I'll check the <18MBS issue.. Might help.


I can get them to play on my PC with Power DVD - I'll monitor the bit rate, and see what it looks like..

If you're looking for a 'media player' then probably the best out there is still the PS3. It plays a lot more than just Blu Ray. It'll do what you want.... and you can also stream to it. The long and short is that with the PS3 you have sort of a combination of a Blu Ray player and a Western digital Media player.

The downsides to it however is that there is no display panel, and although it will decode/playback DTS, DTS-HD...etc, you can not bitstream it to another decoder, (say... to the decoder in your receiver). It also does not support 7.1 sound. A dedicated Blu Ray player (depending of course on how much you want to spend on it) will have these things.... but then they don't playback what the PS3 can.

Be aware that Blu-ray content on DVD is not necessarily the same as an AVCHD disc. Players can be rather picky about the exact structure. For instance, DVDA cannot make an AVCHD disc unaided that will play on my Blu-ray player. I need to modify it slightly using AVCHD Patcher.

" . For instance, DVDA cannot make an AVCHD disc unaided that will play on my Blu-ray player. "

Which player is that ? It sounds like one that I don't want ... ( smile )

I think you are looking at it the wrong way. DVDA does not make AVCHD discs.

You can make a so-called BD5 disc which is Blu-ray on a 4.7 GB DVD, but that is just not quite the same as an an AVCHD disc. You may be able to find a player that will work with them, but most won't and many older Blu-ray players will not play AVCHD either. I seem to recall reading in this or the DVDA forum recently that someone was able to play the DVDA produced disc. Perhaps you could do a search.

"You can make a so-called BD5 disc which is Blu-ray on a 4.7 GB DVD, but that is just not quite the same as an an AVCHD disc."Oh, my! That very well may have been what I did some time ago to use DVDA to produce a DVD with HD content playable on my Samsung BDP1600. Which, of course, makes my post (#2 above) technically incorrect. Unfortunately, my memory is dim re: exactly what I did. Later today (or maybe tomorrow), I'll go through some testing and post the results.

...Jerry

what i'm having problems with is understand (in general) why anyone wants to burn a bd disk in the first place.

ok, for commercial release i understand, hell, i'd even make vhs copies if i'm getting paid for it!

for my own use? a $60 media player and and external hd. hdmi, surround sound according to budget, and no disk changing - my media player is on my home network, i can even stream movies from either my nas, or even m2t / avchd files on my editing system pc.

afaic, bd is a non-starter.

I for one have found it very useful to be able to burn to Blu-Ray format without owning a blu-ray burner or needing to buy more expensive blu-ray discs. As a cameraman, I often need to send out a demo reel, or bring something to show at a meeting. Though DvD players are everywhere, they just don't have the same punch and 'wow factor' of a blu-ray if I'm showing something shot in HD to a group on a large projector. I've also used the discs when I give seminar presentations for college film/video classes, since most modern media classrooms seem to have BD players built in to feed their large screen projectors.
I've created blu-ray compatible discs both straight from Vegas, and (with a menu) from DVDA. I normally choose the AVC option My home blu-ray player is a Sony BDP-BX57 and it handles both beautifully. When playing a Vegas-burned disc on a PS3, I need to select the file within the PS3, but then it plays fine.