And now, a mention on the Bits:
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/051914_0010
Thanks, now I know what to expect.
waspattck said:
When I burned my Verbatim BD25 at 2x, it took about 40 minutes. I did use ImageBurn and I ran a verify pass to look for errors.
Yeah, something about the VOB burn engine (which is enabled by default) can result in these unnecessarily long burn times.
In the case of another user experience I read about, it even said that his burn completed without errors, but he was unable to play his disc. At least it wasn't a total waste for me.
Harmy said:
Wow, 5 hours? It never took me more than half an hour to burn a BD25.
It worked!
I burned my BD file structure using DVDFab 8. It only took FIVE hours but it plays back flawlessly, chapters included.
I later found out I should have tried the ImgBurn engine instead for quicker burns. I figured I could do better than ~1x.
I played the m2ts file directly and got pretty much the same results. I need to revise what I said, though. It wasn't so much "choppy" video as it was "not entirely smooth". Since this is only 720p/24, I should be seeing totally smooth playback, just as with the original .mkv file.
Unfortunately, I am unable to test my chapter markers playing the file back this way. I will try one of the other programs to create an iso and do some tests, then I will just try the burn and see how my player handles it.
waspattck said:
You shouldn't need an ISO file to play this is VLC. All I did (after your "step 2") is go to the BDMV/STREAM folder and play the .m2ts file in VLC. Worked like a charm.
I have tested playback using both a Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz and a Core 2 Quad Extreme system and got the same results.
waspattck said:
jdryyz said:
So, then regarding my choppy playback and erratic chapter skipping, is this also normal when reviewing a Blu-Ray disc in VLC? How do I know my iso is not damaged?
It is not"normal" for the video to be choppy or skipping around during playback, so it could be your ISO or VLC. Not sure about the VLC framerate, but when I tested my BRD mux via VLC, it played flawlessly. You can confirm the framerate of the file you'll be burning by looking at the .m2ts file in the "STREAM" folder and confirming the detailed properties. If the framerate is at 23.976, you're fine and your BR player and TV will recognize it as such. Does your computer have the specs to run video well?
My BD-R is at 720/24p, although my player "upscales" to 1080.
No problem.
So my only concern is why the BD structure isn't playing smoothly. Is there anything in my steps I should double-check?
1) Extract video and audio tracks using MKVExtractGUI.
2) Move files into tsmuxer, create chapter markers, output as Blu-Ray disc.
3) Build BD data in ImgBurn, set FileSystem to UDF, revision to 2.50, output as .ISO file.
I'm using the latest software versions except ImgBurn. I have v2.4.2.0 for that.
The next thing I was going to try is to convert my BD file structure in DVDFab or Toast 11 for Mac and make iso/image files with those.
Chewtobacca said:
Sorry. I misread (actually misquoted) your last statement. The answer should have been yes. (I meant the "no" to apply to the part about the frame-rate's still being 47.952.)
That I did not expect. So in order for me to go from a film-based 23.9 Hz mkv to BD using the available tools, I must lose the native frame rate?
That would seem to defeat the whole purpose. Just like I wouldn't want to lose the new DTS 5.1 lossless track, I would not want to discard the original frame rate.
I know it appears that 47.9 is roughly twice the 23.9 frame rate and I know that there are other cases when working with video-based encoding that the difference between 30 and 60 Hz is not a problem, but I just don't know how my Blu-Ray player will handle a film-based BD that is not coded at 23.9 Hz.
So, then regarding my choppy playback and erratic chapter skipping, is this also normal when reviewing a Blu-Ray disc in VLC? How do I know my iso is not damaged?
Chewtobacca said:
jdryyz said:
Also, will my actual Blu-Ray player (set top box) still report the 23.9/24 Hz playback with the disc I create?
No.
It's normal with VLC playing back a Blu-Ray?? Because, all of my other film-based .mkv files always playback at 23.9. If it is normal, then there may still be cause for concern regarding my choppy playback. I wouldn't want to burn what I am seeing right now.
Also, will my actual Blu-Ray player (set top box) still report the 23.9/24 Hz playback with the disc I create? If it shows 47.9, then there is definitely something wrong.
Chewtobacca said:
jdryyz said:Somehow my frame rate changed from 23.9x to something like 47.9x.
That's normal when VLC plays 23.976fps content. The frame-rate of the file itself has not really been changed.
Well I found a program that will mount my .iso as a virtual drive. Now VLC can play it back....although, it is choppy and the chapter skips cause the video/audio to break up momentarily. Perhaps just bad disc virtualization or does this actually represent the disc I made?
edit; I think I found my playback problem. Somehow my frame rate changed from 23.9x to something like 47.9x. What the hell?? It probably happened in the extraction stage.
Okay, I've got my BDMV and CERTIFICATE folder structure out of tsmuxer. Shouldn't this be fully playable through VLC since it is not protected?
Although it does play, VLC spits out a couple of errors:
"No suitable decoder module:
VLC does not support the audio or video format "undf". Unfortunately there is no way for you to fix this."
and is not displaying the chapter markers. Since this is this pretty much the final step before the burn, I wanted to be sure the BD data is functional. Can this be done without committing to a blank disc? I know that ImgBurn is also applying some additional BD formatting in preparation of disc burning, but even when I create an .iso, VLC still gives me trouble. It doesn't seem to play BD iso files. I can throw DVD iso files at it all day without problems.
Thank you both. :)
I successfully extracted the main video and audio tracks that I desire. MKVExtract also appears to have generated a chapters list file, but how do I get this into tsmuxer or will chapter markers be lost in this process? There are only three options to choose and none of them involve importing the list file.
Harmy said:
Yeah, you'd need to use MKVExtract to demux the files from the MKV first and then mux in TS Muxer.
In the context of this forum where previous AVCHD discs have been created, I can see where there could be confusion, but I never mentioned wanting to make an AVCHD disc.
I have a good example of that with Harmy's v2.1 edition. :)
So question to Harmy-- how will you go about creating v2.5 in BD format?
Interesting. My understanding of AVCHD was that it was an HD video standard developed by Sony that uses the H.264 codec and is fully compatible with the Blu-Ray disc format. So, if I have an AVCHD file structure, wouldn't it just be a matter of burning this to a blank BD with BD authoring software? That's my definition of trivial!
You're saying AVCHD is only intended for burning to DVD media??
I have no problem following your steps also to get the desired result, but I am not familiar with the programs you've listed. Since I am at risk of making a BD coaster on my first attempt, perhaps I will test out smaller HD source files on DVD-RW media.
CatBus said:
jdryyz said:
But isn't AVCHD native to Blu-Ray? I would think I could do the .mkv to AVCHD conversion then simply burn the AVCHD data to a BD25 disc with no loss in quality. Am I missing something?
Terminology problem. AVC is a video encoding. HD is high-definition video. AVCHD is video encoded using AVC in HD and then burned onto a DVD. If you plan on burning to BD-R, there's no reason to even talk about AVCHD. When you say the word AVCHD, people immediately jump to the first step of how to compress the data so that it fits on DVD media.
Converting the MKV to burn to BD-R is trivial. Demux the streams using MKVtoolnix or somesuch, and then use tsmuxer to put them into a Blu-ray compatible format. I've already done this.
But isn't AVCHD native to Blu-Ray? I would think I could do the .mkv to AVCHD conversion then simply burn the AVCHD data to a BD25 disc with no loss in quality. Am I missing something?
If what I propose will a) be too time consuming, b) result is compromising quality, or c) require software tools I do not have, then I will wait for the official Harmy BD release. :)
Harmy said:
jdryyz said:
Thanks for posting the info on converting mkv to AVCHD format. I recall the last time I tried to do something similar I was using Toast for Mac OS X. It seemed like there was some transcoding going on and I ended up cancelling it as it was taking way too long. Should that normally happen? I know .mkv is not a native BD format, so I suppose some type of conversion will be necessary, but how long are talking here to produce a disc? Shouldn't burn time be the longest part of the process??
The point of AVCHD is for it to fit on a DVD9 (7.9GB), so seeing as the video track in the mkv is 12GB, you have to transcode to get it to fit a DVD9. If you're serious about keeping the picture quality high, you need to use a slow setting and this can then take anywhere between 6 hours and several days depending on your CPU, RAM and HDD speed. If I remember correctly, it took me something like 18hrs to encode the AVCHD and 36 hours to encode the BD.
Thanks for posting the info on converting mkv to AVCHD format. I recall the last time I tried to do something similar I was using Toast for Mac OS X. It seemed like there was some transcoding going on and I ended up cancelling it as it was taking way too long. Should that normally happen? I know .mkv is not a native BD format, so I suppose some type of conversion will be necessary, but how long are we talking here to produce a disc? Shouldn't burn time be the longest part of the process??
Which reminds mind, I am still looking for a BD burner. I have always been partial to Pioneer drives for my DVD burning in the past and have always had good luck with them, but the world of BD burning seems to filled with more complaints from all makes and models. It is hard to decide.
What drives do you guys use??
Is there a problem with some of the files from multiupload? My transfers were kicking butt yesterday and I completed most of the downloads but now they're stalling/losing connections to the same random files (11, 14, 36, 37 to name a few).
I tried pulling those files from the other servers but got mixed results (hard to read captchas, offline status, or too slow). I would prefer to stick with multiupload but it seems to be having trouble at the moment.
I also tried restarting the program and my computer but it did not help.
The Oppo BDP-83 does not support NTFS volumes, unfortunately.
yark said:
jdryyz said:
...the file shows up but then chokes on playback from my BDP-83. Sigh.
have you tried saving it to NTFS-formatted USB or esata storage media (not exceeding 2 tb capacity in any case) and attaching directly to oppo with no intervening media server? that's how yark rolls. or hopes to here.
There will be a BD disc version also if the menus get working? Unfortunately, the .mkv file is not even recognized by my iSedora software (Mac DLNA server). I assume it is probably related to the DTS lossless tracks, but it's odd that it does not even show up in the file structure. I installed Playback (another DLNA server) and the file shows up but then chokes on playback from my BDP-83. Sigh.
With VLC, all is well but then you can only get the DTS core, no master audio. This was the main reason I wanted to see 2.5. :)
It's times like these that make my 20Mbps internet seem so slow. :)
Thanks for posting this. I never saw this before. Hilarious guy, this Strong Bad is. :)
Nope. Like this:
Watched v2.1 earlier today. Love the new improvements and the fact that I got it as an .iso this time around. Looking forward to the BD disc. :)
Ahh. Thanks! I also discovered jdownloader. :)
doubleKO said:
jdryyz said:
Forgive me for asking...I have access to the linked files from the "tehparadox" site, I see the "pass" info also. Does that I mean I should use the registered user login fields on the left? Sorry, I do not understand the site's native language.
You will have to create your own account and then log in to see the links. The password Harmy gave is for unlocking the rar files once downloaded.
