Blu-ray compatible h264?

[Bergen]

Hi all, this my first post on this forum.

Let me introduce myself: I regularly record video from television or VHS to my pc, in DV, using a Canopus ADVC-55. The target varies; YouTube, DVD, little videos in other formats for sharing over the internet, etc. I consider myself an advanced VirtualDub user and I'm starting to learn more and more about AviSynth. For DVD-encoding, I like using a combination of HCEnc for MPEG-2 and BeSweet for AC3. For things like YouTube I like playing with various filters in AviSynth.

But lately, I've been looking at H264. I have learned using the x264 encoder, particularly with this guide about all the options, and I've been using the encoder on the cli, using commands like...

x264.exe --bitrate 300 --pass 1 --stats "stats.txt" --bframes 3 --ref 5 --direct auto --b-rdo --weightb --bime --min-keyint 25 --keyint 250 --mixed-refs --me umh --subme 6 --trellis 1 --analyse all --8x8dct --progress --no-psnr --threads 1 --sar 1024:720 --output "pass1.264" "10sec.avs"

(I'm a Linux user, I like manually typing everything. ) Then I put it into an AVI container using avc2avi and mux it with the encoded audio. So now you know where I'm currently at!

So far so good. But what I'm wondering about is this: for DVDs, you need to have a DVD-compatible MPEG-2 file. (Correct resolution, bitrate, mp@ml, etc.) If I encode my DV material to MPEG-2 using (for example) the MPEG-2 encoder in ffdshow, via virtualdub, I'm sure it's not going to be DVD-compatible. I always encode it with HCEnc, so that in case I want to burn some of my MPEG-2 material to DVD, I'm sure it's already DVD-compatible and I won't have to re-encode everything.

How does this work with H264? Does H264-video also need to meet certain criteria to be Blu-ray compatible? Does it need a certain resolution, bitrate, or also even profiles like MPEG-2? Or is it much more forgiving and would it be no problem to encode for example a 320x240 video? Like I said, I don't have any Blu-ray hardware yet, but it would be nice to store my video's in such a H264-format that later on I can easily put them in on a Blu-ray disc without re-encoding everything. (Maybe only into another container or so.)

Can you give me any advice on this matter?Thanks in advance!

[jman98]

How does this work with H264? Does H264-video also need to meet certain criteria to be Blu-ray compatible? Does it need a certain resolution, bitrate, or also even profiles like MPEG-2? Or is it much more forgiving and would it be no problem to encode for example a 320x240 video? Like I said, I don't have any Blu-ray hardware yet, but it would be nice to store my video's in such a H264-format that later on I can easily put them in on a Blu-ray disc without re-encoding everything. (Maybe only into another container or so.)

Can you give me any advice on this matter?Thanks in advance!

Yes. BluRay requires specific resolutions. Take a look at:
https://www.videohelp.com/hd
320x240 isn't even close to being valid for BluRay.

You might check the forums at http://www.doom9.net to see what they think about your plan to store video with an idea towards burning it later on BluRay discs. Sony is completely schizophrenic about the whole idea of users making their own BluRay discs. I don't really keep up, but I've heard various rumors of Sony stopping the ability of consumers to make their own BluRay discs. There may not be any truth to that at all, but you should probably see what the gurus at Doom9 think before you go down this path.

[ricardouk]

Like I said, I don't have any Blu-ray hardware yet, but it would be nice to store my video's in such a H264-format that later on I can easily put them in on a Blu-ray disc without re-encoding everything. (Maybe only into another container or so.)

you can use Megui, AutoMkv,StaxRip to creat avc videos that are compatible with blu-ray. Just select the blu-ray profile and then you can record them on dvd/bluray blank media, kind of like divx/xvid now but you dont need a dvd player that supports divx, any blu-ray player will play them.

i might be wrong as i dont have a blu-ray player but from what i read so far it will work.

i think you wont have chapters but it will play

Edit: forgot you were using Linux....

[Bergen]

Yes. BluRay requires specific resolutions. Take a look at:
https://www.videohelp.com/hd

Doh! The first link in the menu and I didn't see it. I was only looking for answers in the forum... But thanks, looks like Blu-ray is also bound to certain resolutions, bitrates and profiles.

320x240 isn't even close to being valid for BluRay.

Hehe, yeah well it was just an example, but still I think it's a pity that not all resolutions are available. The reason is probably the huge possible code optimization for speed. Well, I see that 720x576 is available and I'm capturing everything in PAL DV anyway so I'll stick to that resolution then.

You might check the forums at http://www.doom9.net to see what they think about your plan to store video with an idea towards burning it later on BluRay discs.

Thanks, I'll do that!

Sony is completely schizophrenic about the whole idea of users making their own BluRay discs. I don't really keep up, but I've heard various rumors of Sony stopping the ability of consumers to make their own BluRay discs. There may not be any truth to that at all, but you should probably see what the gurus at Doom9 think before you go down this path.

Isn't that pointless? People can use the HDMI-output of their videocards anyway to play HD video on their HD screens.

you can use Megui, AutoMkv,StaxRip to creat avc videos that are compatible with blu-ray. Just select the blu-ray profile and then you can record them on dvd/bluray blank media, kind of like divx/xvid now but you dont need a dvd player that supports divx, any blu-ray player will play them.

i might be wrong as i dont have a blu-ray player but from what i read so far it will work.

i think you wont have chapters but it will play

Great, thank you as well!

Edit: forgot you were using Linux....

No, I'm using XP as well. It was just to point out that I'm not afraid of command line work.

[jdobbs]

Things to watch for:

Blu-ray limits GOPs to no more than 1 sec. So set:

--min-keyint 1 --keyint 24 (25 for PAL)

Blu-ray is limited to level 4.1 and the --ref setting must be no higher than 9 for 720p and 4 for 1080p:

--ref 4

Blu-ray limits the number of b-frames, so don't raise it above the "3" you've set