Which Blu-Ray Media?

[rsuch]

Hello everyone,

 

I recently purchased Toast 11 Pro, a Pioneer BDR-206 Blu-Ray drive and they are both installed on a MacPro. If any of you have this same set-up and have successfully authored Blu-Ray video discs, which media are you using? I purchased a Kodak brand media, but I'm having trouble authoring a disc successfully. In another thread, I posted a problem I am experiencing where the disc burns to 99% and then fails to finish. I have yet to get any definitive answer from Roxio as to why this is happening, so I thought that in the meantime I would try another Blu-Ray media. Your input would be appreciated.

 

Thanks!

[pupdocdiver]

Hello everyone,

 

I recently purchased Toast 11 Pro, a Pioneer BDR-206 Blu-Ray drive and they are both installed on a MacPro. If any of you have this same set-up and have successfully authored Blu-Ray video discs, which media are you using? I purchased a Kodak brand media, but I'm having trouble authoring a disc successfully. In another thread, I posted a problem I am experiencing where the disc burns to 99% and then fails to finish. I have yet to get any definitive answer from Roxio as to why this is happening, so I thought that in the meantime I would try another Blu-Ray media. Your input would be appreciated.

 

Thanks!

I don't think it's a media problem. It's a Toast burning problem. I have been able to burn AVCHD blu-ray to plain DVD 5 discs by first creating a disc image of my project. Then I burn that using the copy>image. It's a work-around and we shouldn't have to do it. I imagine you can do the same with your blu-ray burner using real blu-ray media. Roxio tech support is less than adequate.

[fluke200]

Hello everyone,

 

I recently purchased Toast 11 Pro, a Pioneer BDR-206 Blu-Ray drive and they are both installed on a MacPro. If any of you have this same set-up and have successfully authored Blu-Ray video discs, which media are you using? I purchased a Kodak brand media, but I'm having trouble authoring a disc successfully. In another thread, I posted a problem I am experiencing where the disc burns to 99% and then fails to finish. I have yet to get any definitive answer from Roxio as to why this is happening, so I thought that in the meantime I would try another Blu-Ray media. Your input would be appreciated.

 

Thanks!

[fluke200]

I successfully burned a blu-ray BD-R Verbatim disk with Toast 11 but had pixelated jpeg images on many of the slides. The same movie was successfully burned using DVD-HD encoding on a Verbatim DVD-R double layer disc. The movie was created in Imovie and exported to quick time. I am wondering if there is a bug in Roxio's blu-ray plugin? I have not tried to save the movie as an image file and then burn.

[tsantee]

I successfully burned a blu-ray BD-R Verbatim disk with Toast 11 but had pixelated jpeg images on many of the slides. The same movie was successfully burned using DVD-HD encoding on a Verbatim DVD-R double layer disc. The movie was created in Imovie and exported to quick time. I am wondering if there is a bug in Roxio's blu-ray plugin? I have not tried to save the movie as an image file and then burn.

There is a bug in Toast 11 when making a Blu-ray disc from still photos. You need to first add a HD video to the disc before adding any photos or the photos will be encoded in standard definition rather than in high-definition. Maybe that's what you're seeing.

 

There are a couple of ways to test Toast's encoding. One is to check the Roxio Converted Items folder in your Documents folder to look at the encoded files. Remember that by default this folder is emptied when you quit Toast. I changed that default in Toast preferences so that I empty it manually. Another way to check is to choose Save as Disc Image and then mount the disc image using Mount It in the Finder's contextual menu (or using the Mount disc image command in Toast's Utilities menu). The mounted disc image should be playable using the Roxio Video Player (Toast Extras menu).

[fluke200]

There is a bug in Toast 11 when making a Blu-ray disc from still photos. You need to first add a HD video to the disc before adding any photos or the photos will be encoded in standard definition rather than in high-definition. Maybe that's what you're seeing.

 

There are a couple of ways to test Toast's encoding. One is to check the Roxio Converted Items folder in your Documents folder to look at the encoded files. Remember that by default this folder is emptied when you quit Toast. I changed that default in Toast preferences so that I empty it manually. Another way to check is to choose Save as Disc Image and then mount the disc image using Mount It in the Finder's contextual menu (or using the Mount disc image command in Toast's Utilities menu). The mounted disc image should be playable using the Roxio Video Player (Toast Extras menu).

[fluke200]

Thank you for your comments. I will try some of your suggestions. However, the jpeg images in the Blu-ray movie appear to be 1080i (high definition - 1062 x 1888 pixels - see codecs below). However, when the movie is burned (using the Blu-ray program) to disk pixelation occurs at the bottom of some images. Have tried different burn rates - 1x-4x and Toast's "best" setting. Would like to use the BD-R disks for the extra space (25 gb). I am loading an HD video (Exported from IMovie to a quick time movie) directly into Toast. The video burns OK (no pixelation and in high definition) using Toast's HD DVD program instead of using the Blu-ray plug-in.

 

 

Below are the codecs:

 

General / Container Stream #1

Total Video Streams for this File.................1

Total Audio Streams for this File.................1

Video Codecs Used.................................AVC

Audio Codecs Used.................................PCM

File Format.......................................MPEG-4

Play Time.........................................58mn 8s

Total File Size...................................4.23 GiB

Total Stream BitRate..............................10.4 Mbps

Encoding Library..................................Apple QuickTime

Video Stream #1

Codec (Human Name)................................AVC

Codec (FourCC)....................................avc1

Codec Profile.....................................Main@L4.1

Frame Width.......................................1 888 pixels

Frame Height......................................1 062 pixels

Frame Rate........................................23.976 fps

Total Frames......................................83629

Display Aspect Ratio..............................16:9

Scan Type.........................................Progressive

Color Space.......................................YUV

Codec Settings (Summary)..........................2 Ref Frames

QF (like Gordian Knot)............................0.187

Codec Settings (CABAC)............................No

Codec Settings (Reference Frames).................2

Video Stream Length...............................58mn 8s 29ms

Video Stream BitRate..............................8 999 Kbps

Video Stream BitRate Mode.........................VBR

Bit Depth.........................................8 bits

Video Stream Size.................................3.65 GiB (86%)

Video Stream Language.............................English

Date of Original Encoding.........................UTC 2011-12-15 08:11:41

Color Primaries...................................BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4, SMPTE RP177

Transfer Characteristics..........................BT.709-5, BT.1361

Matrix Coefficients...............................BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4 709, SMPTE RP177

Audio Stream #1

Codec.............................................PCM

Codec (FourCC)....................................sowt

Audio Stream Length...............................58mn 7s 988ms

Audio Stream BitRate..............................1 411.2 Kbps

Audio Stream BitRate Mode.........................CBR

Number of Audio Channels..........................2

Sampling Rate.....................................44.1 KHz

Bit Depth.........................................16 bits

Audio Stream Size.................................587 MiB (14%)

Audio Stream Language.............................English

Date of Original Encoding.........................UTC 2011-12-15 08:11:41

[tsantee]

Thank you for your comments. I will try some of your suggestions. However, the jpeg images in the Blu-ray movie appear to be 1080i (high definition - 1062 x 1888 pixels - see codecs below). However, when the movie is burned (using the Blu-ray program) to disk pixelation occurs at the bottom of some images. Have tried different burn rates - 1x-4x and Toast's "best" setting. Would like to use the BD-R disks for the extra space (25 gb). I am loading an HD video (Exported from IMovie to a quick time movie) directly into Toast. The video burns OK (no pixelation and in high definition) using Toast's HD DVD program instead of using the Blu-ray plug-in.

I wonder why the resolution isn't 1920x1080. Maybe that's a reason for the pixelation. Also, Toast's default of 8 mbps encoding for Blu-ray is too low. I'd bump it up to, say, 12 mbps or more and also raise the maximum bit rate. When you look in the Roxio Converted Items folder do the file names say the video is 1888 x 1062?