Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Blu-ray app with more options ...? (I-frames manually?)

Dr. Sassi

Dr. Sassi

Well-known member
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
660
Reaction score
0
Points
16
Location
Los Angeles, CA
Hi there,

I shot last week the big waves in Malibu, CA. Dragon, 6K after Sunset. (96fps and all is fine in the r3d files, tons of details)

When I try in Adobe's Encore to get the image to show up as in my h.264 tests in HD, it fails from time to time. It looks like parts get blurry.
So far that is a first for me in this app.

I can't set any manual "I" frames in Encore, to counteract this. Do I miss something?

What authoring app do you use, that has a little bit more advanced options? (Mac only here...)

I don't need menus or other stuff, only autostart is needed (festival copies only)

Thanks for any pointers.
 
What format are they once in Encore?

Are you encoding on the fly or prior to import?
 
Thanks, Eric, for asking. :o)

Typically I use ProRes444 or uncompressed.

Currently I do some tests with Apple Compressor. (Not really my favorite option)

If you have a suggestion, let me know. It sounds like that you use prior encoded files, what are your settings?
 
Try encoding the files in Media Encoder to MPEG2 or H.264.

Not sure what the presets are in Media Encoder but I think there is one that preps you for Encore.

I usually Transcode within Encore but my files are no higher than ProRes 422.
 
Thanks, Eric, for your time. I know that you can only suggest what has worked for you, and I do not share the movie here, which makes it difficult to say anything in detail.

I'm certain it work with other material, but even when I pre-encoded to MPEG2, I get problems. I avoid normally MPEG2 (it feels always a little bit blurry) but yes, perhaps it would have worked.

I'm done with this Adobe stuff for now. Apples Compressor doesn't work either in this case. I guess I have to give that to my trusted service http://www.4alphadogs.com and pay.

======

Crisps waves and birds -- certainly too much for these simple consumer apps.

However, I would love to know if there are apps available who will give the "user" a little bit more control than just a few buttons, worse here Apple's Compressor.
 
Without seeing an example of your files its hard to judge.

Ive authored numerous BD/DVD and even CD-I in my years as a Multimedia Specialist so nothing surprises me with unforgiving files.

Yes MPEG2 can be problematic but if you use the right Encoder your good.

We use MainConcept Encoder and it has proven well over the years.

Now its 2014 and I believe h.264 does a better job but you still need to make sure you have to right special sauce to get it to look good.

That is another ball of wax that Im currently dealing with at my day job.

Part of my daily grind is dealing with creative for Digital Signage :P
 
Thanks again, Eric.

MainConcept is Windows only, if I get the Web-site information correctly. For many reasons, not possible with me.

I might send this only to three or four festivals, so "my" escape route to an professional service provider is my answer for now. Even If I don't get why Adobe nor Apple provide not any kind of more advanced options. I have the feeling we go backwards with those companies, in terms of user adjustments. I feel kind of limited with this stuff, but so far, the hundreds of discs I have done (DVD and Blu-Ray) and have send to festivals have worked fine.

As you said "nothing surprises me", I'm obviously not at that state of expertise or equipped to cook the right sauce at the moment. I guess, with the Dragon came new and unexpected challenges for my little indie production, other challenges than I thought.
 
Problem solved.

I placed all possible formats in different timelines, just to save discs. Each time problems. However, as I write first an "Image.iso", I could play this nicely even on my laptop. Which finally brought up the idea that my Sony Blu-ray player is the bug in the chain.

It turns out, it is. So pre-encoded or not, it plays fine. Encoded to h.264 is the better image, mpeg2 is a little bit more blurry and larger. At least for this little movie, and three days of burning a pile of discs (I have stopped using re-writeables -- for any reasons...)

One thing that I noticed as well, my Encore preset was damaged, easy to fix, but I will not trust this option blindly again, even it was not the core problem.
 
Dr. Sassi said:
Problem solved.

I placed all possible formats in different timelines, just to save discs. Each time problems. However, as I write first an "Image.iso", I could play this nicely even on my laptop. Which finally brought up the idea that my Sony Blu-ray player is the bug in the chain.

It turns out, it is. So pre-encoded or not, it plays fine. Encoded to h.264 is the better image, mpeg2 is a little bit more blurry and larger. At least for this little movie, and three days of burning a pile of discs (I have stopped using re-writeables -- for any reasons...)

One thing that I noticed as well, my Encore preset was damaged, easy to fix, but I will not trust this option blindly again, even it was not the core problem.
Click to expand...
Glad you found it out! BTW, always go with H264, for sure! Per megabit per second, it offers far better quality than MPEG2.

I would also say that pre-encoding is better because: 1) Encore is an old application, and doesn't feature the optimisations that Media Encoder CC offers in terms of speed and quality of encode and 2) Media Encoder offers more encoding options in terms of I-frames, etc.

Overall I still like Encore for authoring BD/DVDs though. So simple and easy to use!
 
Thanks, Will.

Yes, easy to use, I agree.

I have canceled the CC, I'm just not a subscriber of software, so I can't tell what they use now.

Yes, MPEG2 really seems to be the second best option here. However, soon I have to send out copies to festivals, and I'm curious if I get any negative feedback.

All the best.
 
If you still have a perpetual license for CS6 (presumably how you're using encore?), do check out the encoding options in Media Encoder there. But I think playback-wise MPEG2 is in the blu-ray spec as standard (even if it's seldom used) so I'm pretty sure in that regard you won't have issues. Best of luck at the festivals!
 
Thanks Will for your care.
For the last few copies I had to send out, I used Apple's Compressor. No problems with them. So why bother with Adobe. Thanks for asking.
 
Dr. Sassi said:
Thanks Will for your care.
For the last few copies I had to send out, I used Apple's Compressor. No problems with them. So why bother with Adobe. Thanks for asking.
Click to expand...
Ahhh. Yeah fair enough why bother indeed. What settings in Compressor? Curious to test the speed versus AME, especially for H264 encoding!
 
All on automatic, there are not really options... (hence the question here on RU.)

I "ticked" only multi-pass to on. (I just checked, but this thread and the problem is two month old, I really don't remember. I burned a pile and they are on the way to few selected festivals already.)

The only thing that I did before with certainty, was converting the music to 48khz, as I got the original score from "Moby" himself in 44.1khz.
 
Dr. Sassi said:
All on automatic, there are not really options... (hence the question here on RU.)

I "ticked" only multi-pass to on. (I just checked, but this thread and the problem is two month old, I really don't remember. I burned a pile and they are on the way to few selected festivals already.)

The only thing that I did before with certainty, was converting the music to 48khz, as I got the original score from "Moby" himself in 44.1khz.
Click to expand...
Ahh I see, fair enough!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top