Rendering SD to Blu-ray

[joeplaysguitar]

Ok, I have some dv 720x480 that I would like to put on Blu-ray, as opposed to DVD, because I want to be able to put as much video as I can per disc. I am using Vegas Pro 9 and DVD Architect 5.

1. I still need to seperate each video stream to different videos. What resolution should I use to render to from Vegas, keeping in mind that they will be put into DVDA and authored to Blu-Ray?

2. What setting do I need to use for DVDA? The default is 1080i.

I have done some testing, and strangely enough, the best results that I have gotten have been to render from Vegas to 720p, and then use the 1080i template in DVDA. This looked better than rendering to both 1080i and 720x480 in Vegas and then using 1080i in DVDA.

Please help. How would you go about this? Thanks!

[joeplaysguitar]

I should mention that I don't mind having black bars on the sides.

[guns1inger]

Multi-AVCHD can convert SD material to Bluray or AVCHD format while retaining SD resolutions. I haven't authored with DVDA for years because trying to get everything to match up so it didn't re-encode parts was just too much effort. There are far better tools available. You really gain very little doing a straight upscale from SD to HD (720 or 1080), and you immediately deny yourself the improvements in upscaling that come with each generation of player and TV.

[joeplaysguitar]

Thank you guns1inger for your help. I ended up rendering out of Vegas as 720x480 mainconcept mpeg2 NTSC template into individual files (I am editing and authoring old 8mm/VHS/VHS-C home movies). This does not trigger a video re-encode or re-render in DVDA. I then created a blu-ray project in DVDA, changing the project properties' aspect ratio to 4:3 and the resolution to 720x480. I left the format to mpeg2 and the bit rate to 18Mbps. The Audio I changed to pcm 48,000, but DVDA does re-compress this from the original Vegas file (only takes a second).

The quality is about what I would expect from 8mm home movies on an HDTV, which is acceptable. I am able to fit quite a few on each disc, which is one goal that I had. The project also burns very quickly. Thanks again for your help. I did look into Multi-AVCHD, but in the end DVDA did what I needed.

[guns1inger]

18Mbps for SD is probably overkill for mpeg-2. I suspect you could come down to 12 - 15 Mbps and not notice the difference