George, I used your workflow last night, my project is avchd 1920 x1080, quite a few tranisitions, several titles and some key framing in one clip. I then went share /disc/burn SD to folder. Not sure exactly how long it took because I went to bed, but it took 4.5 min for the first 2% so I assuming it took around 3.5 hours. That is MUCH longer than what your describing so if you would share the settings you spoke of.
Also RJ is correct in that the avchd files on preview are mpeg so there is a red line above. I did not render the preview files.

Almost missed seeing this post, sorry!

No. If the files in the directory structure required for the Blu-Ray disc are available to ImgBurn you don't need to burn the physical disc first and create an ISO or other image format. ImgBurn can be setup to burn the folders directly to Blu-Ray using the proper file system.

However, the problem is getting the files onto the HDD in the first place since many authoring programs don't have a burn to folder function. If you are using a virtual Blu-Ray program which simulates a Blu-Ray burner and can mount the virtual disc you create and make the contents accessable to ImgBurn, then you can burn the Physical disc from that. If you don't have that, it's probably easiest to burn to a Blu-Ray rewritable disc for verification and create a disc image for burning the non-rewritable BD disc and making copies.

Bob, my understanding is that an image that has been created from a BD-RE disc cannot be used to burn a BD-R disc. Am I wrong about that?

Were you burning a DVD with menus? If so, keep in mind that it takes a very long time for PRE7 to encode the menus but once it gets through them the encoding process proceeds at a faster pace.

Here are my settings:

Hardware settings for use with XP MCE 2005 and PRE/PSE7 Bundle:
--My Computer>Properties>Advanced>Performance>Settings>Visual Effects>Custom>Check only the boxes Use common tasks in folders and Use visual styles on windows and buttons
-- My Computer>Properties>Advanced>Performance>Settings>Advanced>Processor Scheduling>Check Programs
-- My Computer>Properties>Advanced>Performance>Settings>Advanced>Memory Usage>Check Programs
-- My Computer>Properties>Advanced>Performance>Settings>Advanced>Virtual Memory>Total paging file size for all drives (but with C Drive highlighted in the Drive window): 5374MB (this is what Windows recommended when I checked Custom size–so that is the number that I put into both the Initial size and the Maximum size boxes

Software settings for PRE7
--Project Setting if mostly 2288x1520 Stills from my HDD in the project: NTSC-Hard Disk, Flash Memory Camcorders-HD 1080i 30 (1920x1080 30)
--Edit>Preferences>Scratch Disks>Custom Path: D (this is my second internal HDD) for all choices

Also:
--Only the OS and Programs go on the C Drive (only 30.5 of 226GB in use)
--All creations/data go on external USB 2.0 HDDs, each of which has 2 BUs, with each of the 2 BUs at separate locations
--All drives have plenty of defragmented Free Space
--All the media (audio, clips, stills, etc.) to be udsed in a given project go on the same external HDD as the project itself
-All output (SD DVD Folder, HD MPEG2 1920x1080i 30 2-Pass file*) also go on that same external HDD

____
*Later, if I choose to burn either a SD or a HD DVD with menus, it is a series of files like this one that I will put onto a Timeline, using the same Project Preset that I described above.

I don't recall any issues. But, that doesn't mean there aren't any. Worst case, you can always copy the folders/files from the BD-RE to HDD and burn from that to BD-R with ImgBurn set to the proper file system. Since BD discs use UDF 2.5 which is not supported natively in XP, you'll need to install a UDF 2.5 reader in order to browse the disc from the Windows XP explorer -- here's one. Windows 7 supports UDF 2.5 natively.

I don't have a BD burner and can't test this.

When you say a series of files, are you refering to creating several projects because of a long project and then combining them on the same timeline at the end.
Regarding all your settings, WOW, that's a lot of good info George. Some of the settings/properties you mentioned I have done and others I'll have to double check. I am keeping all my source files, project files, exported files etc. on a seperate HDD connected with USB 2.0. I didn't have a menu, at least not yet, didn't want to complicate things until I had a clean run.
I'm attempting a blueray burn tonight from PE7 but I don't have my hopes up after looking at the time, 2.5 hours and I'm only 10% done. I always disable my internet connection and virus software when I'm doing this.
Regarding a comment by Bob about a disc image from a BD-RW being able to be used on a BD-R, I haven't tried that yet, but when I created a disc image from a DVD-R onto my HDD, it would not let be burn a copy to a DVD+R using Ulead MovieFactory 7 Pro.

I use Encore CS4 to create a BD image on the hard drive. I then burn that image to a BD-RE to check everything on my Panny BD player and TV.

If all is OK I use ImgBurn to re-burn the HDD based BD image to a standard BD. No coasters because everything has been tested before this final burn. If more than one BD required ImgBurn can take care of that.

Yes. Most of my individual slide shows are a maximum of 10 minutes in length and consist of about 100 HD slides plus a WAV audio file of perhaps 60-70MB.

Each slide show gets output first to a SD folder, and if that plays well, then I burn the HD MPEG2 file--and it is this latter file that I will subsequently use for a variety of purposes, including playback directly from the external HDD or to use with other HD MPEG2 files to create either a SD or a Blu-ray DVD with menus.



Something seems awry, for sure. How many minutes long is your Timeline?

The HD project that I just finished is 9 minutes and 44 seconds long. It took only 4 minutes and 4 seconds to save the un-rendered timeline to SD folder, plus another 16 minutes and 6 seconds to create the MPEG2 1980x1020i 30 file on my HDD. If ever I decide to burn the latter file to a Blu-ray disc, I doubt it would take more than another 16 minutes.

My timeline is 1 hour, 5 min. Just checked when I got up this morning....it's ugly, 18 hours and only 69% done. I choose the H264 1920x1080i preset for the blueray burn. I suppose had I choose the Mpgeg 2 1920x1080 it would have been about the same, not really sure the preferred codec there to use. Some of this has to be my processor only being a dou core I presume? I really appreciate all the great feedback this thread has generated, thanks for following thru with me while I work out this new blue ray workflow!

H264 is a highly-compressed format that looks as good as MPEG2 and it takes less space on your HDD, however, as you've discovered, it takes a very long time to burn.

With regard to your CPU, I formerly had the same problem, but Bob and other members helped me with the process of upgrading to a Q6600, and I have been VERY happy ever since.

Amazingly I got a finished project and burned a disc image from it with additional copies. It did take 25 hours of encodeing/burning from PE7 thou. I'll make George's suggested tweaks and next time try an Mpeg 2 HD preset and see if that helps. Hope to step up to a whole new system in the summer with an i7 Processor, windows 7 etc. Thanks to all for the great feedback! Bob

The Media Center software that comes with most versions of Windows 7 is VERY cool.

http://www.muvipix.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6860&p=61297#p61237

So......., in keeping with the name of this topic - has anyone produced a Blu-ray coaster yet?

Not I, Ken.

I look forward to it and will check out your url here George! Also, responding to your earlier comment about H264 taking a lot longer to encode, I didn't realize that. I just did a couple of tests this evening and the H264 took slightly more than twice as long to burn to a BD-RW. After a little research I see that one of the main differences between the 2 is the H264 uses about half the MBs that Mpeg 2 does with equal quality. I'm sure you were already aware of that but to a relative newby like me it offers an explanation of why my 1:05 min project took so long to do.






Nor have I Ken....but then I've only done 1 project with an orignal and 1 copy.