Issues authoring Blu-ray disc from captured footage

[SportsorDeath]

I am having trouble authoring a BD that plays well. I am trying to get 2 football games onto one 25gb BD disc. There is more than enough space to do so.

I burned one disc via ImgBurn in which the compilation was authored with MultiAVCHD. That one plays fine, but the problem is, the video has an almost hazy look to it, almost like what you see with footage that originated in PAL format and was changed to NTSC. I don't know if it is a framerate issue or what, but my captured footage looks fine on my computer. I am guessing it might have to do with the transcoding process that MultiAVCHD did (I selected 2 pass HQ on this one, which took 2 days to complete).

I then decided to try doing one with tsMuxer. It seemed to work fine (got no errors or anything), but after burning the disc, it refused to play in a PS3. Also, it appears as if only one of the two football games made it through the process and onto the disc. In the "stream" folder, there is clearly just one game, not two as were in the tsmuxer compilation.

If anyone can help, I would appreciate it greatly. All I want to do is be able to get these games onto BD and be able to watch them on my PS3 in all their HD glory. I don't even really care about a top menu or anything, though it would be nice. Thank you.

[aedipuss]

let's start at the beginning. what is the source format? how was it captured? what hardware was used? video and audio specs? lengths? mediainfo in text mode will give good results on the source files.

[SportsorDeath]

The source is a DirecTV HR21 HD DVR. Output signal 1920x1080 (1080i). Footage was captured using a Hauppauge Colossus (with the capture option of "AVC", which will result in .TS files being output. The audio being captured is AC3 Dolby Digital 5.1. The two games are a bit different in length and file size, one being approx. 2 hours 28 mins (9.99 GB) and the other 1 hour 58 mins (7.94 GB). This is after removing the commercials in Videoredo, by the way.

The actual output files are fine. I have played them through various programs on my computer and have not encountered a single noticeable issue. I have also captured a lot of other footage and created regular DVD's and AVCHD discs with no issue (using other software). It really appears that the problem stems from the encoding/transcoding process done by MultiAVCHD. Not necessarily that there is something wrong with the software itself, or even the encoder used, but rather the encoding process I selected for the disc I saw the issue on.

I did use the 2 pass HQ option when it looks like I perhaps should have just gone with the "1 pass turbo" option that was the default for the project. So, it maybe seems "overprocessed", if you will?

[dragonkeeper]

I did use the 2 pass HQ option when it looks like I perhaps should have just gone with the "1 pass turbo" option that was the default for the project.

This shouldn't matter, Multiavchd has not been updated in sometime, i'm not fully sure it is taking advatage of the advances that have been made in making compliant streams with x264. Demux the stream then encode the video manually Re-mux audio and video using mkvmerg, Video should work fine now (don't let multiavchd transcode)

You will want to make two passes so you can hit a desirable target size for you video. you will have to use the -- pass parameter. Looks like this

x264 --bitrate 6500 
--preset veryfast --tune film --bluray-compat --vbv-maxrate 40000 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --level 4.1 --keyint 30 --open-gop --slices 4 --tff --colorprim "bt709" --transfer "bt709" --colormatrix "bt709" --pass 1 --sar 1:1  -o myOutPut.264 myDemuxedVideo.file

x264 --bitrate 6500
--preset veryfast --tune film --bluray-compat --vbv-maxrate 40000 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --level 4.1 --keyint 30 --open-gop --slices 4 --tff --colorprim "bt709" --transfer "bt709" --colormatrix "bt709" --pass 2 --sar 1:1  -o myOutPut.264 myDemuxedVideo.file

You can use AVCHDCalculator to determine the bit rate you need.

[aedipuss]

just don't know. i'd give multiavchd an other shot with different settings like you said. it's got so many damn settings it's almost hard not to make a mistake.

[dragonkeeper]

just don't know. i'd give multiavchd an other shot with different settings like you said. it's got so many damn settings it's almost hard not to make a mistake.

This is true but multiavchd and Avchdcoder are the only freeware options I'm aware of to create an Blu-ray disk or avchd with Menus. Avchdcoder is preferable over multiavchd but it is much more restrictive also it likes to transcode everything I've thrown at it (and its hella slow at it).
Pesonally I use CS4 to author my BD titles i use x264 to encode them as its faster and has better quailty than adobes trancoding engine.

[SportsorDeath]

Pardon my dumbassery but how exactly do you get MultiAVCHD to NOT do any encoding? I could have sworn on one of my earlier attempts to get a workable output that even when I did not hit the "transcode" button that it still marked the video files for re-encoding.

[SportsorDeath]

Ok, I figured it out. I ran my streams through tsMuxer and muxed them into m2ts files (containers, is it?) and then added those files to the compilation in MultiAVCHD and everything worked perfectly with no extra encoding going on. The resulting picture (and sound) quality is fantastic. Exactly what I was hoping for. Thank you guys so much for your help!

[MCnDaHouse]

I have the same setup, the Hauppauge Colossus card. MultiAVCHD is making the audio out of sync. If I run it through tsMuxer and then not let MultiAVCHD encode it I should be fine? How do you keep it from encoding it? Thanks

[SportsorDeath]

I actually don't even run them through tsMuxer anymore. I don't think I ever needed to. If you just add your TS video files to the compilation and don't do anything, it will not add any extra encoding, I have found. The only thing I do when I click on each title and the encode window comes up is change the title to whatever I want, and then hit ok. I have yet to notice any sync issues with the audio.

[MCnDaHouse]

I think I found the problem... TSSniper. I edited one with videoredo and it us fine after going through multiavchd. The other ones on the same disc all have audiosync problems. I'll edit the others with videoredo and try again.

[MCnDaHouse]

Update:

TSSniper was the problem. I edited the other files with Videoredo and now everything works great with MultiAVCHD. No audio sync problems.

Now I'll need to invest $40 in Videoredo unless someone has another suggestion for a free .ts editor. Basically just need something to edit commercials out. Thanks!