Is there a better method?

Since you are doing "home videos for Bluray discs", I'd consider trying different authoring software. In particular, I'd suggest trying TMPGEnc's Authoring Works 6. https://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/taw6.html I believe they still have a 30 day trial. Since I don't do much authoring stuff anymore, I still use their older version 4 when needed. Although I have the latest versions of DVD Architect, I must admit they sit unused--partially because of their need to re-render for situations such as yours, but also because of its intractable (IMHO) user interface. Just a suggestion.

I don't recall seeing a hardware encoding scheme that claimed to output compliant AVCHD or HDV. Those are what the BluRay spec is written for.

Your saving grace might be in the mpeg-2 software encoder DVDA templates, though. It is plenty fast, as our Vegas proxies are built with it using a parallel format (XDCAM). If you want fast renders with BD compliance, that's probably going to be the best you get.

TMPEG is fine authoring software, and some choose it over Architect. But as far as turning hardware output into BD-ready assets, it still must transcode.

Thanks Musicvid and wwaag for your quick and helpful responses.

I'm not sure where i would look to see if Nvidia has an MPEG-2 or AVCHD rendering option but that certainly makes sense and i will explore that.

I did experiment with mpeg-2 rendering and you are correct it was a little faster than Sony avc (but not as fast as the mp4 w/Nvidia)

The TMPEG looks pretty interesting judging by their website but i understand it would still need to recompress mp4 files.

Many Bluray players can read other format types as "data" rather than an authored Bluray disc. I may try just copying an mp4 to Bluray disc and see if a Bluray player can play it. If not, and i need to stay with mpeg-2 or avc i may just return the Nvidia card and just use the Intel 630 graphics built into my processor as i had been

Thanks again,

Roger

I'm not sure where i would look to see if Nvidia has an MPEG-2 or AVCHD rendering option but that certainly makes sense and i will explore that.

You will not find an option.
Biggest reason is that you must, for the type of render you want, use very old codecs and rendertemplates.

I did experiment with mpeg-2 rendering and you are correct it was a little faster than Sony avc (but not as fast as the mp4 w/Nvidia)

This is the only one that can use a little bit GPU if available and that little is with the old and sometimes faulty CUDA that is not anymore present at newer Videocards for helping this kind of rendering.

So as long as you render to Blu Ray it is not possible to use your new video card. There was in VPro 15 already the option to render with the Magix codec and with me and the videocard from signature it renders with that NVENC option of Nvidia a 1 minute FHD 50 p files till such a default rendertemplate in 35 second, that's is almost 0,5 x realtime.
 

It's literally technologies from two generations looking for a common element -- I'm afraid the BluRay specs are pretty rigid.

As you suggested, an mp4 with chapters on a data disc may have to suffice, although you can't have menus. However, the "speed" advantage you are looking for only comes into play once per project, even when you are making a lot of discs.

Also, I'm sure you know that hardware encoding is not a quality-mediated choice. I find myself using mpeg-2 and x264 software codecs a lot lately. They really do play nicely with the newer generations of CPUs.

I am going to experiment with mp4 over the weekend.  I started to create a Bluray data disk using CDBurnerXP by adding a 9gb mp4 file and it gave me a 4gb max error so need to find away around that or do I need to keep each video file to <4g?

Start by encoding your file in Handbrake at RF22. That will reduce size.

Or use NTFS drives. They have no such limit. I don't know why your program seems to, but burning from Windows shouldn't be a problem.

I am going to experiment with mp4 over the weekend.  I started to create a Bluray data disk using CDBurnerXP by adding a 9gb mp4 file and it gave me a 4gb max error so need to find away around that or do I need to keep each video file to <4g?

The software telling you you need to keep each video under 4 gigs sounds like DVD, not Blu-Ray.

Make sure you have 2 things.

Blu-Ray disks, not DVD disks. I use BD-R

A burner capable of burning Blu-Ray disks.

Unfortunately, NVENC cannot produce blu-ray compliant files, so DVDA will force a re-encode no matter what if you use GPU rendering.

I am going to experiment with mp4 over the weekend.  I started to create a Bluray data disk using CDBurnerXP by adding a 9gb mp4 file and it gave me a 4gb max error so need to find away around that or do I need to keep each video file to <4g?

The software telling you you need to keep each video under 4 gigs sounds like DVD, not Blu-Ray.

Make sure you have 2 things.

Blu-Ray disks, not DVD disks. I use BD-R

A burner capable of burning Blu-Ray disks.

 

Turned out the disc format was set to ISO 9660/Joliet instead of UDF. Works fine now. I also tried burning from

Windows and that worked fine too.

Thanks Musicvid, and James-ollick

fr0sty, yes, that seems to be the bottom line (NVENC cannot produce blu-ray compliant files.)

Musicvid mentioned using chapters as an alternative to Bluray menus. I've never used that functionality before.

I am going to try that.

This forum has been a great experience. You all are very helpful.

Roger

.

@fr0sty  "Unfortunately, NVENC cannot produce blu-ray compliant files"

Haven't burned blu rays with Vegas yet.
Could you explain the disadvantages of NVENC a little more? Is it generally NVENC or just the specific implementation in Vegas?

In short.
NVENcC is a pretty new option and Blueray is old, with older codecs, and thatswhy Nvidia renderhelp is not capable to work with those older codecs.