Converting SD Quicktime DV for Blu-ray

[DirectorSG]

Hi all,

First post, but I've been visiting this site since it was VCDHelp. I just purchased a Blu-ray burner and installed it in my old Power Mac G5 that I use primarily for editing and disc burning. I have a couple of shows that I edited for a job in SD QuickTime DV format that I wanted to burn to a BD-R. I tried it using Toast, but first of all, it took almost 19 hours to encode the two hours of video. Second, the show is a mix of interlaced and progressive footage. The progressive footage looks great, but the interlaced footage has strange motion to it on the disc. I solved this problem when I would burn DV to DVD by selecting "Bottom Field First" in Toast, but now I'm not so sure what the setting should be. So my questions are:

1. What program should I use to do the conversion to MPEG-4 instead of Toast to make it faster? MPEG Streamclip? ffmpegx? Something else?
2. What would be optimal settings for bit rates to get the best quality out of the footage?
2. What field dominance settings do I need to eliminate choppiness on interlaced footage? Do I use the Bottom Field dominance, or is deinterlacing all the footage my only choice?

I'm going to take the time to experiment with the encoding in other programs, but I figured others here might have more insight. To me, looking at the encoded image on my computer monitor doesn't matter to me as much as the image on the burned Blu-ray on my TV. But I don't have any BD-REs to keep re-burning and re-experimenting, and BD-Rs aren't that cheap.

[rumplestiltskin]

Encoding SD material to HD won't make it any better quality. It will probably look just as bad in BluRay on a 1080 set as it would if you simply burned a SD DVD. Other than this "advice", I don't have much else to offer to you. There are others here who will have suggestions, no doubt. Be patient.

[DirectorSG]

I know it won't look any better. I'm not trying to encode it to HD, just doing it in MPEG-4 compliant format for BD-R.

[Case]

BD supports AVC/H264 - MPEG-4 AVC: HP@4.1/4.0 and MP@4.1/4.0/3.2/3.1/3.0.
Try (a short test clip) converting to SD H.264 MP level 3.0 or 4.1 (not 4.2 or higher!) and AC3 2.0 audio, using any converter app you like.
Keep interlaced bottom field first, same the source DV.
Set Toast to "reencode: never", save as disc image. Toast should tell if it's re-encoding anyway to make it compliant, or only re-mux for BD.

[edDV]

Hi all,

First post, but I've been visiting this site since it was VCDHelp. I just purchased a Blu-ray burner and installed it in my old Power Mac G5 that I use primarily for editing and disc burning. I have a couple of shows that I edited for a job in SD QuickTime DV format that I wanted to burn to a BD-R. I tried it using Toast, but first of all, it took almost 19 hours to encode the two hours of video. Second, the show is a mix of interlaced and progressive footage. The progressive footage looks great, but the interlaced footage has strange motion to it on the disc. I solved this problem when I would burn DV to DVD by selecting "Bottom Field First" in Toast, but now I'm not so sure what the setting should be. So my questions are:

1. What program should I use to do the conversion to MPEG-4 instead of Toast to make it faster? MPEG Streamclip? ffmpegx? Something else?

2. What would be optimal settings for bit rates to get the best quality out of the footage?

2. What field dominance settings do I need to eliminate choppiness on interlaced footage? Do I use the Bottom Field dominance, or is deinterlacing all the footage my only choice?

I'm going to take the time to experiment with the encoding in other programs, but I figured others here might have more insight. To me, looking at the encoded image on my computer monitor doesn't matter to me as much as the image on the burned Blu-ray on my TV. But I don't have any BD-REs to keep re-burning and re-experimenting, and BD-Rs aren't that cheap.

1. Why MPEG-4?? The only reason I can think of is to save disc space? Blu-Ray supports most DVD standards (I think all). You want to keep DV source 720x480 interlace and bottom field first. Why not use MPeg2?

2. DVD max bit rates (~9.8 Mb/s video + 224 Kb/s AC3 audio) for MPeg2 Should work. More would probably be OK since Blu-Ray can handle 35+ Mb/s. I haven't tested high bit rate SD MPeg2 to Blu-Ray yet. For "best quality" you should experiment with 16-35 Mb/s for BD media. For DVDR 5/9 on a Blu-Ray player, it may top out at 16 Mb/s but may go higher. Blu-Ray players vary for DVDR media. Start with 9.8 or 16Mb/s and go up if you want.

2(3). bottom field first, even for "progressive clips". If progressive clips are 24p, they need to be telecined. You can't mix formats in the same program.

Missing info: How are you going to author these to Blu-Ray?

Why don't you just use MultiAVCHD to DVDR 5/9 media (single or double layer)? The Blu-Ray AVCHD file structure can contain MPeg2, h.264 or VC-1. MPeg2 is easiest for DV source.


PS: Oops MultiAVCHD is Windows only so you will need Mac Blu-Ray software. I haven't looked at recent Toast versions.

[DirectorSG]

AVC/H264 - MPEG-4 AVC: HP@4.1/4.0 and MP@4.1/4.0/3.2/3.1/3.0.

I'm not following the "MP" part of it, I googled it and came up with "Main Profile Level", but I've never seen that setting in any of the encoding software I've worked with. Maybe I'm missing it?

1. Why MPEG-4?? The only reason I can think of is to save disc space? Blu-Ray supports most DVD standards (I think all). You want to keep DV source 720x480 interlace and bottom field first. Why not use MPeg2?

I was thinking of trying MPEG-2, but like you said, I wanted to be able to fit 2 hours of content on one disc at a higher bit rate than 5-8Mbps DVD. I'm trying to get it as close to the 25Mbps bit rate of the DV source material as possible.

For "best quality" you should experiment with 16-35 Mb/s for BD media. For DVDR 5/9 on a Blu-Ray player, it may top out at 16 Mb/s but may go higher.

This is what I'm going to try for sure.

[edDV]

1. Why MPEG-4?? The only reason I can think of is to save disc space? Blu-Ray supports most DVD standards (I think all). You want to keep DV source 720x480 interlace and bottom field first. Why not use MPeg2?

I was thinking of trying MPEG-2, but like you said, I wanted to be able to fit 2 hours of content on one disc at a higher bit rate than 5-8Mbps DVD. I'm trying to get it as close to the 25Mbps bit rate of the DV source material as possible.

I'd test all this on DVDR media first. I'd use MPeg2 480i, botton field first and progress up the bit rates 9, then 16, then 25 Mb/s. 25Mb/s would fit 2 hours to 25GB Blu-Ray but only 20 minutes to a DVDR single layer. You need to encode your MPeg2 to an m2ts container and place in an AVCHD file structure. I do this often on a PC but currently all my Macs are dead. Hopefully Toast will do all this for you.

DVDR Structure
/AVCHD (or other name) /BDMV / STREAM (put your 0000.m2ts files here).

Maybe others can offer more Mac specific instructions.

[Herve]

You need to encode your MPeg2 to an m2ts container and place in an AVCHD file structure. […] Hopefully Toast will do all this for you.

tsMuxeR GUI too (and for free )
bye