burning blu ray on DVD architect studio from PPE 9

[ifoundabuddy]

To solve problems encountered with Premiere Elements 9, i was told to put my mpeg2 file from Premiere Elements into DVD Architect Studio5.0 to burn the blu ray more successfully and it has worked every time when i did this the end of last year, until last night when i attempted to burn my newest project. I spent 16 hours burning the program to my computer and then burned a blu ray from that, and the project was 1 hour 39 minutes, and it was great for the first 1 hour of the blu ray, and then the picture became distorted (i don't know if the right word would be pixelating), but it was blurry and even the text was blurry and it remained that way for the remainder of the blu ray. Sony is telling me that it is because i rendered it twice, one with PPE 9 and again with DVD architect studio 5.0, and they could only give me the directions of how to do it from Vegas, which doesn't coincide with PPE as far as i can tell. And when i try to burn it from PPE itself, it says the 'media is not present.' Duh!!!!

Is this a fluke this time around and just something happened in the burning of the blu ray, but i don't necessarily want to spend another 16 hours to find out, or is it true that the second rendering is causing the problem. When i went back and checked out the mpeg2 that i put into the Sony sofware, there was no problems at that point in the project where the problem started.

Any simple solutions, because the directions from VEGAS doesn't help me a bit. I have no idea to see if i can even make it possible to make it adaptable for DVD Architect.

Any help is appreciated.

Ron

[Steve Grisetti]

Are you saying that you burned a BluRay disc from a standard def MPEG? That WILL create a fuzzy video.

What are the project specs of your original video project in Premiere Elements? Is it a hi-def video project?

And which Share option are using to output the MPEG?

Are you using the method I described in my recent tutorial? (To see it, go to our home page and type "Prepping for Disc" in the product search box. The second half of this tutorial talks about sending video from Premiere Elements to DVD Architect.)

[Bob]

Sony is telling me that it is because i rendered it twice, one with PPE 9 and again with DVD architect studio 5.0

That's not likely. The image quality will degrade when you recompress because the compression used is lossy. But, you would be hard pressed to see the difference from that one recompression. It would also be fairly uniform throughout the video. You wouldn't see what you are describing where the first part is good and the last part is terrible.

It sounds more like DVD Architect had a problem with the recompression or transcoding at that point -- possibly because of a glitch in the exported mpeg-2 video. I'd start by looking at the original project to see if anything looks funny. Expand the timeline so you can see individual frames and check to see if there is an empty frame (a gap) where there is no video, for example.

Do give us the details that Steve requested. Is all the source material high def?

[ifoundabuddy]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. I burned a blu ray disc from a mpeg 1920x1080i30 at 29.97 high quality, that i generated out of. This is exactly the same settings that i did 4 blu rays the end of last year that all turned out just perfect. I will check out your tutorial, but i did follow the suggestions you gave me last year, Steve, when i was starting out with the first one. And everything worked out great. And the first 2/3 of this one the quality is fantastic, in every respect. I made 11 different mpeg2's so that i wasn't working with a lot of photos or video clips in any one group on PPE9, and then resassembled the 11 different mpeg2s in high definition, and made another mpeg2 which is what i used in DVD Architect Studio 5.0.

I certainly thought it would be the same throughout the blu ray if it was the rendering being done more than once that was the problem! But it seemed to happen at the end of the 6th and beginning of of the 7th mpegs and it just continued to get worse from that point. So i followed your suggestion tonight Bob, and went through and went theorugh every frame at the end of those mpegs, and there was no space. I watched each of my mpegs in question that i used to form the mpeg2 i used in Architect and they were great. I looked at the combined mpeg of the 11 mpegs and it was great also. Even if i look at the project in Architect before and after i burned the blu ray, there was no visible problem anywhere on the project that i could find. There could only be a problem spot between the 11 different mpeg2s if i screwed up somewhere there.

I haven't had time yet to just do it over again, and see if it was a fluke, but i am hoping that is the problem because of the 16 plus hours it took to burn the blu ray. It is something that happened after i pressed the 'burn bluRay button on Architect. I see nothing wrong with the project that i used to burn the disc.

I am far from knowledgeable on these facts, but any more suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Plus i am ready now i am prepared to do my second blu ray, and a little hesitant, if i do need to vary anything. Is there anything wrong with the concept of dividing up my monster project into 73 different folders, which i plan to combine about 10-12 mpegs to form one mpeg2 to use to burn to my blu rays.

I did try to see if i could just try burning it straight from PE9 instead of going to Architect all together, but it would not let me burn because 'the media is absent.'' But it certainly was there, and i reviewed most of it before i ever did anything with it, to make sure i didn't see any obvious defects. So i don't understand that one either, but had figured i had the problem solved using Architect.

I certainly feel i wasted $29 calling Sony. They said that i had to 'share' the mpeg with some variations to prevent the extra rendering. He says it can be easily done from Vegas to Architect, but he couldn't tell me what buttons to press to allow that to happen to any other program that had the capability of burning a blu ray so he said it should be possible from PPE9, plus he said it would take much less time also, which would be obviously appreciated. In fact it was rendered 3 times, because i rendered when i formed the 11 mpegs, and again when i formed the mpeg of the 11 parts, and again when i burned the blu ray!!!!

Any help is appreciated.

Ron

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

"Media not present" often indicates that something else has taken ownership of the burner - Nero? something else? and so PrEl cannot see it.

If you have your finished project burned to an HDD folder as a BD disc image, try using ImgBurn to write the BD disc (do you have a BD-RE re-writable that you can use?). On the ImgBurn website there is a 'How to' guide for burning BD.

http://www.imgburn.com/

http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=9512 (this is the 'How to' guide)

[Steve Grisetti]

I hate to say something as general as "Trust us, not Sony" -- but in this case...

The point of my tutorial was to show you how to create a video file that would suffer minimal recompression when you ported it over to DVD Architect. Which is why I'm surprised you said it took you hours to burn your BluRay! It should have taken less than 10 minutes for DVD Architect to create the BluRay file from that MPEG -- assuming your DVD Architect project properties are the same as the file you output. So something is sort of wrong somewhere.

But if nearly all of your BluRays are coming out fine, it could be something else entirely! I don't know of any reason your disc would play fine most of the way through and then suddenly fail to play -- unless it's just a bad disc. That happens sometimes. But beyond that, I haven't a clue. Sorry.

[ifoundabuddy]

Steve, i watched your tutorial and that is exactly what i did, but i found one stupid major mistake which was in my properties in Architect, and it was set as AVC rather mpeg2, so i expect that was the major problem. But then i threw in a blu ray and figured i could get this process completed in 10 or 15 minutes, and when the time left to complete was up over 2 hours, i stopped it until this evening when i can have it just do its thing during the night. When i did this before, it took just as long to 'prepare' or 'burn without preparing.' But it took only 20 or so minutes to burn the blu ray from the prepared copy on my hard drive. So is it appropriate for it to take 16 hours to 'prepare' a copy of the finished product to the hard drive?

Only other thing i saw different was i had a faster bit rate on Architect than your 19 and would that slow down the process that much? I know your book says it doesn't need to be any higher, and would that slow it down?????

At least i am optimistic today. I burned 3 copies of the previous one, because i thought it looked fine in the beginning, until i watched the entire one but all 3 were the same way. I totally agree with you that i don't believe what Sony told me at all. Your tutorial seems to have shown me what they were of course unwilling to share with me unless i was using Vegas, with using Premiere Elements 9. I felt i was doing things right because i have followed your books step by step in both Premiere Elements 9 as well as DVD Architect Studio 5.0.

So do you feel that my error is enough to account for why it was fine for the first hour and then went to pot from then on?

Looking forward to my next attempt at least. Thanks again for the help and suggestions.

Ron

[Steve Grisetti]

There's no value in upping the bit rate on your BluRay beyond the default. The quality of your output can't be better than your original file -- and 18 is pretty optimal.

I'm not sure why your computer is taking so long to prepare a BluRay file.

You can try going to Premiere Elements, selecting your MPEG 1920x1080 and then clicking the Advanced button to see the individual specs -- then going to DVD Architect, opening the Project Properties and comparing each setting.

They should be identical for the audio and video. Are they?

[ifoundabuddy]

I am at work now, but tonight's project will be to check out all the specifications on the advanced button on Premiere Elements. I went that direction yesterday and started to think i better leave things alone in there, but i can certainly look more seriously.

Two quick questions for you:

1. Do you think my error in the properties of Architect could have truly caused the problem?
2. I will adjust the bit rate accordingly, but could that have made the time to complete the job longer?

You are definitely better than Sony and i don't even waste my time any more calling Photoshop which is totally worthless. I will try again tonight, and hopefully with good results. Hopefully i am back on track. Wish i was more of a whiz on the computer, but that i am not.

Thanks again, Steve! I appreciate the help and the quick replies. My frustration level is much lower today.

Ron

[Bob]

I'm with Steve, I don't see any obvious reason why the playback should behave like that.

As for the long preparation time, if your video file properties don't match the DVD Architect project properties, DVD Architect will recompress or transcode the video file to match the project properties. That can take a very long time. And, yes, that includes the bit rate setting.

[ifoundabuddy]

wasn't done but i must have hit the submit button;

continued:

4800 Hz stereo

Multiplexer: TS

Basic Video Settings: Codec Main concept MPEG,
Quality slide - about 3/4 of the way over
TV Standard NTSC
1920x1080

Basic Audio Setups: Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Stereo, Frequency 48KHz


In Architect, it said PCM stereo but no options for anything else
Bit depth 16 which i did not see any equivalent on PrE9
Sample rate 48,000

So just if you can peak over this and see if you a glaring conflict! I will attempt another time this evening. I went back to see if there was anything wrong again with the photos and went frame by frame in the area where it went south and i certainly do not see any gap of anything out of the ordinary. I will think positive.

Ron

[ifoundabuddy]

Well i obviously didn't hit the submit button so the first part is missing of the advanced button setting:

PrE9 Export settings:

MPEG2 1920x1080i 30

Summary: Output NTSC, 1920x1080, 29.97 fps, Quality 4.0, Upper Dolby Digital, 192 kbps, 48 KHz

Sources: Clip, Sequence 01,
1920x1080 (1.0) 29.97 fps, upper, 01;30;56:00
4800 Hz stereo

[ifoundabuddy]

[VICTORY!!!!!!!! I re-prepared the project to my hard drive, and no, it didn't take 16+ hours last night, but it was almost 10 hours, but i burned it to a blu ray this morning and it was perfect, all the way through! My heart was thumping a bit when i got to 'that' point, but no problem at all, nothing at all! At least i feel more comfortable with the process now, and now i can proceed on to the second of the six blu rays to complete my project. Each time i do something, at least i get more familiar with it!

Thanks for all your assstance. Hopefully i am good for awhile now!!! I just won't introduce new concepts to my regimen. I just want you all to know how much i appreciate you, because it really is hard to get any help out there, especially from the companies!!!

Ron

[ifoundabuddy]

I want to thank all of you that contributed your two cents worth, because now i have completed all 73 projects on Premiere Elements into 6 blu rays on Sony DVD Architect Studio and really had no significant problems the rest of the way except for the fact it took me almost 6 months to complete.

BUT NOW i have a problem, because i am trying to clean up my files in Elements 9 Organizer. I know that i screwed up on my first blu ray project moving folders and photos between folders, so my catalog is a mess. I have found some of the 'disconnected photos' although i can't find how to get to where they are to reconnect. I found one group of them in the folder for the given date the photos were taken, but don't seem to be able to reconnect them, and i have one group of photos where the photo is on the screen with the small question mark in the corner, but i cannot find anywhere where they really are, because the ones that were missing did not have a picture but the gray square. Any suggestions?


BUT MY BIGGER QUESTION is i have bought a larger internal hard drive to provide me enough room on my computer for all these big HD files. Yes i am starting to archive them to an external hard drive, but my original hard drive on which i installed all these programs is a 1tb hard drive, and i had hoped to be able to move all my photoshop catalog to the larger drive, but everytime i do anything in any form of moving i then see having to reconnect all the pictures. I have too many to have to try and do that. I read nightmares on different forums about moving the catalog to an external hard drive and having to reconnect many or all of the photos, and i don't want to do anything until i know how to accomplish that with less frustration. I have a gentleman who has helped me with my computer but is not experienced in Photoshop suggested backing up the entire catalog and then restoring it to the new hard drive. Is that going to cause any problem. It doesn't seem possible to 'move' the catalog just from Photoshop Elements 9, even though there is a move selection?

I also have learned that you can't change the filename of any photo if you have put it into a Premiere Element project without causing problems also. I am finally getting more organized and know the order i need to do things, and i was afraid to do anything last time after all the screw ups in moving the photos and folders in windows around. This time i didn't do that, i do learn sometimes, but i hadn't gone to the trouble to accurately name the filenames before doing the Premiere Elements Project. That is okay, i have my final blu rays on Sony's program, so it is all not lost, but all the in between steps are useless. That i can live with, but i do need to organize the photos to make them more useful for any use i might want with them in the future, which is probably not too likely, and i am using the new philosophy and manner of naming filenames on all the photos in my catalog, most of which were not in any Premiere Elements project.

I have too many files to be creating more problems than i have already. And any help would be most appreciated.

Biggest question today is moving the catalog. You have always come through in the past with good answers, so I am here first this time. Thanks ahead.

Ron

[Steve Grisetti]

This is probably worthy of a new thread, Ron, and in a forum other than the DVD Architect forum -- since most of the people who'd check out this forum are looking for DVD Architect questions.

But that said: First look for the Reconnect Files by Searching tool in the Organizer. (I'm sorry. I'm at work and don't have the program in front of me. It's under either the File or Edit menu.) Let it search your drive and re-connect as many media files as it can -- then let it delete the ones it can't from your Media Browser.

Once you've done that, don't use Windows Explorer to move your files from place to place! Use the Organizer to cut and paste your files from one drive to or location to another. That way it will keep the links when it moves the files.

If you've got more questions about the Organizer, you might have better look posting a question in the Photoshop Elements forum. Barb is our expert on all things Photo Elements and Organizer, and she may have some more specifica ideas.