Matrix is a Lie:

You can do a mixdown and send that to Avid DVD?

On top of creating a great workflow to encoders the mixdown file allows smooth, full green quality replay of mixed format timelines and almost any long GOP file based timeline.

My baaaaaaad - misread your post, and thought you were talking about some uber feature of "send to DVD using Video Mixdown"

MOST interesting, I'll have to try that later - thanks for the tip!

Mixdown is a nice solution, AA, and it got me to a nicely burned BD-R (LG ggw-h20l), which powerDVD plays back elegantly through my computer.  However my Blu-ray player (LG BD370) coughs up the disk like a fur ball with an "ERROR" message.  Where's the rub?

Hi Jeri,

From what you're telling me, it seems the DVD burned fine (so nothing to suspect -failure wise- on the burning process)

I'm taking a stab, that there might be some firmware needed for that Blu Ray player LG BD370?  I encountered a similar thing before when playing back on PS3s, and had to update the firmware to get it working.  Otherwise I'd always get an "error" with playing the disc

I have a few Blu Ray questions for you Sonic Avid DVD gurus out there.

When exporting DNxHD quicktimes from Avid what color levels are needed for Avid DVD, 601 or RGB? I've been using Adobe Encore for the past year or so to author my Blu Rays and I have to use RGB color space for accurate HD encodes. Some programs allow you to select between the two but Encore does not.

I am on a Mac so I haven't been able to try out the Sonic Avid DVD program but I may switch to a PC for my Blu Ray authoring. Is there any glitches or limitations with creating Blu Ray discs?

I ask this because Encore has issues with creating BD-R discs with multiple menus and videos. It works great if you only have 1 menu and 1 video but when you start adding menus, buttons, etc the links stop working correctly. So I am looking for a good alternative to Encore.

Thanks for any help or tips!

jerichopix:

However my Blu-ray player (LG BD370) coughs up the disk like a fur ball with an "ERROR" message.  Where's the rub?

 

This sounds like a BD-R playback issue. Not all players are capable of BD-R playback, especially an older model. Although as mentioned a lot of players have had firmware updates to allow for BD-R playback. Check the manufacturer website for an update.

Some good news, I recently checked out Best Buys website and looked at all the current 2009 Blu Ray player models available and almost all of them were BD-R compliant. This was not the case a few years ago, as only a handful of players were capable of this. 

Excuse me if I am being daft but when I have finished my sequences I have been using the export to HDV Device function to create a m2t file and then creating beautiful Bluray/Standard Def DVDS.

No mixdowns, no squeeze. Dead simple and easy and great workflow.

Ian

I'll respond to some of these in a moment, as I'm tied with work here - thanks for all the input thus far

Abeyta:

When exporting DNxHD quicktimes from Avid what color levels are needed for Avid DVD, 601 or RGB?

Derrick,

Here is a link to a Tutorial (?) I did comparing different settings for the QT export.
Maybe there is something of interest there.

Link 109  From MC to AvidDVD - A look at the Settings

I have a few more tutorials in the 2 sticky threads at the top of the MC - PC Forum on AvidDVD.

A combination of Matrix' tutorials and mine covers most of the usual questions on the topic.
It depends a little on your source material. I have only been able to test with 1080i source footage.
Matrix has access to a much wider range of source material.
Good luck,
Douglas

Thanks for the tutorial.  This is always something that I am getting pressurised to do on the fly during a job and we always send it out to a company at great expense.  Glad to see it is becoming easier.

Now, for us OS X based MC's out here....

Despite the fact that we are waiting for viable Blu-Ray burners to connect to our macs, has anybody got any solutions that master blu-ray running on OSX.  Or has anybody tried running Avid DVD under Boot camp or Parallels or Fusion?

No problem Ralph, glad you found it helpful (and as always open to other suggestions/input)

To answer your query about MAC workflows -- I heard from a colleague who connected a Blu Ray burner to his Mac, and used "Toast" to burn it.  I even got to watch the final product on a HD projector 

So I'm thinking you could do the Avid Media Composer steps first (exporting QT, etc.) --- then connect a BD burner, and use this Toast program to burn it.  Mind you, I haven't tried this myself yet.  I'm not sure what my friend was using, whether Avid or FCP in this process

Hi Ian,

Interesting workflow -- can you explain how you burned the m2t files with Avid DVD, or your DVD burning software?  Never tried that yet myself!

Hi Abeyta,

My understanding is that for HD you'll want to choose 601/707, and for SD projects choose RGB.  I've been dealing with a number of blu-ray issues/scenarios since last Feb. and the most trouble I had was burning a BD AND playing it back on a PS3 ---- that was resolved btw, with update on the firmware, and a patch which had to be installed in the Avid DVD by Sonic software

Other errors I've seen were interruptions-in-burning errors, but these happened due to multiple processes being open at once, while burning (hence, you should close Avid Editor, when you're burning a disc)  Sometimes the video footage itself was "corrupt" and that caused the error, or the Avid DVD project itself.  So if you treat the PC right, it will burn BDs for you

As for the Mac -- I mentioned someone being able to use Toast and a blu-ray burner (model /brand unknown) to burn their footage from a Mac

RalphFoster:

Despite the fact that we are waiting for viable Blu-Ray burners to connect to our macs, has anybody got any solutions that master blu-ray running on OSX.

I've been authoring Blu Rays on the Mac for about a 1 1/2 years now. You'll need to buy an external Blu Ray burner for the Mac. Mine is a Panasonic USB burner purchased from Other World Computing.

My workflow has been to edit from HDCAM 1920x1080 59.94i to DNxHD 220x, Export QT out of Avid using RGB color space. Import into Adobe Encore, Author and create a disc image. Then use Toast to burn disc image to a BD-RW, test BD-RW on set top players to make sure everything works correctly. When satisfied commit burn to BD-R.

I just purchased an automated Blu Ray duplicator so now I can make multiple copies easily. You load 25 discs on the spindle and let it go. It averages about 8 discs an hour 

The weakest link in this workflow is Adobe Encore. The links don't work correctly when you start using multiple videos, buttons and menus. Only simple play only videos work well. The quality of the video is awesome and holds up very well when compared to the master. Clients are very pleased with the results.

Abeyta:

The weakest link in this workflow is Adobe Encore. The links don't work correctly when you start using multiple videos, buttons and menus. Only simple play only videos work well. The quality of the video is awesome and holds up very well when compared to the master.

FWIW I am fairly sure the problem was somewhere between the variations I made to a menu template (Encore kept both the original and the changed one in the failed project) and the end actions on the multiple chapter links

Interested in what automated burner you decided on and what sort of price the blank disks are for you. Buying 10 at a time here costs me $180US +tax