Burning to Blu-Ray problem

[bernieraffe]

I've prepared my films ready to be burnt onto Bluray and have now started the burning process.

The ISO file is big, about 23GB, I have a lot of content! The trouble is that after almost 3 hours of elapsed time, DVD Architect Studio is at 2% and is currently telling me the time remaining is 69 hours (and it's still rising!)

Am I really going to have to leave my PC on for several days just to burn a BluRay?

PS Mine is a powerful i7 8GB PC

Cheers,
Bernie

[TreeTopsRanch]

Maybe you set the bit rate too high? I would try Imgburn and see if that burns your ISO faster.

[bernieraffe]

The bit rate is set in the 'prepare' isn't it, I don't see how that would affect the burn time.

Anyway, I tried your suggestion of using ImgBurn, it took 22 minutes!!

Thanks for the tip.

Cheers,
Bernie

[Steve Grisetti]

What type of file are you feeding to DVD Architect? You should ideally be feeding it a virtually finished file from Vegas (or whatever software you're editing with). If you're feeding it raw footage or some format other than M2T optimized for BluRay, you're making it do a lot of work it doesn't do all that efficiently.

Vegas will output a virtually finished BluRay video file. So will Premiere Elements. Put those files into DVD Architect and your BluRay should output in less than 15 minutes.

[bernieraffe]

Hi Steve,

The BluRay is an educational product and has around 50 videos on it, each one just a few minutes long.

Each video was created in PRE10 and output as a WMV file. I do appreciate that the files needed to be converted in DVD Architect and the 'Prepare' did take a long time (about 17 hours), but I tried MPG files as has been previously suggested, and in your fine book, but I felt the quality of the WMV files was better, so just put up with the long preparation time. In fact, I'm finding WMV files work better practically everywhere.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me all the hard work and any conversions are made during the 'Prepare' process, the burn is surely just a matter of creating the BluRay from the ISO file. When I did this using DVD Architect, the estimated time got to 80 hours and was at 2% and was still rising, before I decided to kill it off.

ImgBrun created the BluRay in 22 minutes, and it plays absolutely fine.

Thanks very much for your Sony DVD Architect book, by the way, it has really helped a lot.

Cheers,
Bernie

[Steve Grisetti]

Well, if that workflow works for you, it works for you, Bernie.

But if you want a workflow that works quickly and efficiently, output your video from Vegas as a BluRay optimized file. Then DVD Architect just has to package it up and make an ISO.

If you give DVD Architect a WMV file, it has to transcode it to a BluRay file before it can prepare your disc.

The process of preparing, after all, isn't just burning the disc. It's creating the DVD or BluRay files from whatever files you've given it.

If the files you're giving it are optimized MPEGs or M2Ts, the program has little to do but pack it up and send it to the burner. If it's a completely different format (like WMV) the program has to unpack, convert it and repack it in a new disc format -- a process that can take several hours (or, on a less powerful system, choke your computer).

So it all depends on how efficiently you want the process to proceed, Bernie.

Glad you're liking the book! I'm very proud of it.

[bernieraffe]

Steve, the problem is that there are 50 films in the WMV format, so It's quicker and less work just to let Studio Architect convert the files.

The fact remains though, to burn the files from an ISO (which presumably is just a BluRay image file):-
ImgBurn - 22 minutes
Studio Architect - 80+ hours

By the way, Studio Architect burns to 2 dual layer DVD+R's in minutes (same set of 50 films in same format), so to my mind there's something very wrong with the SA BluRay burn process.

As I said, I've tried sharing MPG's via PR10, but the quality wasn't as good as WMV.

[Steve Grisetti]

Well, if ImgBurn works for you -- and the results play fine on your standalone disc player -- then that's certainly the best workflow in your case, Bernie.

Apparently DVD Architect doesn't believe your files are in their optimized BluRay format and is, for some reason, transcoding them. Which, in your case, doesn't sound like it's necessary.