Is there a single decent BD authoring tool out there for under $1000?...

[dror]

Hi everyone,
I've been trying to find a streamlined and reliable solution for these simple workflow requirements:

- Get from a 1080p movie in Adobe Premiere (Mac) to a BDMV BD-R ISO. No menus.
- Add a subtitles track with a semi-transparent background box.

I think I tried almost everything under the sun that's not Scenarist... I'm not expecting to troubleshoot every single problem I encountered, but I'd appreciate your input if I got some details wrong or if there's a better way.


What doesn't work

1. Premiere/AME CC 2018 and 2019 dropped support for Dolby Digital.
   
   
2. Premiere/AME CC 2017 (BluRay-compliant H264 setting) exports m4v files that only open in Encore and tsmuxer, and barely open anywhere else (VLC can’t play them, and Premiere 2017/2018 take several minutes to do each operation with it - open, skip, etc.). Not sure if it's a hinting problem, bad codec, or if there's no problem..
   
   
3. Encore CS6 likes to hangs & freeze
4. Encore CS6 doesn’t support a background box for textual subtitles, or SUP
5. Encore CS6 forces 5-frame gaps between subtitles, which is ridiculous and unacceptable.
   
   
6. TMPGEnc Authoring Works 6 has an interface that takes some getting used to... but it has a wonderful subtitle editor with the best feature set and a live preview. However, its resulting discs had major video sync drift. (The very same assets in Encore & tsmuxer yielded discs without sync issues.)
7. It also did something weird with its "Smart Encode" feature - it kept going on and off while muxing that one m4v, like it was switching between rewrapping and transcoding constantly. Messed up.
8. Also had a bunch of errors that subtitles were delayed by 0.13 sec, even though my total max bitrate was just 27Mbps.
9. TAW couldn't open MOV files, though I'm suspecting it's something with my QT installation.
   
   
10. Vegas DVD Architect keeps crashing (hanged when trying to import not just the suspicious m4v, but also ac3 files)
11. Its subtitles tool doesn't support background boxes
12. It won’t import SUPs or a PNG sequence
    
    
13. BluDiscStudio Lite doesn’t support m4v files at all, and is very clunky. Though it does support importing SUPs...
    
    
14. BD-Rebuilder: gave an error "failed to build a BD structure" with Adobe's BD m4v's.
    
    
15. multiAVCHD won't open Adobe's BD m4v's.
    
    
16. tsMuxeR loops the playback, and doesn’t allow previews, QCing subtitles, etc.
    
    
17. Of course, I started giving up on using Adobe's BD m4v's. But what's a good, fast, cheap, and BDMV-compliant alternative that takes ProRes & DNxHD MOVs? Avidemux (Mac) didn't, I just got garbage.

What works?!
Here is the best workflow I found so far.....

1. Export BluRay assets (m4v, ac3, wav) out of Premiere/AME + mp4 reference cut
2. Create a SUP in Subtitle Edit (using the ref cut).
3. Mux them all in tsmuxerGUI into a BDMV
4. Open it in BDEdit and fix tsmuxer's playback loop bug
5. Use ImgBurn to burn it or create an ISO for Roxio Toast.

Pros: tsmuxerGUI on Mac is blazing fast, quick to setup, takes Premiere/AME’s m4v no problem, takes the SUP. Leawo Player for Mac doesn’t play the subtitles, but VLC plays them, BDEdit validates the BDMV, and they work on my Sony BluRay player.
Cons: Clunky to QC the subtitles (export SUP, mux an m2ts and view in VLC). And of course tsmuxer doesn't have the convenient UI of Vegas or Encore. Tweaking chapters and previewing is a mess. Having to go to BDEdit is an extra step and risk (digging in the guts of the disc), and an extra extra step because I can't just make an ISO out of tsmuxer. (Hard to modify an ISO image in-situ.)


Thanks!

[CDK]

As far as I know the .m4v output from Premiere is a pure h264 stream (at least if you specify a Blu-ray preset). Thus, you can rename it to .264 or .avc and use with BDS Lite or any other software which don't accept m4v.
And BDS Lite supports .sup and .srt subtitles.

[october262]

Hi everyone,
I've been trying to find a streamlined and reliable solution for these simple workflow requirements:

- Get from a 1080p movie in Adobe Premiere (Mac) to a BDMV BD-R ISO. No menus.
- Add a subtitles track with a semi-transparent background box.

I think I tried almost everything under the sun that's not Scenarist... I'm not expecting to troubleshoot every single problem I encountered, but I'd appreciate your input if I got some details wrong or if there's a better way.


What doesn't work

1. Premiere/AME CC 2018 and 2019 dropped support for Dolby Digital.
   
   
2. Premiere/AME CC 2017 (BluRay-compliant H264 setting) exports m4v files that only open in Encore and tsmuxer, and barely open anywhere else (VLC can’t play them, and Premiere 2017/2018 take several minutes to do each operation with it - open, skip, etc.). Not sure if it's a hinting problem, bad codec, or if there's no problem..
   
   
3. Encore CS6 likes to hangs & freeze
4. Encore CS6 doesn’t support a background box for textual subtitles, or SUP
5. Encore CS6 forces 5-frame gaps between subtitles, which is ridiculous and unacceptable.
   
   
6. TMPGEnc Authoring Works 6 has an interface that takes some getting used to... but it has a wonderful subtitle editor with the best feature set and a live preview. However, its resulting discs had major video sync drift. (The very same assets in Encore & tsmuxer yielded discs without sync issues.)
7. It also did something weird with its "Smart Encode" feature - it kept going on and off while muxing that one m4v, like it was switching between rewrapping and transcoding constantly. Messed up.
8. Also had a bunch of errors that subtitles were delayed by 0.13 sec, even though my total max bitrate was just 27Mbps.
9. TAW couldn't open MOV files, though I'm suspecting it's something with my QT installation.
   
   
10. Vegas DVD Architect keeps crashing (hanged when trying to import not just the suspicious m4v, but also ac3 files)
11. Its subtitles tool doesn't support background boxes
12. It won’t import SUPs or a PNG sequence
    
    
13. BluDiscStudio Lite doesn’t support m4v files at all, and is very clunky. Though it does support importing SUPs...
    
    
14. BD-Rebuilder: gave an error "failed to build a BD structure" with Adobe's BD m4v's.
    
    
15. multiAVCHD won't open Adobe's BD m4v's.
    
    
16. tsMuxeR loops the playback, and doesn’t allow previews, QCing subtitles, etc.
    
    
17. Of course, I started giving up on using Adobe's BD m4v's. But what's a good, fast, cheap, and BDMV-compliant alternative that takes ProRes & DNxHD MOVs? Avidemux (Mac) didn't, I just got garbage.

What works?!
Here is the best workflow I found so far.....

1. Export BluRay assets (m4v, ac3, wav) out of Premiere/AME + mp4 reference cut
2. Create a SUP in Subtitle Edit (using the ref cut).
3. Mux them all in tsmuxerGUI into a BDMV
4. Open it in BDEdit and fix tsmuxer's playback loop bug
5. Use ImgBurn to burn it or create an ISO for Roxio Toast.

Pros: tsmuxerGUI on Mac is blazing fast, quick to setup, takes Premiere/AME’s m4v no problem, takes the SUP. Leawo Player for Mac doesn’t play the subtitles, but VLC plays them, BDEdit validates the BDMV, and they work on my Sony BluRay player.
Cons: Clunky to QC the subtitles (export SUP, mux an m2ts and view in VLC). And of course tsmuxer doesn't have the convenient UI of Vegas or Encore. Tweaking chapters and previewing is a mess. Having to go to BDEdit is an extra step and risk (digging in the guts of the disc), and an extra extra step because I can't just make an ISO out of tsmuxer. (Hard to modify an ISO image in-situ.)


Thanks!

would any of these work ?? - https://www.dvdfab.cn/resource/blu-ray/blu-ray-authoring-software

might also see this - http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?149744-Blu-Ray-Authoring-Software-for-Mac

[dellsam34]

Give multiAVCHD a try.

[dvd_kosher]

Vso convertxtohd?

[babygdav]

Get from a 1080p movie in Adobe Premiere (Mac) to a BDMV BD-R ISO. No menus.
- Add a subtitles track with a semi-transparent background box.

If Premiere can be replaced with Vegas Video, you can export directly from the timeline to bluray disc directly.

Haven't worked with subtitles for bluray before, but in any video editing program - transparent box on a second video layer, text layer above that.

Otherwise, export from any subtitles program as a video with box and transparent background, merge on top of the edited video.

...

Other programs to try.
Avid dvd
Final cut pro x
https://www.dvd-logic.com/
https://www.cyberlink.com/products/powerproducer/features_en_US.html?r=1
https://blu-disc.net/