How to encode H.264 for HD-DVD and Blu Ray ?

[p6889k]

Hi,

I would like to archive old VHS tapes and DV tapes to H.264. I do not have Blu Ray or HD DVD burner yet, but would like to encode my files so that I can play them on PC and later on when I get Blu Ray or HD-DVD, I can transfer them without the need to re-encode. I'm very familiar with editing and encoding, I'm just having hard time figuring out what are the requirements for an H.264 file to be playable on HD-DVD and Blu Ray.

I currently own Nero Recode 2 which allows encoding in AVC with various settings. I also have Nero Vision which allows creation of AVCHD files. I also have TMPGENC 4.0 Express that can create AVC files and I also have QuickTime Pro. All of these tools give me so many options for H.264/AVC and I just don't know what to choose to make sure I can one day just take the h.264 file and burn it on Blu Ray or HD-DVD for playback without the need to re-encode to another form of H.264.

From all the tools I have, I prefer to work with Nero Recode, which also has Adobe Premiere Plugin for direct export from Premiere timeline. Which AVC settings do I need to choose to make sure the output file is HD-DVD or Blu Ray compatible. I'm going to be encoding about 150 hours of home videos and the encoding will take a lot of time, so I want to make sure I only do it once.

Thank you.

[jman98]

I have never worked with DV, so I can offer no advice of any kind about that format. Anything I say here about VHS tapes may not necessarily apply to DV.

I understand why you want to do this, but one of the problems you will have with VHS tapes is that VHS resolution is about 403x480 (according to one source I found), which is a little less than SVCD. I'm not sure that you will want to record these tapes at anything above current DVD resolution, which is 720x480. Some might argue that you should record them at something more like 352x480, which does give good results on DVD. However, BluRay and HD-DVD do not allow resolutions below 720x480, so you're stuck with that. BluRay and HD-DVD require frame rates for 720x480 video to be interlaced at 59.94 fps. I am not aware of any current capture devices that can capture 720x480 video at this frame rate. I suppose what you would have to do is maybe capture in AVI and then encode to this frame rate using some encoder. I am not sure what settings you will need during the encode. The important thing for you to understand here is the requirement for 59.94 fps interlaced video for 720x480 and I feel that should you have some way of capturing VHS tapes at a higher resolution, the results would probably not be very good. A lot of people just assume that 720x480 at 29.97 fps (current DVD usage) is OK for BluRay and HD-DVD and it is not.

[videopoo]

Why would you want to go to an HD format from VHS???? It won't make it look better. You'll need either a BR or HD DVD authoring program to do it anyway.burners available. Just archive to DVD and your good to go.

[p6889k]

Why would you want to go to an HD format from VHS???? It won't make it look better. You'll need either a BR or HD DVD authoring program to do it anyway.burners available. Just archive to DVD and your good to go.

I'm only planning to use BR or HD-DVD as a high capacity medium. I'm not planning to upconvert VHS to Hi-Def, I will capture my VHS to AVI at 720x480 and then encode to H.264. I'm assuming BR/HD-DVD can play 720x480 video. I'm right now using H.264 to share home videos with my family and it offers great quality and saves space - I can have many hours of H.264 stored on my HDD for PC playback. Now that I'm happy with the quality of H.264, I just need to figure out how to encode to make it BR/HD-DVD compatible, before I convert my whole VHS library. I read everywhere that H.264 is playable on BR/HD-DVD, but I'm thinking there may be some limitations. I'm hoping to burn H.264 to BR/HD-DVD for the same reason many people burn DIVX files to DVD - to store as much content as possible on the largest media available.

[videopoo]

I think you might be confused. Authoring a Blu Ray or HD DVD title will only play on those set tops. Why limit yourself to those formats. Just keep everything on a HDD. You said you now share your home movies from a HDD - no need to change things if it works fine. Buy a new drive and put them there - 500 G for $250 - can't beat that. If you need to archive data to BR buy a BR recorder and use a burner app thats supports it.

[akrako1]

Guys, I don't think p6889k is asking about other storage solutions, or for your advice about what you would do... he wants to know how to encode H.264 so he doesn't have to re-encode/convert later. Can someone just give him a straight answer about the spec and how to setup his encodes?

[j4gg3rr]

Yeah, like can you make a data BR/HD DVD with MP4 H.264/AAC or MP4 H.264/AC3 or Matroska H.264/MP3 etc. etc. playable on standalone BR/HD players like a data DVD with DivX compatable files for standalone DivX players.

[videopoo]

Sorry....I thought you wanted to author a disc playable on a set top HD DVD or Blu Ray player made from your old VHS tapes....

There are no consumer tools to author a HD DVD or Blu Ray which support H.264 at the moment - MPEG2 only You have 3 choices right now:

http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/dvdit/hd/overview.html - Blu Ray

http://www.ulead.com/dmf/runme.htm - HD DVD

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=ED83915&nplm=MA886Z/A - HD DVD


If you just want to make a data disc which would not be playable in any BR or HD DVD player. the burners come with simple burning software. Data is just that but to author a disc playable on a set top is something else.

[p6889k]

Thank you everyone for your posts. I think I figured out what I'm going to do.

I've read at the following link
http://blogs.adobe.com/davtechtable/...s3_and_bl.html
, that Premiere Pro CS3 has native support for H.264 BluRay encoding. I think I'll go ahead and purchase an upgrade from Premiere Pro 2.0 to Pro CS3 and give it a try. There's no support for HD-DVD, but I guess BluRay is better than nothing. I was planning on upgrading to Premiere CS3 anyway.

[videopoo]

p6889k

Just curious

Why do you want to re-encode (which is what you'll have to do ), author and play your VHS home videos to Blu Ray disc playable only on a Blu Ray player?

[p6889k]

p6889k

Just curious

Why do you want to re-encode (which is what you'll have to do ), author and play your VHS home videos to Blu Ray disc playable only on a Blu Ray player?

Well, my first goal was to transfer all VHS and DV content to my computer so that I can have access to it in a digital format. I love how I can have a folder full of movies and be able to easily find what I want to watch, and then quickly move around the file to get to the desired part. I also like the idea of HTPC computer connected to HD TV for easy movie and photo playback. Having files on the computer makes it also easy to share with other members of the family - I can put them on my FTP server for others to download or I can load it on my portable HDD and take it to them. I also thought about transferring my videos to DVD, but I was never happy with the final quality and also I could only fit about 1 - 1.5 hour of content on DVD.

Right now I have some of my video content (both VHS and DV) stored as DV AVI on my PC, which is taking up a lot of HDD space (right now about 1TB, plus 1TB for backup), I also have some of it in various forms of H.264 for sharing with family. I also still have a lot more tapes to digitize. I have been playing for a while now with the H.264 codec and really like its quality and small file footprint. All the H.264 files I've so far created are not encoded with unified settings. I have a big project in front of me - to digitize the rest of my analog content - and I want to make sure all my files are encoded in the same manner and hopefully are compatible with BluRay/HDDVD. I admit that BR/HDDVD compatibility is secondary, but if I can encode in a way that's compatible, it would solve a lot of headaches should I one day decide to play my files on BR/HDDVD. I figured that BR/HDDVD will one day replace DVD and will be the format most people will use.

From what I've read about Premiere CS3, it will allow me to create BluRay compliant H.264 file. I will be able to use this file by itself for playback on my computer and later if I decide to burn to BluRay, I will just have to author it and burn to the disk, without the need to actually re-encode the file to another form of H.264. Re-encoding hundreds of hours of video would take long time - I only want to do it once - at least until the next break through codec shows up With BluRay of HD-DVD, I will have the capability to fit many hours of movies on one disk. Important note is, that I will not up convert my files to Hi-Def resolutions, I will keep them in the SD resolution and let my player or TV to upconvert.

In general, I've made the decision to go all digital and as of today, H.264 is the way to go, and BluRay or HDDVD is the largest medium. I really hate having ton of tapes all over my house, loosing quality over time or suffer from damage by improper handling or by dirty VCR head. I also like the fact that I can have a digital copy of my whole library in another location, e.g. my mom's computer. That way if my house burns down (hope not), my tapes will be gone, but my digital copies will still exist on my relatives computer or in a safety deposit box.

[SleepL8DrvFast]

p6889k, Thank you for posting your question. I want to do a similar capture and encode project, and I only want to encode the video once. I understand you do not want to use your future Blu-ray/HD-DVD burner to simply store these files so you can later read them back into and play them on a computer. I understand you want the video you encode today to be playable on a future Blu-ray or HD-DVD set-top-box (STB). I too am having difficulty ensuring my encoder settings (e.g. resolution and frame rate) will be compatible with Blu-ray and HD-DVD STB standards. Have you had a chance to try Premiere CS3, and if so what encoder settings did it use?

jman98, you state that the lowest resolution and frame rate that are in the Blu-ray and HD-DVD standards is 720x480 at 59.94i and that 720x480 at 29.47p is not in the spec. Am I understanding you correctly, and where did you find this information? Additionally, do you know what the audio stream compression can be, or can you point me to where I can find this?

Thank you.

[videopoo]

Both Blu Ray and HD DVD support 720x480 but why would you want to author VHS source material? These frame resolutions were reserved to add "extras" to disc such as director's interviews which were captured in SD resolutions. Blu Ray and HD DVD were developed to playback HD content. You guys might as well stick with DVD-Video. SD DVD isn't going anywhere...it will be around many years to come....BR or HD DVD will go away way before DVD-Video will. Check with each program specification to find out the best encode settings and do some tests. There are no defined encoding specs for AVC (H.264) other than max bitrates...in fact, a MOST titles you see in stores DON'T use AVC at this point...most are MPEG2. I have yet to find a consumer tool which plays back AVC as well. Authoring Blu Ray or HD DVD on cosumer apps like DVDSP or DVDit is all in its beta stages right now regardless of what the box says ...the tools and players are new and need time and testing to mature. If your looking for a concrete codec spec for future Blu Ray or HD DVD playback for AVC, your guess is as good as anyones

If your looking for a high capacity storage medium, a firewire drive is cheaper than disc anyway.