Blu-ray Encoding and Authoring Help!!!

[jbandy1]

I have been trying to burn Blu-ray discs for a couple weeks now but have no satisfactory results. I have been shooting in 1280x720p 29.97 in m2t format editing in premiere pro CS3 and exporting to mpeg 2 for Blu-Ray for authoring in Encore CS3. I’m using a Matrox Axio LE with Windows XP

The problem is that all the mpeg 2, Blu-ray video and audio files, that I have encoded from premiere have been different lengths when I bring them into encore. This occurred even when I have tried encoding them separately. Now I have been able to burn a couple Blu-ray discs but the audio starts in sync and slowly drifts out getting worse and worse as the video progresses.

I was able to get one that looked good and seemed to be synced throughout the video. It was encoded at 23.94. But the audio was still many frames shorter than the audio

Since we are shooting in 29.976 we are thinking about starting to shoot in 59.94 because that frame rate is a native resolution for Blu-ray at 720P. But I shot some footage today in 59.94 and exported it to mpeg 2 for Blu-ray and got the same issue all over again and I have no idea why. (I tried using both the Matrox encoder and the adobe encoder as well)

I brought it into a 1280 by 720p 59.94 project and the video and audio were synced on the timeline
Exported it at 1280x720p at 59.94 quality 5, widescreen, progressive 25mbps
Exported the audio separately at 48kHz 16 bit stereo PCM
Imported it into Encore CS3 using Blu-ray setting, NTSC, 1280x720, mpeg 2, audio PCM. Nothing needed to be transcoded and all files were compliant. What am I doing wrong? I can’t have video that’s out of sync and what’s worse is that I have a shoot this week and don’t know what frame rate to shoot in. Can anyone help? Does anyone use Encore to burn Blu-rays?

[mrdamour]

Hello... I seem to have run into this SAME problem where I have synced MPG files and as soon as I put them into Encore the audio drifts. It is very close at the beginning of clips and towards the end they drift almost full seconds out of time. Did you find an answer to this? I've been looking all weekend and trying many different tests and nothing is working.

Any help is appreciated!

[jbandy1]

It depends what you are shooting in; frame rate and resolution. But from what I have found, use a H.264 file for Blu-ray as opposed to a MPEG file. I only had problems trying to use MPEG files for burning Blu-ray's in encore. If possible shoot all video in a frame rate that is already Blu-ray compliant and encode it in that same frame rate. I was using CS3 at the time and this solution worked for me. Let me know what you are shooting in format, frame rate and resolution. Also what settings you are using to encode.

Good luck

[mrdamour]

Thanks for the reply. I am working with 59.94 720p footage recorded from ABC over the air using EYE TV. I am partial to using the MPEG format stream that it is recorded in because the video looks pristine and the audio isn't downmixed to stereo like H.264.

If you export to H.264 it does work sync-wise but you get a far inferior picture and sound. If you keep the MPEG file and don't encode in Encore it burns a beautiful looking picture with 5.1 Dolby Digital audio... problem is the sync issue. To test, I burned a pure MPEG stream that was broadcast in 1080i and that sync worked perfectly so the breakdown is definitely with the 59.94 frame rate. If that sparks any other thoughts I'm happy to experiment to figure this out. Thanks!

[jbandy1]

I'm wondering if you are speaking of encoding to H.264 for web. If you specify in the encoder to encode to H.264 for Blu-ray you will get separate streams of Audio and Video.

You are right though. I would never encode anything in Encore ever. Bringing files into encore in already compliant resolution and frame rate is always the best option.

Was the 1080i blu-ray you burned 29.97fps? Was this program the same length, which would allow for your audio to drift out of sync if there was a sync issue?

There are a couple of things you can try. I am only assuming that you are re-encoding the raw 720p 59.94 footage before bringing it into Encore CS3. Is this correct? If not it would still be in sync. Unless the recording was out of sync, but I don't think that is the case.

Before Re-encoding break the raw footage into 15 min. sections and encode each section separately. Bring the sections into encore and if you put it all on one timeline. Encore will put chapter markers between sections automatically. I think your video takes much longer than 15 minutes to get out of sync so this should solve your problem. If you don't want chapter markers every 15 minutes, then pick spots in the program where you wouldn't mind having a chapter and split the video there instead.

Encore seems to have problems with long programs on single timelines. But, when using Premiere CS3 or CS4 Adobe Media Encoder using the following settings, I can concurrently burn programs on a single timeline as long as 1 hour and 20 minutes with no sync issue; Adobe Media Encoder H.264 for blu-ray setting, 1280x720, 59.94, Progressive, 16:9, Par 1.0, Best encoding setting, quality 5, widescreen. For the Audio I used no multiplexing or no TS (transport Stream). These are the best settings I can give you from memory.

[mrdamour]

I'm not attempting to encode H264 to web. I am indeed looking to do MPEG2 Raw Stream (originally captured from EyeTV) on Blu Ray. The Encore project I did have success with was the 29.97fps at 1080i and was 44 minutes... the same length as the problematic 59.97 720p footage.

There are a couple of things you can try. I am only assuming that you are re-encoding the raw 720p 59.94 footage before bringing it into Encore CS3. Is this correct? If not it would still be in sync. Unless the recording was out of sync, but I don't think that is the case.
The recording wasn't out of sync. I wasn't "re-encoding" per se. Eye TV has an export function to make the .MPG a "program stream" which Encore is supposed to accept natively. It actually does accept the file after a few minutes of "importing," but whenever I burn a disc it does "transcode the footage." I don't believe the problem exists on the burn though as the footage is out of sync in the Encore timeline using this method.

Encore seems to have problems with long programs on single timelines. But, when using Premiere CS3 or CS4 Adobe Media Encoder using the following settings, I can concurrently burn programs on a single timeline as long as 1 hour and 20 minutes with no sync issue; Adobe Media Encoder H.264 for blu-ray setting, 1280x720, 59.94, Progressive, 16:9, Par 1.0, Best encoding setting, quality 5, widescreen. For the Audio I used no multiplexing or no TS (transport Stream). These are the best settings I can give you from memory.
I could bring the items into Encore in smaller chunks, but I plan on doing this quite a bit and with multiple projects, so I was hoping to find a way that worked that wasn't ridiculously tedious. I appreciate your encode settings. I'm going to give them a shot today.

Final question for you... do you ever have a problem with Encore timelines playing back audio? I will import a timeline with an audio and video stream and the audio won't playback in the timeline. Sometimes if I click off the timeline and then click back on it, and it will then magically work. In these cases the audio always exports properly to disc, it's just not always reliable in the timeline, and for my problem with out of sync audio I always want to check the timeline!

Thanks again for all your help.

[turk690]

If it helps, though only what I experienced for DVD MPEG-2: I have Premiere Pro and Encore 3 on one PC.
If I output from the timeline (mostly DV AVI source files) an *.m2v elementary stream using the built-in Adobe encoder, for some reason I've never been able to figure out, rendering the same programme length on two separate occasions (like after editing something) at times produced two files with different (!) time lengths. Like, if I render now, it could produce an *.m2v stream that is, say 1:57:20:10 long (may or may not be the same length as the timeline programme). After editing something (without disturbing the original sequence program length), the encoded output stream would now be 1:57:19:22 (?!). If the program length is less than 1hr, the chances the resulting encoded stream length is identical (which should always be the case) with the timeline increases, as does multiple encodes of the same program length, so of course does the possbility that it's always in sync with the accompanying audio. I have not done anything much beyond a 2.5hr program length to find out how different encoded output streams are from one another with regards to exact program length, mostly because Premiere freezes and/or crashes at that. If I am correct, Adobe does recommend keeping program lengths way under 3hrs.
Researching what steps I could take to up encoded quality ante, I tried Cinema Craft basic MPEG encoder. Quite a few improvements happened: even below 4mb/s ave bitrate, CCE basic produced better-looking streams than the Adobe encoder (which I'm told is MainConcept); encoding was faster; and encoding the same timeline several times while editing in between always produced *.m2v elementary streams of identical length, and just as important, identical in length to the exported audio *.wav from same timeline.
Encore has its own nasties (like timeline audio sometimes disappears and reappears), but I found out that submitting audio and video streams of identical length to it is guaranteed to produce DVDs where audio and video are constantly in perfect sync. Encore has always accepted streams produced by CinemaCraft without re-encoding them. CCE rules...!!
I've never used Adobe Media encoder since; maybe the same can be applied to h.264 encodes for blu-ray.

[jbandy1]

I have had issues playing back audio on the timeline in Encore. The preview has never been that good for HD previewing. In my experience you have to guess using your best judgment from the preview wether it's in sync or not. Have you tried anything else, any progress?