The Magix AVC Blu-Ray 24p 1920x1080 25Mbps NV Encode.

Did you use the stock preset or did you make any changes to the bitrate? I did an encode recently that seemed to work ok. DVDA will force you to use the presets as is though, which sucks.

Stock preset with no changes.

I've been trying to create a Blu-Ray using the Blu-Ray 1920x1080-60i template, modified to use the NV Encoder. Does not work. It may be slower, but MainConcept has the advantage of working without DVD Architect saying it's going to re-compress the video.

DVDA's biggest flaw, other than not being directly integrated with Vegas Pro (as in, part of the program itself), is how hard it is on video. Being forced to use Vegas' stock render templates sucks, especially when you're trying to maximize quality with the available storage space. If they aren't going to directly integrate it with Vegas, at least offer a range of encode options (not presets) that we can use to adjust bitrate, and have a warning pop up when that strays outside of the Blu-Ray spec and DVDA will reject it. Nothing more annoying than spending hours on a complex project encode only to have DVDA reject it. It doesn't seem like anyone's touched the program in years... other than slapping a new version number on it, not much has changed that I can see. Maybe they added some templates I'll never use because I do my own graphics, but other than that, I can't see any new functionality.

DVDA's biggest flaw, other than not being directly integrated with Vegas Pro (as in, part of the program itself), is how hard it is on video. Being forced to use Vegas' stock render templates sucks, especially when you're trying to maximize quality with the available storage space. If they aren't going to directly integrate it with Vegas, at least offer a range of encode options (not presets) that we can use to adjust bitrate, and have a warning pop up when that strays outside of the Blu-Ray spec and DVDA will reject it. Nothing more annoying than spending hours on a complex project encode only to have DVDA reject it. It doesn't seem like anyone's touched the program in years... other than slapping a new version number on it, not much has changed that I can see. Maybe they added some templates I'll never use because I do my own graphics, but other than that, I can't see any new functionality.

The trick always is/was to render the audio separate using AC3 Pro, one of the many reasons I still use Sony's VP13. I have made my own MPEG2 templates in Vegas for DVDA, starting with a BluRay template and have no issue changing bitrate to improve quality. I use Vegasaur to render video and audio separate, together with other formats for internet and archiving.

But yes, DVDA hasn't changed for a very long time, I doubt it ever will. It does an excellent job in many cases, there have ben reported flaws like limited number of chapters, issues with 5.1 sound and maybe a few more.

If MAGIX ever upgrades it, I hope they implement the new BluRay spec for Full HD 1080 60p and 4K.

MPEG2 is a horrible choice to use for Blu-Ray, though, when we have the ability to fit more or higher quality video with AVC... I need to be able to have MP4/AVC that I can set the bitrate to, and I don't want to be forced to compress the audio, sometimes that is important for the bands I film to not compress their audio in any way.

As it is now, I either have to go with Sony AVC's 16mbps, or Magix AVC's 25, there's no above or in between. Anything else gets recompressed by DVDA. DVD I can use a bitrate calculator to determine the optimum VBR settings to get the highest quality with the available space.

An updated BD spec would be awesome.

MPEG2 is a horrible choice to use for Blu-Ray

I prefer it to the Sony AVC which I find a bit soft. MPEG2 also allows for higher bitrates, I usually go with 30 to 40. It also renders much faster on my system.