BD Authoring Software

[FrankT]

What's the best software to make Blu-ray discs with menus and stuff in?

[Booshman]

I spent a lot of time trying to figure this out, and the best for me has been Encore. It has limitations and does stuff that will have you pulling you hair out sometimes, but it gets the job done, eventually. I made a post about it on FE.org a while back, I'll post the info from it if I can track it down.

Edit: Here's the info from my post:

I have adjusted my workflow to compensate for how crap Encore is. I never use video transcoded by Encore, and I gave up trying to get it to accept a source and leave it alone. My recommendation would be to set the quality for low (for the sake of speed) and let it transcode while the BD builds. Then do a separate encode with whatever program you like at BD spec. Then replace the video file that encore made, with the better quality file using tsmuxer.

To do that:

1. Find the m2ts you want to replace the video of and open the corresponding .mpls file in Tsmuxer
2. Remove the video from the top of the tracks list.
3. Import your new video and move it to the top of the list.
4. Select bluray disk as output and build the disk.
5. Take the mpls, m2ts and clpi files from the tsmuxer created BD and replace the ones from your Encore BD.

You can use this method to replace video, audio and subs.


And here is another post I made with some other info:

Here's some good overall video guides:
https://vimeo.com/ucffilm

Everytime I imported subs, each entry would overlap with those next to it and produce an invalid stream. I dunno why as the time codes where not overlapping. I ended up just deleting all but the first subtitle so I would have a BD compliant placeholder. I then replaced the streams with SRT files. I also used the same method for replcaing the video.

Here's a tutorial for replacing streams with TSmuxer:
netblender.ning.com/forum/topics/tutorial-full-working-avc?commentId=3371523%3AComment%3A5179&xg_source=activity

If you replace the m2ts and clpi only, pop up functionality won't be affected.

Here's some files you can use to add a thumbnail for play on a PS3:
https://f1.creativecow.net/4912/meta-dat...for-bluray

You need to open the XML file and change the name to correspond to your disc. Then edit the images but keeping the same dimensions and file names. Then place the files in BDMV/MELTA/DL

[FrankT]

Wouldn't you know - I don't seem to have Encore.

Also, the thumbnail link leads to a 404.

[Chewtobacca]

Code:

https://f1.creativecow.net/4912/meta-data-file-for-bluray

[spoRv]

Agree, after you figure out how it works, it's pretty nice, and the only free option to get menus AFAIK!

A note: there is NO available sofware alone that let you have a 100% compliant BD disk; you need it to be replicated ("pressed"), and not just "burned"... at least, there are some (few? many?) blu-ray players that are able to play BD-R/RE (not all can recognize menus, though)

[Evit]

I spent a lot of time trying to figure this out, and the best for me has been Encore. It has limitations and does stuff that will have you pulling you hair out sometimes, but it gets the job done, eventually. I made a post about it on FE.org a while back, I'll post the info from it if I can track it down.

Edit: Here's the info from my post:

I have adjusted my workflow to compensate for how crap Encore is. I never use video transcoded by Encore, and I gave up trying to get it to accept a source and leave it alone. My recommendation would be to set the quality for low (for the sake of speed) and let it transcode while the BD builds. Then do a separate encode with whatever program you like at BD spec. Then replace the video file that encore made, with the better quality file using tsmuxer.

To do that:

1. Find the m2ts you want to replace the video of and open the corresponding .mpls file in Tsmuxer
2. Remove the video from the top of the tracks list.
3. Import your new video and move it to the top of the list.
4. Select bluray disk as output and build the disk.
5. Take the mpls, m2ts and clpi files from the tsmuxer created BD and replace the ones from your Encore BD.

You can use this method to replace video, audio and subs.


And here is another post I made with some other info:

Here's some good overall video guides:
https://vimeo.com/ucffilm

Everytime I imported subs, each entry would overlap with those next to it and produce an invalid stream. I dunno why as the time codes where not overlapping. I ended up just deleting all but the first subtitle so I would have a BD compliant placeholder. I then replaced the streams with SRT files. I also used the same method for replcaing the video.

Here's a tutorial for replacing streams with TSmuxer:
netblender.ning.com/forum/topics/tutorial-full-working-avc?commentId=3371523%3AComment%3A5179&xg_source=activity

If you replace the m2ts and clpi only, pop up functionality won't be affected.

Here's some files you can use to add a thumbnail for play on a PS3:
https://f1.creativecow.net/4912/meta-dat...for-bluray

You need to open the XML file and change the name to correspond to your disc. Then edit the images but keeping the same dimensions and file names. Then place the files in BDMV/MELTA/DL

This should be a sticky thread, maybe I'll try it one day. Long time ago Encore had me almost in tears and I decided I would never use it again but if someone already did the work for all of us, I might give it another shot. Of the Adobe packet, Encore is certainly the worst software for user experience and "building" menu is still an ordeal, do you have tips for that too?

[Booshman]

For building menus I always just used one fo the built in templates to start, take it into photoshop and change the appearance of everything while keeping the naming structure. You can run into some headaches like overlapping boxes, but I's say it's easier than starting from scratch.

[Dr. Cooper]

I have to try out that trick as well - thanks, Booshman!

Encore also drove me nuts many times, but it still seems to be the only tool for me that I can design menus with the way I want them to be. But unfortunately it's not possible to put Dolby Digital / DTS and PCM together on a disc (you always have to decide) and I never got DTS-HD to work. But with that workaround I could finally put any audio I want onto the discs and just have to insert Dummy-audio in Encore. Been looking for such a solution for a long time, now it finally seems to be there.

[FrankT]

I was looking at TMPGEnc Authoring Works 6 yesterday. Anybody know if that's any good?

[Evit]

I work on CS6 at the moment, I don't know if it got any better in the new "CC" versions