People mad over Blu-Ray Discs

[Jordanmphoto]

I sent some people a blu-ray disc of my latest video (shared as 1440x2080 NTSC). It had played back fine on my computer's blu-ray burner. I didn't test it on my TV's blu-ray player because I had tested out the first disc I produced and it worked fine. The people were mad (not that I really care since it was a freebie to them ) because their player said "Incompatible Media" and wouldn't play. I explained what I read in Steve's book, which is that some older players can't play home burned discs. They said "well, fine, but it won't play on either of our blu-ray players and one is brand new". I wondered whether their players were off brands, but they said the players were fine because they can play their son's home burned discs with no problem (and, oh, he uses Final Cut Pro and is an Apple snob, so I got a bit of flack over that).

I just made them another disc and this time I tested it out on my TV's blu-ray player. It played, however I noticed that there was a bunch of video "fuzz" at the beginning of the disc and it behaved like it was having trouble getting started. Could it be that there is a problem with the discs, but my player is able to overcome it? (It's a Samsung) I am waiting for the people to receive the new one tomorrow and tell me the results.

I'm setting up a business which will require giving people discs, mostly in Blu-Ray, so I have to find a way to produce them reliably or it will be rather costly. I am not upset about the occasional bad disc, but it worries me that the first disc I produced didn't play on 2 out of 2 players. Any thoughts on this?

If it helps, I have a Sony 12x Blu-Ray burner and am burning on Memorex BD-R discs (I know Verbatim is the best, but the store didn't have any and I didn't have time to mail order.) If someone knows that Sony is a bad machine, please speak up because I can still take it back to them and get another one.

[Steve Grisetti]

Well, for one thing, NEVER use Memorex discs. They're the worst and most inconsistent discs you can buy. As I say in the book, Verbatim will usually give you the best quality and consistency. (The problem is not software related. It's entirely an issue with the discs themselves. So Mac vs. PC disc burning is irrelevant.)

The second most important factor is burn speed. That is something you, unfortunately, can't control with Premiere Elements, since it only allows you of the option of burning directly to a disc.

If you want to maintain the highest quality for your burned discs (and, since you're doing this for a business, I assume you do), I recommend you pick up a copy of DVD Architect Studio. It's only $39 if you download it from the Sony Creative Software site.

Do your editing in Premiere Elements and then output your finished piece as a 1440x1080 MPEG. You can then use this MPEG (which will actually be an M2T file) as your source video to create your BluRay disc in DVD Architect.

DVD Architect allows you to control your BluRay's burn speed. Keep it at 8x (assuming your discs are rated at 16x) and use Verbatim discs and your customers should get pretty much 100% playback. (Unlike DVD players, BluRay players were created in an age when more people were burning their own discs -- so nearly all are designed to be compatible with home-burned discs.)

But do be sure your customers do have BluRay players, of course. Some may not know the difference between a DVD and a BluRay and may not understand that they're not interchangeable.

[Jordanmphoto]

Great advice, Steve! I wasn't happy to buy Memorex, but CompUSA (where I bought the blu-ray burner) had nothing in Verbatim BD-R except LTH type. I read somewhere they wouldn't work right on old players so I went with the Memorex. Anyway, I'm mail ordering the Verbatims ASAP and DVD Architect. Will keep you posted.

[Jordanmphoto]

BTW, can the MPEG be saved with a disc menu?

[Jordanmphoto]

I just went to buy Verbatim disks from Amazon and the most I could find in speed rating was 6X. Where can you find them rated 16x?

Later note: I think you must have meant 16x for DVD's. What speed would I use for Blu-Rays?

[Steve Grisetti]

No, you can not save a menu as part of an MPEG file.

As for the recommended write speed for burning a BluRay, let's let someone who's had more experience than I make a recommendation there.

As a general rule, you're best burning at half the disc's rated speed.

[Dave McElderry]

Here's a nice selection of Verbatims. You can even buy in cake boxes of 50 if you're going to be doing quantities. Several of us can recommend SuperMediaStore as a good place to buy from.

http://www.supermediastore.com/category ... iscs-media

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

....As for the recommended write speed for burning a BluRay, let's let someone who's had more experience than I make a recommendation there......

I use Verbatim BD-Rs. Before producing the final 'deliverable' disc I always burn to a re-writable BluRay disc so that I can test everything first. As for burn speeds, I usually go for half the rated speed as Steve suggested above.

I am not a Premiere Elements user so my naive question is 'Does PrEl have the ability to burn to a folder rather than directly to disc?'

If so, you might want to look at ImgBurn.

http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=9512

Note that ImgBurn does allow you to select the write speed (following taken from the on-line ImgBurn user guide):-

"Write Speed

You can here select the speed rate at which you want the write to be performed at.

If you want to burn as fast as either the writer or the media is capable of, then select 'MAX'. If you want to write at a desired speed, then select that corresponding number at which you want to write at in the drop down box."

There are a lot of ImgBurn users here, including me.

[Steve Grisetti]

ImgBurn includes a feature that verifies the disc after it burns it. Virtually every disc that the program has verified has played on my friends' disc players.

John, can you confirm that ImgBurn will burn BluRays as well as DVDs?

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Can confirm that Steve. The link posted above is to the ImgBurn 'how to' pages that deal with buring BD discs.

[Steve Grisetti]

Excellent! Thanks, John!

In short, Jordan, if quality of burn were important to me, I'd pick up a copy of DVD Architect Studio 5 to supplement Premiere Elements, download a copy of ImgBurn, order a stack of Verbatim BluRay discs and burn at no faster half the rated speed on the discs.

[Jordanmphoto]

But do be sure your customers do have BluRay players, of course. Some may not know the difference between a DVD and a BluRay and may not understand that they're not interchangeable.

Steve, it's worse than that: These people do have BluRay players, but I just found out that when he gets to the menu he hits "Play" instead of "Enter". Do you believe that? Even on commercial discs you use "Enter" to start the video from the menu, so I don't know how he's been playing anything . . .

But this all has been a good learning experience and in order to be 100% playable I'm going to make the discs in DVD Architect Studio (which is ironic, since I'm actually an architect getting into an encore career). I'll take a look at ImgBurn, but why would you use both programs?

[Steve Grisetti]

I guess you don't need both programs. DVD Architect Studio does it all -- and allows you to set burn speed.

I just usually create my DVDs as Prepared Files -- finished DVD files that I store on my hard drive. Then I use ImgBurn to burn off discs as needed. As I've said, I like the added bonus of ImgBurn's verification feature. It hasn't let me down yet.

[Peru]

I just usually create my DVDs as Prepared Files -- finished DVD files that I store on my hard drive. Then I use ImgBurn to burn off discs as needed. As I've said, I like the added bonus of ImgBurn's verification feature. It hasn't let me down yet.

That's my workflow, too.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

I'll take a look at ImgBurn, but why would you use both programs?

I use Adobe Encore to create my DVDs but I save them to a folder. I then use ImgBurn to create the discs on re-writable media so that I can test the disc before the production of the deliverable. Then I use ImgBurn to write the final discs. I could use Encore all through the process but choose to work in this way. All DVDs that I produce are then archived so that if ever I need to produce further copies it is as simple as just re-running ImgBurn.