Trying to author my first BRD's...?'s

[planetweckesser]

That's cool to know. One thought that did hit me as I started playing here. If I take a m2t file that is compressed via mpg to about 8gb per hour of video and convert it to a bluray compatible file with a bitrate betweent 20000 and 30000 aren't we monkeying around with another layer of compression? Does Sorenson uncompress it like the HQ codec and then recompress it to a bigger file. The numbers are just funky to me going from an 8gb hour file to one that is even bigger.

With the min 20, target 24 and max 30 bitrates how much time will fit on a single layer blu ray disc. My short form productions are generally under one hour but then the full versions of the edit are usually 1.5 to over 2 hours. It would be nice to put all of it on one BluRay. I was thinking of encoding the full versions of edits at a lower bit rate so I could put everything on one disc. Is this a bad idea?

If you ever get tired of responding via email would be possible to just call you sometime and get all the answers handled quickly? Otherwise this is a good way to document all this information for others in the future.

Phillip

I am getting about an hour per 11-12 GB - on one single layer blu-ray disc I have been able to squeeze two hours. I have always been using the same bitrate as the raw .m2t files coming out of the Sony HDV camera. My philosophy is that if one is going to the trouble of going HD then we should try to tweak the format for the best quality - watching commercial movies on the PS3 I will check the bitrate and it averages around 25,000 and goes higher during action sequences. Maybe I am wrong and someone else please correct me - but using a bitrate that translates out to 8 GB/hour is on the low side and quality could be compromised depending on the type of material you are shooting.

[shueardm]

Although the Edius upside down files are surely on topic and it would be nice to have a solution.

Yes, I'd really like to talk about what is the go there but no-one is commenting.

[pjsssss]

Although the Edius upside down files are surely on topic and it would be nice to have a solution.

[Philip]

We're pushing the limits aren't we? Talking about how to do things in Sorenson?

That thought crossed my mind...that's why asked if it would be better to turn this into a phone call or even a PM. Much of this information could easily be applied to procoder or PCE settings as well though.

:-)

[Philip]

Ok - I just restarted Sorenson Beta 5.0 and had a popup tell me there was an update - installed it - lo and behold - 5.0 now recognizes .m2t files!!! I am now in the process of encoding to blu-ray specs to see if the file works in DVDit Pro HD without reencoding. The Canopus HQ avi files are still upside down though.

That's cool to know. One thought that did hit me as I started playing here. If I take a m2t file that is compressed via mpg to about 8gb per hour of video and convert it to a bluray compatible file with a bitrate betweent 20000 and 30000 aren't we monkeying around with another layer of compression? Does Sorenson uncompress it like the HQ codec and then recompress it to a bigger file. The numbers are just funky to me going from an 8gb hour file to one that is even bigger.

With the min 20, target 24 and max 30 bitrates how much time will fit on a single layer blu ray disc. My short form productions are generally under one hour but then the full versions of the edit are usually 1.5 to over 2 hours. It would be nice to put all of it on one BluRay. I was thinking of encoding the full versions of edits at a lower bit rate so I could put everything on one disc. Is this a bad idea?

If you ever get tired of responding via email would be possible to just call you sometime and get all the answers handled quickly? Otherwise this is a good way to document all this information for others in the future.

[shueardm]

We're pushing the limits aren't we? Talking about how to do things in Sorenson?

[planetweckesser]

I hope they get it right in the 5.0 version - the beta I have will not accept .mpg nor .m2t so I can't test out my files with it.

Ok - I just restarted Sorenson Beta 5.0 and had a popup tell me there was an update - installed it - lo and behold - 5.0 now recognizes .m2t files!!! I am now in the process of encoding to blu-ray specs to see if the file works in DVDit Pro HD without reencoding. The Canopus HQ avi files are still upside down though.

[planetweckesser]

OK.....so I'm setting up a few presets in Sorenson. I noticed a field called Format Constraints. There is a Blu-ray Disc (SD) and a Blu-ray Disc (HD) setting. Does it matter what this fields is set to as long as all the other settings are correct. When you change this setting it completely changes all the encoding settings around to small screen sizes but high bit rates.

Set it to Blu-ray Disc (HD) - the other setting is for putting SD material on a blu-ray disc - hence the smaller screen sizes - also - when I change it to Blu-ray Disc (SD) on my system it resets to bitrates more like SD - DVD's.

[Philip]

OK.....so I'm setting up a few presets in Sorenson. I noticed a field called Format Constraints. There is a Blu-ray Disc (SD) and a Blu-ray Disc (HD) setting. Does it matter what this fields is set to as long as all the other settings are correct. When you change this setting it completely changes all the encoding settings around to small screen sizes but high bit rates.

[planetweckesser]

As an aside - I just logged into my Sorenson beta testing reporting area and they have labeled 5.0 beta not being able to import .m2t or .mpg as "not a bug" - hope the final product doesn't come out that way - Sorenson beyond 4.5.7 will become useless to us for HD work.

[Philip]

A simple workaround that I had to call Sorenson to find out how to do it (last year). Just change the file extension to .mpg (change it back later if you want) and the files import ok. I hope they get it right in the 5.0 version - the beta I have will not accept .mpg nor .m2t so I can't test out my files with it.

I thought about trying that since an m2t is really just MPEG anyway. I will give that a whirl and see how it goes.

THanks,

[planetweckesser]

OK....so I have upgraded to version 4.5.7 of Sorenson. I tried importing a m2t file and it tells me the file is not supported. How are you importing your m2t files?

A simple workaround that I had to call Sorenson to find out how to do it (last year). Just change the file extension to .mpg (change it back later if you want) and the files import ok. I hope they get it right in the 5.0 version - the beta I have will not accept .mpg nor .m2t so I can't test out my files with it.

[Philip]

Only if you use Canopus HQ or Canopus Lossless - I have had no problem whatsoever in using .m2t files encoded with HDV Speed Encoder or Procoder 3 (Express also)

OK....so I have upgraded to version 4.5.7 of Sorenson. I tried importing a m2t file and it tells me the file is not supported. How are you importing your m2t files?

[Philip]

I have completed 15 different projects ranging between 1 hr. 15 min. to 2 hours on a disk and have used 30,000 as max, 24,000 as average and 20,000 as min. I have played these on PS3's and Sony BDP-S1 as well as PowerDVD Ultra on my computer with no problems. I have also tried some of my discs at Best Buy on other players (ones that will allow BDMV without a firmware update) with no problem.

The maximum bitrate for blu-ray movies goes up to 48,000 for both audio and video. Reference this article: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128205/article.html

Look at the fifth topic down - "Speeds and feeds". Hope this answers your questions.

Yup....that's the kind of information I was looking to figure out.

Thanks,

[planetweckesser]

I have downloaded and saved these but have a question. A colleague here locally that is embarking on this BluRay journey at the same time as us was wondering (and I was too) how high a bit rate we can use before we start introducing problems with BluRay playback.

I have seen 30000 mentioned as a peak but realistically will all players handle this size stream? I don't want to encode that high but was planning some rates near what you targeted with your VBR settings. Will these setting be pretty "solid" on BluRay players as they exist today?

I remember playback issues with DVD a few years back. Some people said to keep your total data stream under 8000 so I started encoding at about 7200 and get lots of playback problems. I have dropped to about 6200 with AC3 audio and almost never have a problem. Even though BluRay will handle 30000 according to specs what is the peak we should use that will assure good playback (well as good as we can get with BluRay currently :-) )

Since you have done a number of them you may know more about it.

I have completed 15 different projects ranging between 1 hr. 15 min. to 2 hours on a disk and have used 30,000 as max, 24,000 as average and 20,000 as min. I have played these on PS3's and Sony BDP-S1 as well as PowerDVD Ultra on my computer with no problems. I have also tried some of my discs at Best Buy on other players (ones that will allow BDMV without a firmware update) with no problem.

The maximum bitrate for blu-ray movies goes up to 48,000 for both audio and video. Reference this article: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128205/article.html

Look at the fifth topic down - "Speeds and feeds". Hope this answers your questions.