

Pity that BD doesn't support 25p
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Not just a pity, Bob, but a real PITA...

And a great mistery to me as well - how can Sony be pushing the BD specs without 25p support, and at the same time release new cameras (Z7E) which - as far as progressive is concerned - ONLY support 25p (both native and PsF) ?!!

PS. So what's the word - is your EX1 vignetting? C'mon, share some good news...I'm expecting mine next week!

Cheers,

Piotr

4eyes wrote on 12/14/2007, 1:00 PM

What is the frame rate of the videos in MXF format on the EX1 that are 60p.
Sorry if this is a dumb question, I don't see how you can render an mpeg2 file at 59.94 or 60fps in Pro 8a.
I can render a 1280x720 progressive @ 59.94 or 60, but not 1920x1080.
Or are they framerates of 29.97/30 with just progressive fielding.

megabit wrote on 12/14/2007, 1:23 PM

Only in 1280x720 do you get full 50/60 fps.
The 1920x1080 modes are either 50/60i, or 24/25/30p which means you only have 50/60 fields per second, or 24/25/30 frames per second. The same applies to the SP mode: 1440x1080, with the difference that you only get them interlaced (50/60i), plus 24PsF with pull-down removal within 60i.

The full 50/60p at 1920x1080 is still something we have to wait for.

farss wrote on 12/14/2007, 2:03 PM

Full HD (1920x1080) at 60p means a high data rate. Quite likely the sensor could do it but the SxS cards would maybe have to run in RAID I think.

Haven't tried to make the camera vignette as yet, had a post disaster to deal with yesterday and now I'm trying to get back on track. Did read part of the manual though. Camera has a feature that I haven't heard anything about, it'll do an overlay. You can select a frame from a vid in the card and overlay that in the viewfinder, perfect for CGI work etc. Only other camera that I know of that does that is the SI-2K, it'll do a key in the process but what you get in the EX1 is good enough. Only issue might be how to get video back into the SxS card.

Bob.

megabit wrote on 12/17/2007, 10:20 AM

I have some good news on the BD vs 25p dilemma. It turns out that even though BD specs do not list 25p, there is no problem at all authoring a BD disk with 25fps progressive stuff on it, and it plays OK as well!

I have only today tried it out on my new Sony Vaio laptop, which comes with a BD burner and a little authoring application, Click to DVD- BD. I was able to burn a nice disk (with menu), using a raw m2t clip from my V1E, shot in 1080/25PsF. The m2ts file created in the STREAM folder is seen by Vegas as 25fps interlaced, but plays just like the progressive original clip.

What's even better, there is no re-encoding whatsover involved!

I can't wait for my EX1 to check whether the HQ, native 25p will also be possible to burn on a BD disk - which might not be possible, as it's not 50i-compatible.

As to Vegas, unfortunately one cannot use the "Burn BD from timeline" functionality, as there is no 1080/25p template. But it's enough to render a 25psf project into m2t, add the menu within the Click to BD app, and burn a BD disk!

PS I have encoded a 25PsF clip into 1080/25p (i.e. "truly" progressive, not PsF) - and have burned a BD disk with it as well! Basing on this, there should be no problem with native 25p from the EX1 - so far so good.

My only concern is that this little authoring utility doesn't allow to put a separate AC3 audio stream - since rendering MPEG-2 in Vegas doesn't have an DD 5.1 template, it means one has to render audio separately and multiplex it with the m2t... Or is there another way?

megabit wrote on 12/17/2007, 12:04 PM

Click to DVD- BD is a smart little app; being from Sony it even recognizes markers as chapters!

If only I knew how to prepare a non-separate stream file, containing D 5.1 audio - no more 25->24p transcoding in order to burn BD...

And easy 25PsF (from the V1E) intercutting with the native 25p (from the EX1)!

4eyes wrote on 12/17/2007, 1:08 PM

As to Vegas, unfortunately one cannot use the "Burn BD from timeline" functionality, as there is no 1080/25p template. But it's enough to render a 25psf project into m2t, add the menu within the Click to BD app, and burn a BD disk!Make your own template, RenderAs BluRay 25MBS (mpeg2) 24fps template, edit to 25fps, rename the template & save (check your template settings and modify them as required to match your source videos, you do not need audio and elementary streams = yes).

Tools -Burn Blu-Ray disc change the "Video Format" (dropdown box) to Mpeg2 (the defaults are for avchd video), then select your custom template you made at the 25FPS Progressive. If your source & targets match the "Do not recompress" will be displayed in the preview window during rendering of the m2v video file So if your source video is 25MBS constant then modify the template to match your source along with the correct frame-rate & fielding.
Works for me.

I was in B&H this morning, they said the EX1 will not be on display until next month.

megabit wrote on 12/17/2007, 1:55 PM

Thanks a lot 4eyes!

Didn't realize the custom templates saved at the "Render as..." dialog, become accessible in the formats drop-down list at Burn BluRay disk! Makes sense...

And solves my problem!

megabit wrote on 12/18/2007, 12:06 PM

Further on the BD authoring thing :)

Does anyone have any hints on Sony's plans to incorporate full BD authoring into DVD Architect any time soon? Now that I have a BD burner, I'm becoming impatient - but wouldn't like to invest into some third party software, having 2 Vegas Pro 8 licences... And the utility Sony is bundling with the Vaio laptops is a very simple, if not primitive - you cannot author from separate audio and video tracks, only the full multiplexed transport stream... Since I cannot produce such a file containing DD 5.1 with "Render as ..." method, I tried to load the m2ts file (containing DD 5.1), produced with "Burn BD from timeline..." method, into this authoring app - but it's seen as containing regular sterero audio! Why is that, and what workaround could you suggest?

PS. It's not just this app that doesn't recognize DD 5.1 within an m2ts file; also Vegas itself - even though it has produced it as a DD 5.1 BD - see only stereo track when loading it back. Strange... It looks like it takes a fully-featured authoring application to make surround BDs (of course I could render my 5.1 audio separately, but as I said - there is no way to load an audio file along with video into this "Click to DVD-BD" application.

DGates wrote on 12/18/2007, 12:49 PM

Megabit,

You've given us plenty of technical info, but how does the BR disc LOOK on a TV? How much of a marked improvement over standard DVD?

megabit wrote on 12/18/2007, 1:58 PM

I thought it goes without saying :)

Seriously, the BD I burnt at 30 Mbps VBR looks in every inch the same as the raw HDV clips, played with a software MPG player - I wouldn't even think of comparing it to an SD DVD!

But why wouldn't it - as I said, no recompression was required, so my 1h:30mins worth of material has only undergone one rendering process in Vegas.

DGates wrote on 12/18/2007, 2:03 PM

Sounds sweet.

The best you could accomplish with standard DVD is 10 Mbps, and that bitrate might not play in some players because it's too high! =]