Delivering DVD & Blu-ray

B

Burners

Well-known member
For the most part I deliver SD DVDs. This is how I do it:

Edit (720 \ 60p) native in Premiere CS4 4.2
Render out a SD uncompressed Microsoft AVI
Import into Encore, create the menus etc and then build a DVD image

What I'd like to do now, is for each project (usually weddings) create both an SD DVD and a Blu-ray image.

What is the most efficient way to do this? Will I have to render out both SD and HD versions from Premiere and duplicate my efforts in Encore...?

Thanks
 
I am also interested in this. I use Encore (CS3) for BD but usually still make my DVDs in DVD Studio Pro.

I found that Adobe's claim of one being able to have just one project and output to DVD, BD and Flash was less than a reality. I originally wanted to create the HD (Blu-ray) project and then output to widescreen DVD after the BD was built. However, there are enough differences in the Blu-ray and DVD standards that you have to limit yourself to the lowest common denominators between them. This can significantly limit the types of menus and button types/sequences you can have in a common project. In addition, I found I could not trust the simulator for BD. Things would work in the simulator and not on a real disc in a real player. Maybe they fixed this in CS4 - maybe not.

I also found I had massive rendering problems when creating the disc in HD then sending it to a DVD as well, and the problems tended to be where people moved, the edge/outline of the clothing 'shimmered' on the DVD but not the BD. If I rendered to SD MPEG before importing to the timeline there was no problems. It only happened when I rendered HD to SD inside Encore.

So, if CS4 has fixed ALL these problems then maybe it's worth me upgrading. If not I will continue to make DVDs and BDs separately. :(
 
Burners said:
For the most part I deliver SD DVDs. This is how I do it:

Edit (720 \ 60p) native in Premiere CS4 4.2
Render out a SD uncompressed Microsoft AVI
Import into Encore, create the menus etc and then build a DVD image

What I'd like to do now, is for each project (usually weddings) create both an SD DVD and a Blu-ray image.

What is the most efficient way to do this? Will I have to render out both SD and HD versions from Premiere and duplicate my efforts in Encore...?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Why may I ask are you rendering from Premiere? Why not just File>Adobe Dynamic Link> Send to Encore...?
Is there a reason you are rendering? Is it better quality or something?
 
Same question. Why export as uncompressed? I work with CS3 and just export the timeline straight to Encore. Is there a quality advantage?

Peter
 
Depends on the workflow,

Some people prefer to have a file copy of the completed work on their hard drive and do everything from that while other peopl arn't bothered. IMO I cannot see why there would be any difference in quality from either of the two options.
 
It's a legacy thing, I used to film in PAL but deliver in NTSC so I would need to render out a PAL master, then convert it to a NTSC avi. I should probably look into the export to Encore feature..
 
ATL Media Group said:
Why may I ask are you rendering from Premiere? Why not just File>Adobe Dynamic Link> Send to Encore...?
Is there a reason you are rendering? Is it better quality or something?
Click to expand...

This will still require an encode to blu streams unfortunately.

But what is more interesting is that no transcode is required if you go straight to AVCHD in Toast for example on a Mac
 
Here's my work flow,

- Export to Matrox HD AVI file as intermedia file.
- Encode using Procoder to both MPEG-2 SD and MPEG-2 HD. Each file I encoded into 4 different data rate output files.
- From all the encoded mpeg-2 files, I mix and match with different data rate to fill the disk. For example, church ceremony is a less watch chapters, so I picked a lower data rate encoded file. For reception, highlights, or other chapters that are more watched, I pick a high data rate encoded file.
- Author in Encore CS4 as DVD first. Test the output and if everything's good, output the DVD.
- Copy the entire Encore project to a separate folder for BD authoring.
- Load the new project, change the project settings to BluRay. Then use the "Replace" command to replace all the MPEG-2 SD file to MPEG-2 HD files.
- Add BluRay Popup menu feature.
- Export to BluRay

The encoding process takes a long time. But I use a separate computer for that purpose. That computer also serves as web server, FTP server, magic Jack phone, record TV shows... and encoding station.

In either case, since all the imported files to Encore are already DVD and BluRay compliance, there is no transcoding occured in Encore. Procoder did a great job in encoding even in low bitrate. Both DVD and BD output looks great.

Encore CS4 is very flaky on H.264 authoring. I'm happy with the MPEG-2 HD output anyway.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top