SD video transfer to Blu-ray encode field settings

Erik_VDOGUY wrote on 8/3/2015, 6:00 PM
I'm transferring a wedding video shot in standard definition 4:3 to Blu-ray disc. I imported the DVcam edited master video into the computer and encoded to: 29.970 fps, 1920x1080 Upper field first, YUV, 16 Mbps
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.000, which is the default for Blu-ray in Vegas 12.
The problem I am having is seeing interlaced lines on the Blu-ray disc during scenes with more motion. I think this is showing up because the original SD footage is "lower field first" and Blu-ray in "upper field first". Is there a way to change settings so that the footage will look better? It only looks bad on fast moving scenes or pans.
The reason I am transferring to Blu-ray is because there was 2.5 hours of footage compressed on a regular DVD and I can use much less compression and have it look great on Blu-ray. I have several customers who would prefer transferring their weddings to blu-ray as well.
This upper field on Blu-ray and lower field on DVD is really messing with me.
Please help!
Thanks!

Comments

john_dennis wrote on 8/3/2015, 8:21 PM
Standard Definition interlaced video is a Supported Video Format for Blu-ray. There is no need to upscale to 1080 in software just to burn it to disk. Let the Blu-ray player do it for you.

Here is a Blu-ray render template that I customized for SD material that should pass through a DVD Architect Blu-ray project like a hot knife though butter. Put the template in:

C:\Users\your-username\AppData\Roaming\Sony\Render Templates\mpeg2-mc

and it will be available in Vegas Pro under the Mainconcept MPEG-2 render options for Blu-ray.
musicvid10 wrote on 8/3/2015, 8:51 PM
To build a bit on that excellent reply, upscaling SD does no good, and is not recommended.
Burn a SD Bluray, and let the hardware do the heavy lifting.
Erik_VDOGUY wrote on 8/3/2015, 9:29 PM
So what you are saying is take the clip which I captured as a 25gb .avi file from my DVcam, skip Vegas 12 altogether, and instead import into DVD Architect and let that burn to Blu-ray using your template?
Erik_VDOGUY wrote on 8/3/2015, 9:51 PM
I think I figured it out. I copied your template into Vegas and I'm encoding the file now. Then I import into Architect and make the Blu-ray from there. I'll let you know how it goes.
Thanks!
john_dennis wrote on 8/3/2015, 10:10 PM
Rendering out of Vegas Pro using the template allows you to have a higher bit rate than the DVD limitation.

As Musicvid said, you create a Blu-ray project in DVD Architect with SD pixel dimensions 720x480 (4:3 or 16:9). I haven't tested every Blu-ray player in the known universe, but all of mine work.

In the distant past I experienced disk rot with some of the DVD media that I used and I went back to the elementary streams and put lots of SD DVD material on Blu-ray media.

Now, If you could just get me to watch it...
mdindestin wrote on 8/5/2015, 7:22 PM
So higher bit rates plus hardware upres. Sounds good.

Is the difference in quality from the DVD template fairly dramatic?
john_dennis wrote on 8/5/2015, 7:57 PM
Since all my SD source is crap, the Blu-ray version is also crap. Because I've watched DVDs that I thought were beautiful, I suspect that a person with a very good SD source could maintain more of the original quality with a higher bit rate [I]up to a point[/I].

My experience is that the average MPEG-2 bit rate never approaches the DV bit rate if the encode is variable. That is no surprise because of the differences in encoding method.

17.6 mbps average for a high action swim video. The peak approached the target for this template, 25 mbps.

The primary reason I proposed this method is to avoid dealing with field order changes. It could be that using the standard DVD encoder at the maximum bit rate allowed (9.8 mbps) the video would be just fine.