(This comment assumes your video is coming from Premier Pro and not Vegas)

Your premier pro project should be in AVC (h.264), have the frame rate of 23.976 progressive (because 25p may not be in the blu ray standard, only 25i), same resolution and bit rate as your source material (1920x1080 max), with a bit rate that can fit on the blu ray. You could use a bitrate calculator for this but most will give above the maximum burnable bit rate for a BD-R as above 21Mb/s. If you can use higher, choose 21Mb/s as a constant bit rate in premier pro.

Here's some more in depth settings if you have only a h.264 option with no preset for blu ray in premier pro:

AVC (blu ray AVC if available)

1920x1080

Profile: High

Entropy coding: CABAC

Frame rate: 23.976 progressive

1.0 pixel aspect ratio

Bit rate depends, but a max of 21Mb/s CBR. If you use VBR, DVDA will most likely ask to re-compress. Avoid that.

1 Slice

Audio: Choose AC-3 if possible but others that you can use to re-compress to AC-3 in DVDA are AAC, Wav and PCM.

Re-compressing audio in DVDA is much more acceptable than re-compressing video.

You don't need to split the audio and video if both are compatible with DVDA and the blu ray standard. If you can't choose AC-3, Wav or PCM audio, you can render your output's audio into one of those with another program if premier pro can't render to that only. If DVDA can't re-compress your audio for some reason you'd have to either use premier pro to render a compatible audio file like Wav, AAC or PCM audio (only, no video) and then you'd have to manually replace the audio stream in DVDA by double clicking the video thumbnail, right click the audio in the time line and replace. Make sure it's the same length.

Your blu ray project on DVDA should be the same resolution, frame rate and bit rate as your rendered video from premier pro. Although you can only choose constant bit rate on DVDA. Also, DVDA's 25 fps option is interlaced, so I'd suggest choosing 23.976 progressive no matter if it's 25p in the source material.

In DVDA go to File > properties > select blu ray disc, 25.00 (unless you are using BD-r 50GB), choose AVC, the bit rate listed here will primarily be for the menus and re-compression (which you want to avoid doing) but leave that the same unless you are planning on re-compressing with DVDA - which in that case you should set this to your bit rate you got from a calculator (21Mb/s max), 16:9 (unless your project is in 4:3), 1920x1080, 23.976 progressive. For audio choose AC-3 stereo and perhaps 256Kb/s unless you have space issues. I'd suggest going higher to 320Kb/s but any more may risk compatibility issues with some players. 192Kb/s should be your minimum.

Hi teagan

Thank you for explaining. In premiere pro I edited in 24fps and h264.

What is the difference between between 23.976p and 24p.

Which do you think I should use to render as in vegas?

My audio is pcm so that's ok.

Thank you so much for your help

Kristina

I'm looking for my blu ray discs to play in UK so needs to be pal or all regions?

Some programs say 24p, for shorthand, but mean 23.976p, but sometimes they actually mean 24p for cinema. They are not the same, but sometimes people call either of those 24p, however technically incorrect.

This seems to be done across the whole video industry by pros and beginners alike.

There is not really anything to worry about since DVD architect will accept both.

I'd aim for 23.976 as it's the industry standard but you could use 24p if you'd like, however I've never tried it.

To be safe go ahead and change your project properties in DVDA in File > Properties and select 23.976 as the video. If you can render the disc without it asking to recompress, you have 24p and not 23.976p. If that's the case I'd simply change the project properties to 24p to avoid re-compression.

But ideally I'd want to know for sure without doing that, so I'd use a program like Media Info to right click my file and see exactly which frame rate is being used.

I'm looking for my blu ray discs to play in UK so needs to be pal or all regions?

DVD architect is unique where it allows you to set the disc as region free. Always use region free for blu rays, there is no reason to region lock your discs unless you are selling commercially and want more money.

To my knowledge all blu ray players in the world can play any region free disc but it is different for DVDs since a PAL DVD player can't read a NTSC formatted disc. 25i vs 29.97i are the reasons for DVDs being region locked. Also most dvd players are region locked at the firmware level. But there are region free dvd players available, however more expensive.

Blu ray players are somewhat different as a PAL blu ray player can play a region free and PAL formatted disc but an NTSC player can play NTSC and region free. The only restriction is that a region locked blu ray can't be played in both.

Hi

Thank you I used media info and it says my mp4 is 25fps.

So shall I render it as avc 1920x1080 23976p?

Then open it in dvd architect as avc 1920x1080 23976p.

Thank you

Kristina

Hi

Thank you I used media info and it says my mp4 is 25fps.

So shall I render it as avc 1920x1080 23976p?

Then open it in dvd architect as avc 1920x1080 23976p.

Thank you

Kristina

Yes, you should re render it as 1920x1080 23.976p as DVD architect's re-rendering is usually not good for quality.

And also yes, that would be good project settings for DVDA.

I'd also suggest CBR. constant bit rate, and not using VBR, as I do not believe DVDA supports VBR.

Make sure your bit rate does not make your project go above the maximum size of your disc size, which is probably around 23GB. DVDA shows this at the bottom right. I'd suggest a calculator like http://dvd-hq.info/bitrate_calculator.php#Calculator and use the average bit rate it shows there, and use CBR for that. If it's higher than the maximum you can burn 21Mb/s, just use 21Mb/s.

Thank you so much. So it doesn't matter my mp4 is 25fps. Render it as 23.976p is fine yes? I have also set the bit rate to the highest so it hopefully fills more of the 25gb blu ray disc. Is that ok?

Thank you

Kristina

Yes. It's ok to render your source that is 25fps to 23.976.

DVDA can't burn anything higher than 21Mb/s as that is a physical limitation of burning on a blu ray laser (it might actually be the reflectivity of BD-r compared to pressed). Anything higher will either not burn correctly, force a re-compression or have major issues if you manage to burn it.

The only way to get above 21Mb/s CBR is to use professional pressing machines that make the disc with pressure and not burning.

That's ok it's not higher than that.

Thank you for all your help

Kristina

Hi

It's me again again sorry

I've got 3 chapters per page. Is there a way I can get them to show up one after another instead of all 3 appearing at the same time?

Thank you

Kristina

If you mean having only 1 per page you could remake the scene selection menu to only show 1 per page (or cut, paste to other pages, however longer this way). To do this go to the main menu and delete your scene selection and then right click your main video on the main menu and "Add scene selection" and choose "1" per page.

If you mean having fancy animations to have the three pop up one at a time, DVDA does not support such advanced features.

Hi teagan

No i still want 3 per chapter page however I would like each of the chapter links to show up after one another.

E.g on the same chapter page I have 'the engagement' 'getting ready' and 'nervously waiting'

I want the engagement chapter to show and then after 10 seconds getting ready to show and then after 10 seconds nervously waiting to show.

Is it something to do with loop point? How many loop points can I have on 1 timeline?

Thank you

Kristina

Actually it seems you can do what you want to do, however I can not find a way to create more than 1 loop point.

After you have set the menu loop point (click on menu background of scene selection, General, loop point timer) you can choose the first thumbnail/text and go to "transformations" and then "show before loop point" and change that to yes. That one will show immediately. After the time of the loop point is over it will show the other thumbnails if they are set to not show before loop point. Everything shown then will persist to show after the menu length is over.

From what I can see you can only have 1 loop point, so this will only hide all but one thumbnail for that loop point time, and then the other one(s) will show up after that point. You can't only have one show and then when the loop point is over, show one more, etc over and over. It's one then all of them. Or two then all of them. Depends on which ones show before the loop point.

Hi

Does anyone know if I make an iso image of my project from dvd architect can I put it on to a usb memory stick?

Thank you

Kristina

You can make the Thumbnails show up any time you want, but not in DVDA. If you watch Commercial DVDs, most of the backgrounds and thumbnails are made as a MPG file. Only the actual button functions are created in the authoring program. So if you want your thumbnails to stagger in appearance, create an mpg file with graphics and fade them in when you want. The problem will be though, that the actual button functions cannot be staggered so you would might have buttons showing that don't function until you make them all active.

Loop points are okay to use, but you can create a separate menu that has all buttons visible and functional and link to that menu at the end of your fading menu. Then loop points are not used.

Hi

Does anyone know if I make an iso image of my project from dvd architect can I put it on to a usb memory stick?

Thank you

Kristina

Yes you can but it won't open on a blu ray player. The only thing you can do with that is either burn it on another PC or right click it and open it with Windows Explorer to mount it and then you can play it in blu ray reading software like VLC or Cyberlink PowerDVD. Note it will only work in VLC if you did not use any encryption when making the blu ray. When you're done with it go to My PC and right click the imaginary blu ray drive and Eject the iso.

Thank you

If I just put the USB stick directly into the tv will it work?

Thank you

Kristina

Thank you

If I just put the USB stick directly into the tv will it work?

Thank you

Kristina

Not at all. The TV will read nothing but an ISO file it can't open.

What was your original delivery method for this project? For it to work on a TV you will either need to burn the ISO to a BD-r (or BD-R DL if it's more than about 23GB, those are expensive discs) to play it in a blu ray player or render the project(s) to MP4 AVC/AAC files and those should play on your TV from a USB drive without problems. Using the MP4 method doesn't use DVD architect in any way.

Hi

What is the difference between sony avc and mainconcept mpeg 2? As when I render in sony avc it gives me a small file size even though I customised the template to the highest bitrate. Will both avc and mpeg give me a m2ts file?

Thank you

Kristina

Sony AVC blu ray is AVC/h.264 while Mainconcept MPEG-2 is mpeg-2.

They are both within the blu ray standard but the file size on MPEG-2 is HUGE compared to AVC, so it is not used anymore except for legacy reasons. For blu ray please ignore MPEG-2 at all times.

Both will be rendered by DVDA into an m2ts file in the end of the rendering process.

Ok thanks

I will use AVC

Kristina