It gets confusing. If you made the "AVCHD disc" with Vegas you didn't actually make an AVCHD disc, you made a Blu-ray format on DVD-R disc with AVCHD compression. You can make what is called an "AVCHD disc" with Ulead Movie Factory Plus and the extra HD plugin pack and this format is actually different than the one that is used to make real Blu-ray discs on BD-R media. A disc that is made this way will have the same 15mbps data compression that is used in the Vegas Blu-ray disc template, but it will play immediately (with a menu if you make one) when it is inserted in a PS3 or any other Sony Blu-ray player.

This distinct "AVCHD disc" format was designed for Sony AVCHD consumer camcorders and is actually part of the Blu-ray specification, not a hack. Thus it is a pretty reliable format to distribute HD content cheaply.

Using this format you can put about 35 minutes of content on a single layer disc, 70 minutes on a dual layer. The video quality will be the same as what you saw on the disc you made if you used the default Vegas Blu-ray 15mbps AVCHD encode template.

You are not alone in confusing the formats. Pretty much everyone makes this mistake. Remember that this is not a format that is being marketed as a content delivery method. It is being marketed as a way for home users to view their home movies shot on consumer AVCHD camcorders. It is however, a very good looking format, and a very practical way to deliver content.

It gets even more confusing because some Blu-ray players will play the Blu-ray format burned onto regular DVD+-R just fine. As you've noticed though, the PS3 will not. An AVCHD disc as authored by Ulead MF6+ will play back consistantly on all the Sony Blu-ray players, whereas an AVCHD encoded Bluray format on DVD+-R will not.

I love the AVCHD format. It is very much like the 3x DVD format that many of us loved on the Toshiba HD DVD players. Until the price of BD-R media media drops substancially, I feel this is the most practical way for most of us to be distributing our HD projects.

Just to emphasize: an AVCHD disc is not at all the same thing as the AVCHD formatted Blu-ray disc that Vegas lets you author. If you want to burn your content to DVD+-R and have it play immediately when you put it in a Blu-ray player, you need to go outside of Vegas to do this.

Second, it is normal if you burn Blu-ray BDMV content on DVD disk.

Thanks MozartMan.... that's what I did... I think anyway. Ask me about authoring HD DVD and I can tell you anything... but I know jack squat about BD and I'm taking a crash course as I go :)

I used the "burn Blu Ray disk" option in Vegas to burn to standard dvd (PS3 auto start is on)

You can make what is called an "AVCHD disc" with Ulead Movie Factory Plus and the extra HD plugin pack and this format is actually different than the one that is used to make real Blu-ray discs on BD-R media. A disc that is made this way will have the same 15mbps data compression that is used in the Vegas Blu-ray disc template, but it will play immediately (with a menu if you make one) when it is inserted in a PS3 or any other Sony Blu-ray player

And THAT is what I'm looking for!

I have Ulead and I'll start playing with that one tomorrow. It's too bad that Vegas can't do it because it went pretty smoothly from the timeline right to the disk.

The AVCHD disc option that you need won't be available unless you get the HD plugin pack:

http://www.ulead.com/dmf/plugin.htm

Yeah... I've got that too. I also have Pinnacle studio which I will try as well but I don't like the way it handles AC3 which I use heavily.

I would like to do the AC3 work in Vegas though which of course will lead to some export complications... but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

When you export from Vegas for burning in Ulead, do you export as MPG, or something else?

It's a little tricky and it took me a while to figure out. You use the Sony AVC format.

What you have to do is start from the 15mbps Bluray template and select the "Custom..." tab to change the settings. From there, select the "System" tab and change it from "Video elementary stream (.avc)" to "MPEG2 transport stream (.mts).

Then select the "Audio" tab, check "include audio" and select your desired AC3 audio format which can be either stereo or 5.1 surround.

When you have done this, save it as an AVCHD disc authoring template using a name you'll remember. You might want to do one for stereo and one for surround.

When you render using this new template, Ulead MF6 plus and the HD plugin pack will use this render to create a proper AVCHD disc without any further rendering. The disc you create this way will immediately start playing in your PS3 with a DVD style menu if you include one. This is a whole lot better than having to step through the subdirectories of a data disc in order to play the raw media files!

You will also find that this AVCHD disc will play properly in virtually all the Sony Blu-ray players with up-to-date firmware. Some non-Sony decks, particularly the Samsung BDP 1200, will not recognize it, but that is their fault. This format is now a part of the official Blu-ray specification.

Thanks Laurence... MozartMan.... got it.

It was also a pretty painless process and contrary to what I said before about not being able to "smart render" AVCHD.... I appear to be dead stinking wrong. MF6 DOES appear to burn without re-encoding.

I mentioned in the "Vegas 64 coming in September" thread that people have nothing more than a "fear of the unknown" when it comes to Vista..... well.... a lesson learned for me on AVCHD!

Well Vegas still won't "smart-render" AVCHD, but you can definitely use the Vegas AVCHD m2ts render in MF6+ to create an AVCHD disc without the Ulead program rerendering it.

Let us know what you think of the format once you've played around with it a bit. I personally am a real AVCHD disc fan. The Ulead software is inexpensive and the hardware is stuff I already have. I can use my existing disc duplicator, Ty Yudon printable discs, Epson printer for labels, etc. The discs cost no more to make than regular SD DVDs.

As far as the look of the video, well the quality is the same as if you made a real BD-R using the Vegas AVCHD BD template. It really looks good. Maybe not quite as good as what I was getting with 25mbps mpeg2 and HD DVD compatible 3x DVDs, but very close.

Here's a hint: If you get Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra, you can play these AVCHD discs back on your PC as well (given you have a Core2 duo or better CPU). This is a pretty inexpensive way to check and demo your new AVCHD discs!

"Well Vegas still won't "smart-render" AVCHD, but you can definitely use the Vegas AVCHD m2ts render in MF6+ to create an AVCHD disc without the Ulead program rerendering it."

That is very right - and works well.

However, our latest tests have shown that the quality of the acutal AVC-Encoder is lower, compared to mepg2. In other words: you loose some quality with AVCHD-DVDs, compared to 002 BDMV-BD structures.

From that side, most of us will switch to BDs in the next year or so, I think.

Blink, "I appear to be dead stinking wrong. MF6 DOES appear to burn without re-encoding." gain a few points for openness and honesty ;-) Hopefully, the PS3 will win you over by performing as well as it does for most of us ;-)

However, our latest tests have shown that the quality of the acutal AVC-Encoder is lower, compared to mepg2. In other words: you loose some quality with AVCHD-DVDs, compared to 002 BDMV-BD structures

Especially compared to smart-rendered mpeg2! That is why of course so many of us liked HD DVD so much: because we could burn an HD DVD compatible project using smart-rendered mpeg2 onto regular DVD+-Rs.

None the less, you can still play a raw smart-rendered mpeg2 video off a data DVD or memory card. The only problem is that you are stuck with the 4GB FAT32 size limit.

The advantages of the AVCHD disc are you can have up to about 70 minutes continuous playback time, menus, and the disc will start playing immediately just like a real Blu-ray disc,

Well, you could also use BDMV-DVDs based on mpeg2-HD, and burn that on DVD-DL. Will result in 40 min playback time. The major disadvantage is, that most of the Blu Ray players are not able to playback 25 mbps from a DVD due to some loader restrictions (yes, the PS3 runs that material fine too, but not the other BD-players).

Given that, you can decide to produce BDMV-DVDs based on mpeg2-HD, if you use a PS3.

But what, if you wish to use Blu Ray Players? Ok, then you have to switch either to BD-Rs, or stay with 001 AVCHD-DVDs (what does not allow animated menues). Vegas produces 002-BDMV structures based on AVC too, and so does Uleads Moviefactory 6+ with the HDpackage. That can be burnde to DVDs (also to DVD-DLs). Even if the movie qulity is a little bit weaker compared with mpeg2-HD, you will be abel to use animated menus from Uleads Moviefactory 6+. And some Blu Ray Player play back 002-BDMV-DVDs based on AVC too, give the lower data rate.

I've used TSmuxeR to mux the elementary streams from Vegas (AVC Container & Dolby AC3 file). I load the elementary streams into TSRemux and out to a m2ts container.
The programs can load the AVC and AC3 elementary streams and remux them into TS containers, along with some options.
MF6 then reads the m2ts file output from TSRemux and again remuxes it onto the avchd or bdmv disk.
Works for me making avchd or bdmv disks using MF6+ without re-encoding the videos.
Read the doc's, 2 executable programs.
TSMuxeR

Laurence says: Let us know what you think of the format once you've played around with it a bit.

Well... I've done some playing and here are my observations:

Quality... I think that mpeg2 is a slightly better quality especially when fully smart rendered, but the difference is almost like splitting hairs. I have to put them side by side and VERY carefully look to see the difference and as far as I'm concerned, if it's that close then it's really not worth worrying about.

Convenience.... I think that HD DVD is easier to do mainly because there are not too many ways that it can be done so their aren't as many ways to screw up. With AVCHD (in combination with the PS3) is more difficult because there are many more ways to accomplish the task and therefore many more ways to screw up. It does provide much better flexibility than HD DVD and mpeg2 based HD disks. AVCHD also allows you greater volume on a disk and greater flexibility with the bit rate versus quality. I could only fit 40 minutes on a HD DVD which was kind of tight. The AVCHD disks allow me almost an hour which is what I was originally doing with SD DVD.

To cut a long story short.... I would have to say that the AVCHD disk wins out. They're more convenient, more flexible, and with almost an hour on a disk I see no urgency in running out and spending $400 on a Blu Ray burner. They suit my needs better than HD DVD can.

APIT Says:Hopefully, the PS3 will win you over by performing as well as it does for most of us

The PS3 is quite an impressive machine and actually does not look as "out of place" in my system rack as I thought. The setup was easy and after the initial installation, the game pad can get put away and the remote takes its place very well. It's also an extremely versatile and convenient machine... plugged it into the network and it instantly saw all the computers in the house and found all the image folders. Watched a movie on it last night and found the audio/video just as impressive as the Tosh A1 player..... And no..... it is NOT loud at all.

Over all I'm pleased, impressed, and it was well worth the money I paid. It clearly would have been a mistake to wait for the more expensive Panny BD50

In the end, I think there is only one thing I was NOT wrong about... IT'S STILL A GAME CONSOLE :)