Blu-ray with multiple videos and simple menu

[michaelsft]

Hi all, suspect I already know the answer here but I have 8 files I want to put on a blu-ray with a very simply menu. For a menu it would just be a background image and either 8 images to represent each video with a the title above each one or a carousel with the same - no other text is necessary anywhere as it'll be on the background image. Once a video finishes it can go back to the main menu (either at the start or moving along to the next video).

I have been trying with MultiAVCHD for a while and I've found it impossible to get right so I guess this is a call for help - after reading it seems MultiAVCHD is still the best option out there.

All my video files are 1920*1080 / 23.976FPS / AVC (High@L4) / (CABAC 4 Ref Frames) - I may be wrong but I assumed these were fully BD compliant as they are however when I try to make a disc it wants to transcode everything and seems like it'll take hours and hours - surely it should just make a copy of them rather than reducing the quality further by transcoding them?

I also for the life of me can't get a background image to appear on the menu page even though it does work on a title page (which I don't want to use anyway). There's only one youtube tutorial that shows someone adding a background video and it works fine so perhaps my file is the wrong format... it's literally just a 1920*1080 jpg so... I have no idea.

So I guess my initial questions (if anyone can help) - are my file bd compliant? If so, how do I stop MultiAVCHD from transcoding them? The total file size is slightly less than 25GB but I have BD50 discs as well and would be happy to burn on that if it's slightly too big.

That aside, is there any reason why the menu won't show my background that anyone can think of? I'm in the right section and I can see it accepts it but in the preview it just doesn't show (even though it would in the title page for each video - so weird).

Any ideas and help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks for reading
Michael

[usually_quiet]

Blu-Disc Studio Lite is another free option to look at. It allows greater menu customization but requires more knowledge.

[michaelsft]

Thanks I'll have a look again at that. I did check it out but it seemed a little complicated.

[Secoast]

It would be helpful to take some screenshots of your settings. Multiavchd has an eccentric layout, and in my experience, it is not a very forgiving app if you do not do everything as you should. You may be making some errors that would be obvious to some of the experienced users here.

[mail2tom]

Here is my process for multiAVCHD:

I "Add video files" under the "Media" tab, if they show up as RED, then the files are not BD compliant (requires reencoding). If, however, they are compliant, all I need to do is customize how I want the files to play and show up in the menu.

For instance, I Select/highlight each file in the "Media" tab, then select "properties" and make any changes to the "Title name" to what I would like displayed in the menu. For the first title I change "After playback" to "Go to next title" and check the "Show this file first in menu" and finally press "Ok".

For subsequent titles I repeat the same process with the exception of not checking the "Show this title first in menu".

For the last title the process is repeated except for "After playback" I select "Go to menu" and again I do not check the "Show this title first in menu".

Lastly I "Save project" so I don't have to manually reenter everything in case I forgot something (so I can easily reload and try again), then press the "Start" button and under "Blu-ray for BD-R/RE disc I press "Blu-ray Disc". No reencoding takes place.

Good luck.

[poisondeathray]

All my video files are 1920*1080 / 23.976FPS / AVC (High@L4) / (CABAC 4 Ref Frames) - I may be wrong but I assumed these were fully BD compliant as they are however when I try to make a disc it wants to transcode everything and seems like it'll take hours and hours - surely it should just make a copy of them rather than reducing the quality further by transcoding them?

Probably not compliant . There are many other parameters required for BD compliance, including max GOP length, VBV buffer restrictions, 4 slices, many others - If 1 of them is not compliant, file must be re-encoded

You can post the mediainfo report (view=>text) and it might provide more clues

[Secoast]

That aside, is there any reason why the menu won't show my background that anyone can think of? I'm in the right section and I can see it accepts it but in the preview it just doesn't show (even though it would in the title page for each video - so weird).

It's not clear if you are creating custom menus, or using the standard menu. If the latter, the following should work.

Menu Tab
General
Default Menu Type.....Check for Static.
Background Image..... Navigate to and select image.

Custom menus require a menu image for each video file. These can be near identical, with each displaying all video thumbnails, but with a different thumbnail highlighted for each video.

[michaelsft]

Probably not compliant . There are many other parameters required for BD compliance, including max GOP length, VBV buffer restrictions, 4 slices, many others - If 1 of them is not compliant, file must be re-encoded

You can post the mediainfo report (view=>text) and it might provide more clues

Interesting... here's the mediainfo for the first file, I think all 8 are the same. When I add to MultiAVCHD and then do the fit all bit they do turn green suggesting they are compliant right? Is it possible that it's too close to 25GB and so decides it wants to re-encode to reduce the overall file size? It's like 24.25GB in total. I had assumed there would be a place to say 'no not transcode' but I can't find it if there is.

General
Unique ID : 235821015475289617064458148436795598558 (0xB16979BBCEBF158DC94E5F23CF3A26DE)
Complete name : /Episode 1.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 4
File size : 3.23 GiB
Duration : 55 min 33 s
Overall bit rate mode : Constant
Overall bit rate : 8 321 kb/s
Frame rate : 23.976 FPS
Writing application : Lavf58.76.100
Writing library : Lavf58.76.100
ErrorDetectionType : Per level 1

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4
Format settings : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames : 4 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 55 min 33 s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 7 516 kb/s
Nominal bit rate : 10 000 kb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.151
Stream size : 2.92 GiB (90%)
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio
ID : 2
Format : E-AC-3
Format/Info : Enhanced AC-3
Commercial name : Dolby Digital Plus
Codec ID : A_EAC3
Duration : 55 min 33 s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 640 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : -70 ms
Stream size : 254 MiB (8%)
Service kind : Complete Main
Default : Yes
Forced : No

[michaelsft]

Thank you to everyone who has replied - I'm going to try some suggestions here with just two files to see if I can get something working and report back.

[michaelsft]

It's not clear if you are creating custom menus, or using the standard menu. If the latter, the following should work.

Menu Tab
General
Default Menu Type.....Check for Static.
Background Image..... Navigate to and select image.

Custom menus require a menu image for each video file. These can be near identical, with each displaying all video thumbnails, but with a different thumbnail highlighted for each video.

Well here's the thing, I'm not entirely sure the best one to pick but to try and simplify it - I really just want one single menu (standard or custom - I don't know) - I figured the standard menu with the carousel would be fine but when I add the background image and check it with the preview the image isn't there.

Image 1 - Added the files and they are neither green nor red...
https://files.videohelp.com/u/298700/1%20-%20adding%20files.jpg

Image 2 - selected fit all and chose bd-25 and they turned green. I presumed this meant they are BD compliant. All I did here is add a custom template image to each episode.
https://files.videohelp.com/u/298700/2%20-%20fit%20all%20bd-25.jpg

Image 3 - settings in the Author page
https://files.videohelp.com/u/298700/3%20-%20Author.jpg

Image 4 - settings in the Menu page (includes a template 1080p jpg image for the background - same as the individual video images)
https://files.videohelp.com/u/298700/4%20-%20Menu.jpg

Image 5 - main menu preview with no bg image and AVCHD across the top (can't figure out how to remove that or the play button) - I really just wanted the carousel and to choose play by clicking on each episode. I think maybe this set up means I would need to move to episode I want and then go down and press play right?
https://files.videohelp.com/u/298700/5%20-%20Main%20Menu%20Preview.jpg

[Secoast]

Image 5 - main menu preview with no bg image and AVCHD across the top (can't figure out how to remove that or the play button) - I really just wanted the carousel and to choose play by clicking on each episode. I think maybe this set up means I would need to move to episode I want and then go down and press play right?
https://files.videohelp.com/u/298700/5%20-%20Main%20Menu%20Preview.jpg

Under Menu tab/ Extended. Check "Custom background (CAR)".
Also check "No reflections (SLI/CAR)".

To remove Play button. Go to Menu tab/Buttons/Labels.
Remove "Play" text.
Check "Apply button position settings".
Set Play to 0/0.
You can hide other buttons if required.

You should be able to navigate thumbnails with your remote, and use the OK button to play.

[michaelsft]

Excellent advice, I don't know if I'd have found those settings to be honest!

I'm getting closer, just a couple more things to figure out. First one might not be possible but... I have 8 episodes on here and I set each episode to go back to the menu when it's finished however I was wondering if I could make it not just go back to the menu but to highlight the next episode in the list. Not a big deal but would be nice.

After that it's just the settings to avoid transcoding - I have a feeling that at 24.25GB that it is too big for a single layer disc and there's no option for a double layer disc so I was thinking to choose HDD (Keep same bitrate) as I only have blank DL discs anyway so this isn't a problem. If I try this though it still tries to transcode so maybe I have to set each episode to not transcode individually.

[michaelsft]

For reference, below is the first episode after transcoding in MultiAVCHD - does anyone know what was so wrong in the original that was fixed in the transcode below? Super curious about it.

General
ID : 1 (0x1)
Complete name : /00000.m2ts
Format : BDAV
Format/Info : Blu-ray Video
File size : 3.12 GiB
Duration : 56 min 38 s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 7 889 kb/s
Maximum Overall bit rate : 35.5 Mb/s
Frame rate : 23.976 FPS

Video
ID : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4
Format settings : CABAC / 3 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames : 3 frames
Codec ID : 27
Duration : 55 min 33 s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 7 114 kb/s
Maximum bit rate : 20.0 Mb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 23.976 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.143
Stream size : 2.69 GiB (86%)
Writing library : x264 core 93 r1542M 5b86182
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=1 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x112 / me=hex / subme=1 / psy=1 / psy_rd=0.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=6 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=2 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / wpredb=1 / wpredp=0 / keyint=48 / keyint_min=8 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=48 / rc=abr / mbtree=1 / bitrate=7114 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.50 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=20000 / vbv_bufsize=25000 / ip_ratio=1.20 / aq=1:1.00 / nal_hrd=vbr
Language : English

Audio
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : E-AC-3
Format/Info : Enhanced AC-3
Commercial name : Dolby Digital Plus
Codec ID : 132
Duration : 1 min 59 s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 640 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 9.11 MiB (0%)
Language : English
Service kind : Complete Main

[Secoast]

I was wondering if I could make it not just go back to the menu but to highlight the next episode in the list. Not a big deal but would be nice.

Not possible, no. Not sure commercial disks do this, but multiAVCHD will either play the next title, or take you back to the menu, but not with the next track highlighted.

Regarding capacity. I don't personally use BD's (I'm mostly authoring AVCHD to DVDR, with much smaller home video files) but you will be unlikely to store over 24GB on a 25GB disc. Not when you add the other overheads into the equation.
Also, the way capacity is calculated can vary depending on whever you are measuring in multiples of 1000, or 1024.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.cdrom2go.com/blog/wha...lMQ95xjd0Ma4ZQ

[michaelsft]

Not possible, no. Not sure commercial disks do this, but multiAVCHD will either play the next title, or take you back to the menu, but not with the next track highlighted.

Success! After a lot of trial and error I managed to make a disc with my original files and a menu that works. I had to change the directional navigation buttons, change the colour and transparency of the square buttons so they didn't show and then had to figure out how to turn off the date and time. It wasn't particularly hard after the tips I was given here but it took a lot of time understanding things. I also figured out that the original videos would be fine as long as I didn't use the fit all button - I only chose BDMV blu-ray at the last stage and it gave me a complaint result that would fit on a DL disc. All good and no transcoding required which I expected since none turned red when loading into application.

I didn't realise that each time I scrolled onto a new episode it was basically loading a new page rather there being one dynamic menu where the episodes would move within it. I guess that makes sense even if it feels a little clunky. The main thing is that it looks pretty nice and it works so thanks for all the help and advice!

[Secoast]

I assumed 24.25GB was the total video file size. If correct, I'm surprised you managed to fit this on a single layer BD. Having said that, I haven't used recordable BD's myself.

I didn't realise that each time I scrolled onto a new episode it was basically loading a new page rather there being one dynamic menu where the episodes would move within it. I guess that makes sense even if it feels a little clunky. The main thing is that it looks pretty nice and it works so thanks for all the help and advice!

The beauty of this is that you can use custom menus to create any title thumbnail layout you choose.
You just create a single background with all your thumbnails included (in Photoshop, or similar), and export a copy for each title, but with a different title highlighted for each page.
As you say, you're actually scrolling through menu pages, but the effect appears to scroll thumbnails.
Something for a future project

[michaelsft]

Sorry what I meant was that it is too big for a BD-25 but I have BD-50 (Dual Layers discs) so it fit on just fine.

Anyway, thanks again for your help!