Encoding for blu-ray and HD-DVD

[PuzZLeR]

I’m interested in encoding for blu-ray/HD-DVD. I don’t have one yet, but would like to prepare my video now as best as possible for that time. I’m using H.264/AVC, one of the standards of these disc formats, to compress a lot of my MPEG-2 content.

First my details:
I encode in Main Profile (with some Baseline Profile backups for iPod).
I use encoding engines such as x264, Nero Digital and sometimes ffmpeg.
Average bitrate: ~1mbps per clip, VERY small compared to what’s in BD and HD-DVD movies.
Resolution is 640x480.
Audio is AAC (LC) at 128kbps, 48000Hz, Stereo.

I can fit about 9 hours of SD-quality video on a DVD-R (as data). On a 50GB blu-ray disc, I should get about 100 hours (as data). I could encode in HD, but it doesn’t make sense at the moment since all my source is SD.

Objective (long-term):
To play these files on blu-ray or HD-DVD in the future as video (with menus, etc., NOT as data).

Now my questions:

1. The way I have my video now, when I do one day author it to blu-ray/HD-DVD would it be a simple minor transcoding process (resolution/converting to High profile, etc) or am I looking at a serious re-encoding?

2. Is there a conversion scheme that would be the least lossy from Main Profile to High Profile (blu-ray/HD-DVD specs)?

3. Although H.264/AVC is a playable standard in blu-ray/HD-DVD, I probably still shouldn’t expect 100 hours on a 50 GB BD as a video disc, but what would be realistic?

4. Any blu-ray/HD-DVD authoring software I can try that uses H.264/AVC?

5. Is there anything I CAN do (encode) today that will better prepare this video for the future disc formats?

I'm not expecting anything near HD quality, but a nice playable disk at fairly good quality is my goal. If anybody has any input on any of the questions I’d appreciate it immensely. Or, if there’s a link that you know of with info on this, please post it. Thanks for reading!

[Baldrick]

1. 640x480 and aac audio are not hddvd/bluray standard so it would mean reencoding. But maybe future hddvd/bluray players might have support for those...like current divx,xvid players.

[jman98]

1) Serious re-encoding because as Baldrick says, what you've got isn't valid for HDDVD/BluRay and even worse, your resolution is too low.

2) I have no idea. I refuse to touch X.264/H.264 at this time because it's too CPU intensive, it takes too long to encode, and in my opinion there aren't any good documents on how to use it correctly.

3) A lot of us here would find your use of 9 hours of video on a single layer DVD to be unrealistic, so I don't know how we can possibly answer this. If you can live with 9 hours on a single layer DVD now, I suppose you could jam 100 hours on a 50 GB disc in the future, but understand that the bigger the resolution, the more bit rate you need to encode it properly, which means the less space you have. If you stick to 720x480, this will lower your bit rate requirements, but such resolutions are hardly "high def" although supported by BluRay and HDDVD.

4) I have no idea. This is really bleeding edge stuff for most of us. Maybe the folks at the forums on Doom9 at
http://www.doom9.net
can help you as some of them are already doing some serious work with both high def DVD formats.

5) Capture at at least 720x480 and stop using AAC and use AC3 audio instead. Saving your captures as raw TS or raw MPEG streams at the original bit rates and resolutions would certainly be a good way to start, but that will take up more space on your DVDs. To give you an example, I was only able to get 2 HD (720p) episodes of Malcolm In The Middle on a single layer DVD disc when it was still being broadcast and that was with commercials edited out.

[PuzZLeR]

Thank you for your answers!

Baldrick:
Yes, I’m not encoding in the right specs. What makes it worse is that my source material is MPEG-2 with AC3 audio – both compliant with BD/HD-DVD, but it takes so much space on all my hard drives!

Yes, current DivX, and Xvid players have easier standards when it comes to rez. However, they are playing the video as data, which is not my goal. I appreciate your answer though.

Jman98:
I too have had problems with the long encodes of H.264 a few months ago and almost gave up. I remember even posting a complaint about it, and I remember your reply as well!

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=315745

However, there’s a happy ending for me. Since that post, in just mere months, most apps today now support multi-threading. (And I since ditched QuickTime in "quick time" since it was tooooooooo slllllllllllooooooooooowwwwwww.) Yes I still do my encoding overnight, and while I’m at work. This gives my PC roughly 100 hours just for encoding alone. Anyone with multithreading can alot done with that kind of time. I now have tons of video with more roomier hard drives

Jman98, now’s the time to reconsider giving AVC another shot.

If you also want something easy, go with AutoMKV (free and no install), which uses x264. You will also see your processor perfomance shoot up to nearly 100% with it.

And the quality is stunning, even at 1000kbps. Yes, 9 hours on a DVD-R is not the best quality, however, I get very acceptable results nevertheless! Try it with 2-pass and see for yourself.

As well, I encode a lot of music videos, and if you have thousands like me, you really want the small sizes for just a bit of quality loss. As well, music videos being small files was the way they were meant to be. This way they are manageable like mp3’s. They work great with iTunes and iPods too.

Which brings me to my next point.

I encode in 640x480 and with ACC audio because they are Apple standards. In fact, I have to make better quality encodes for Apple TV, and I have to also encode separately in Baseline profile for iPod. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrghhhhh!!!

Now it looks like I have to make a third version of my video for BD/HD-DVD! Either I put up with this, or keep the huge source files, or eventually accept a (hopefully minor) quality loss when going to BD/HD-DVD.

I will also take your advice and look into what doom9 is posting on the subject. Hopefully this thread continues though to provide many of us more insight.