>>The result will be much better video quality than I can now get off the DVDs authored in Movie Studio from my HDV cam tapes.<<

Yes, if you are authoring SD DVDs. No, it should be the same if you are authoring BD on DVD DVDs and are not recoding in MS.

Great. Thanks for the comments.

Seems like the best thing to do would be to wait for DVDA5 to come out and the user comments on this forum. Another month, maybe?

As for the hardware, I'm getting the impression that the PS3 does a good job of playing homemade blu-ray disks. A little pricier than a dedicated set top player, but maybe worth the extra money in terms of reliability. Or is that not right? Can anyone comment on that, or recommend a near bullet proof player?

Also, any recommendations on a burner as I'll be getting a new computer in the next couple of weeks?

Dave

I love my PS3 and believe me its built like a tank, Its a all around Home entertainment system in one ,Bluray movies, the ability to scan the internet from my HDTV, listen to my favorite music, Wireless access and of course the occational game or two, as far as keeping up with the latest updates and features to bluray players, sony provides up to date firmware at the click of a button....I do not have a bluray burner so I burn all my AVCHD content onto a regular DVD and watch it in glorious HD from my PS3...Well worth the investment, they start at 399.00 for the 40Gig ...

"I do not have a bluray burner so I burn all my AVCHD content onto a regular DVD and watch it in glorious HD from my PS3"

Well, the PS3 does not play BDMV structures from DVD, so you cannot use things like menus and so on, you have to navigate to the folder, and start the playback of the file manually.

For the ntsc world with 60 Hz, that is fine maybe - since the 60i footage is played out as 60i. But for the pal world 50i footage will be played as 60i, what does not make sense really.

So, if you wish to write a lot of BDMV-DVDs and BDMV-DVD-DL, the PS3 is not the best choice maybe.

So it is possible to write the BDMV structure to a bluray disk with a bluray burner and have that DVD play on the PS3? I am getting my bluray burner tonight and can't wait to try it out.

There are ways to write BDMV to regular DVD but requires other software to do so.

I have HV20.

In Vegas I render my footage using the mainconcept encoder 1440X1080. I customize this encoder and under system tab I check save as seperate elementary streams which creates a .mv2 video file and .mpa audio file since Bluray does not accept mpeg audio. The bitrate is set as constant at 25,000,000 bps. Then I separately render an audio file as .ac3. Then I open up tsmuxer tsMuxeR 1.8.4 and load the .mv2 file and the .ac3 file and select create bluray disk.

Then I run imgburn and burn the bluray file to DVD-R. Have to select physical disk type and UDF 2.5. I have only done this with one video, but seemed to play great on the PS3 and better quality than AVCHD. The downsize is no menus, but DVD-R plays as AVCHD disk in the PS3 without having to physically look for the video as a data disk.

Dave:

The Ulead MF6+ product still makes sense for now until DVDA5 is released.

From it's documentation:

Features

>HD DVDs on Standard DVD play on set-top HD DVD players, Xbox 360 HD DVD players, or standard PC DVD drives with appropriate software<

Does this actually mean on an HD DVD player (the defunct format player) as compared to a BR HD player???

"So it is possible to write the BDMV structure to a bluray disk with a bluray burner and have that DVD play on the PS3? I am getting my bluray burner tonight and can't wait to try it out."

What do you mean - you cannot burn to a "bluray disc" and "play that DVD" on the PS3. Either you have a BD, or you have a DVD.

a) you can generate an AVCHD-DVD - as suggested by Jeff. That is a 001-BDMV-structure burned to a DVD with a good old DVD writter - you do not need a BD-writter for such a disc. Be aware that such a disc cannot be generated by Vegas, but by Nero, Pinnacle Studio or Uleads Moviefactory 6+ with the HD-pack. Such an AVCHD-DVD will play fine on the PS3 too, but has some limitations in the menu structure (no animated menus)

b) you can burn a BD-R or BD-RE by using Vegas what generates a 002-BMDV strucutre - and such a BD will play fine on the PS3.

>

Yes.

For BD players the equivalent is creating an AVCHD disc on DVD media.

Also, HD-DVD players didn't quit working just because they are no longer produced. I am still producing a lot of HD for HD-DVD, although in another 2 years I would expect that to end if BD becomes the main HD distribution format. I would prefer thumb drives.

Wolfgang, in the question I asked about the ps3 I meant to say is it possible to author a bluray disk and have that bluray disk play in the PS3.

Is it posssible to author a Bluray disk with Ulead and have that BD play in the ps3? I don't want to convert my video to AVCHD as I notice a difference between AVCHD rendered video. Currently, I render my video from my HV20 using the mainconcept encoder and am pleased with the results.

In the trick I mentioned, I can take that main concept rendered video with .ac3 rendered sound , remux the audio and video together, and trick the PS3 to reading the DVD-R as an AVCHD which then plays in the PS3 immediately when inserted. The downside for me is that I would like to have menus.

Also, if I am understanding eveything correctly, the problem the PS3 has with reading BD-R is that the rendered video is marked as copy protected video when burnt onto BD-R. Thus it won't play in the PS3.
That way people can't make copies of their video games to play in the PS3.

There are other authoring programs out there that will author a BD-R that will play in the PS3 (like Roxio's high end authoring program and Scenerast.) and hopefully the DVD Architect 5.0 will do the same. It's a pitty that it is so difficult to author a BD-R of home videos just because I want menus.

So, let me see if I have this right.

1. Assuming I had the soon-to-be-released DVD-A5, I could author in Vegas, then burn a BD-R, and (probably) play it on PS3 with menus except for the copyright problem.
2. Without DVD-A5, right now, I would not be able to play a home made BD-R (without menus) on PS3 because of the copyright problem.
3. I could burn to a DVD and play it right now on PS3 with no copyrigth problems, but with no menus.

So, forgetting about the PS3 for the moment, if I had DVD-A5, would that allow me to play a BD-R on a set top player (not yet specified) with menus and without the copyright problem?

All my AVCHD DVD disc renders have HD Menu's, Its just not available from Vegas at this time, I use other Software (Pinnacle 12) which allows the ability to render the discs with HD Menu's for playback on a PS3 and other Bluray players, It starts up just like any normal DVD, No files to open from within the PS3.....

Warrior,

So, do you edit in Vegas and port over to Pinnacle for the render? Or do you work entirely within Pinnacle?

Pretty much working completely with pinnacle at the moment with my AVCHD projects, still waiting patiently for Architech 5 and the other updates for so I can start using vegas for my HD needs ....right now pinnacle works perfectly even though it does have its limits in certain areas....

" is it possible to author a bluray disk and have that bluray disk play in the PS3."

Sure it is possible to play a BD-R in the PS3 - the limitations mentioned here are valid for DVD-discs only.

And yes, there are tricks to prepare even DVDs like AVCHDs that they are read as an AVCHD-DVD. That works fine, even if I think that the better approach would be to use a blu ray writter and burn BD-R.

"2. Without DVD-A5, right now, I would not be able to play a home made BD-R (without menus) on PS3 because of the copyright problem."

I do not know what you mean by "copyright problem". You can burn BD-R from the timeline of Vegas 8b, and play self written BD-R on the PS3. The hardware - so the HDTV - should be hdcp ready, but that is it.

So, with the present DVD-A the workflow is fine except that there will be no menus. That is, the procedure of (1) VegasPro (2) BD-R burner (3) PS3 to HDTV won't require any other tricks. (Only BD-R production considered here, not DVD.)
And with the DVD-A soon to be released upgrade, the same workflow will include menus.


Wolfgang,

About 6 posts up, kitj0 asked the following question which is what I was referring to when I mentioned copy protection. Is this a problem playing homemade BD-R on the PS3?

kitj0's question:
"Also, if I am understanding eveything correctly, the problem the PS3 has with reading BD-R is that the rendered video is marked as copy protected video when burnt onto BD-R. Thus it won't play in the PS3. That way people can't make copies of their video games to play in the PS3."


Warrior,

You mentioned some limitations in Pinnacle. What would those be? Pinnacle claims that their $130 app can also do blu-ray which I assume means you can output to a blu-ray burner (without menus). Have you heard anything about the results?

"Also, if I am understanding eveything correctly, the problem the PS3 has with reading BD-R is that the rendered video is marked as copy protected video when burnt onto BD-R. Thus it won't play in the PS3. That way people can't make copies of their video games to play in the PS3."


I have never seen or heared from such an issue - but my video footage is camcorder material, I am no gamer. If you are able to writte a BD-R, the PS3 should be able to playback that disc.

Wolfgang,

Are you putting your camcorder material on BD-R with no problems?

Do your BD-R disks have menus?

How do you play your BD-R disks? Do you use PS3 or a set top player?

By limitations I mean you don't have as many built in features available in Vegas, Now as for Bluray Disc burning , Yes Pinnacle fully supports it, provided of course you have a bluray burner...It also allows you to insert Menu's in your Bluray projects , I don't burn bluray discs at the moment due to cost , waaaaaayyyy over priced , thats why I burn my footage via the ACVHD method on a regular 4.7 or 8.5 DVD disc, same picture quality in the end, down side of course is renders limited to less than an hour per disc.... But $300 for a burner and 10 to $15 per bluray disc is not worth it to me, I can buy 25 8.5 Dual Layer discs for the same price as 1 Bluray disc , so I will live with the hour limitation until the prices drop .....

Warrior,

By the way, I assume you can play your AVCHD/DVD disks on a standard DVD player or does it have to be a PS3 or bluray set top player?

I checked out the Pinnacle site, but can't tell what features their software has. I just need the basics:
Can you cut and arrange clips on a timeline?
Separate audio from video and slide them around independently?
Add titles on a separate track?
Add stills on a separate track?

"Are you putting your camcorder material on BD-R with no problems?"

Yes


"Do your BD-R disks have menus?"

Yes


"How do you play your BD-R disks? Do you use PS3 or a set top player?"

Samsung 1400


"By the way, I assume you can play your AVCHD/DVD disks on a standard DVD player or does it have to be a PS3 or bluray set top player?"

AVCHD-DVD can be played ba a Blu Ray player only - so both by the PS3 but also from most Blu Ray set top player, but not by a standard definition DVD player.


Pinnacle Studi does not have the captabilities that Vegas has - so I would wait for the DVDA5, what will bring extended Blu Ray capabilities.

No it has to be played in a PS3 or other bluray players, otherwise I have to render it to MPEG2 for regular DVD players and the quality suffers noticably.....Don't really want to push a different software maker on this forum, but a simple answer to your questions is yes with some limits compared to Vegas, Let me stress Vegas is far superior in abilities than the of the other brand...And when the Updates to Vegas are made available, the other software will quickly gather dust.....