Any Way Of Copying FCP 7/Compressor Created AVCHD Discs Later On?

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Any Way Of Copying FCP 7/Compressor Created AVCHD Discs Later On?

When you finish creating an AVCHD Disc in FCP 7 or Compressor you are asked if you wish to burn more.

I assume that this is probably because it is impossible to make copies +using the existing Mac equipment?+

I failed to copy a disc using Toast 8 . . . . . would the latest version with the Blu-ray plugin work?

In short is it possible without breaking the bank, or do you just have to either save your FCP project or burn the extra copies in the first place?

24" 2.8 GHz (Penryn) 4GB RAM iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.4), FCE 4 + FCS 3 . . . Little Knowledge, Many Opinions.

Posted on Jan 25, 2011 10:24 AM

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Answer 1

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Tom Wolsky

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Jan 25, 2011 10:29 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

There is an option to make a disk image, which you can save and use to burn your discs.

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Answer 2

Ian R. Brown Author

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Jan 25, 2011 1:45 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

Yes, I know about that Tom, but I thought that it could only be used in conjunction with a third-party Blu-ray burner?

I think the disk image option is only available when you select "Blu-ray", and it creates a Blu-ray rather than AVCHD image.

Message was edited by: Ian R. Brown

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Answer 3

Jan 25, 2011 1:47 PM in response to Ian R. Brown

I'm not sure I understand your question?

Do you have a BluRay burner? (If not, how are you burning these originals?)

If you do, you can either create a .DMG of the original, I believe, and use that to burn more copies. Or save the disk image at the time you're making the original and burn future copies from that, or grab the temporary image that Compressor creates and copy it to a safe place and burn further copies from that...

Patrick

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Answer 4

Ian R. Brown Author

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Jan 25, 2011 1:54 PM in response to Patrick Sheffield

I am making AVCHD Discs which are basically very similar to Blu-ray but are on normal DVDs and burned with a Superdrive. They can only be played in a Blu-ray player or PS3.

http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/burn_br_mac_superdrivestone.html

Message was edited by: Ian R. Brown

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Answer 5

Tom Wolsky

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Jan 25, 2011 2:01 PM in response to Ian R. Brown

Try it. The encoding process is the same. Make the disk image and use Disk Utility to burn it to a red laser disc.

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Answer 6

Ian R. Brown Author

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Jan 25, 2011 2:29 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

I have just made a quick .img but there are 2 . . . . audio and video.

I'm pretty sure that if I burn them onto a DVD they will just be data rather than audio-video.

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Answer 7

Ian R. Brown Author

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Jan 25, 2011 2:45 PM in response to Ian R. Brown

My mistake . . . . I don't know what those 2 files were doing as I also had a Blu-ray .img.

I burned this but the BD player said the disc was incompatible as I expected.

Still, I wouldn't mind someone else doing a test to find whether my results were to be expected.

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Answer 8

Tom Wolsky

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Jan 25, 2011 3:05 PM in response to Ian R. Brown

What procedure did you use to burn the disk image onto the disc? I'm surprised it doesn't work.

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Answer 9

Jan 25, 2011 4:24 PM in response to Ian R. Brown

I think you need to be clearer on what you are asking.

Yes, you can burn AVCHD discs onto regular DVD media. Yes, I have done this. I also saved the temporary image that Compressor created to make more later.

You can also use Disk Utility to create a .DMG file from an original AVCHD disc.

I don't know how you're creating the .DMG files if you're getting two. DMG is a +disk image+ and that's what you use to burn your subsequent copies from. You can do this easily in Disk Utility.

Patrick

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Answer 10

Ian R. Brown Author

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Jan 26, 2011 1:14 AM in response to Patrick Sheffield

How do you create a .dmg from an AVCHD disc Patrick?

I have just tested a one minute test AVCHD disc which works perfectly in my Blu-ray player.

I opened DU, selected the DVD and chose New Image.

I tried "read only", "read/write" and "DVD/CD master" but after half a minute each one produced an error message, +"Unable to create "TITLE-BLU-RAY.cdr" (Input/output error)"+

As you know, DU displays both the burner and the disc, so I then selected the burner but a similar error message occurred.

I then tested Toast 8's copy facility which works perfectly with normal DVDs but once again after 30 seconds it threw up this error message (as it had done previously).

+"Read Errors Have Been Found On This Media"+

Whilst I may be doing something wrong, these findings are in line with everything I have read, including that Ken Stone article, though he does get a little muddled when describing the selection of Blu-ray or AVCHD.

P.S. I believe the AVCHD disc I was using was made directly in FCP and not Compressor . . . . but I can't be certain. It shouldn't make any difference anyway.

Message was edited by: Ian R. Brown

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Answer 11

Tom Wolsky

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Jan 26, 2011 6:17 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

Are you copying a disk or making a disk image in Compressor? Isn't there a copy to disc to image function or something like that?

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Answer 12

Ian R. Brown Author

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Jan 26, 2011 6:41 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean about Compressor.

The details in my last post just referred to trying to make a .dmg from the existing AVCHD Disc which seems to be impossible with DU.

I can't find any similar copy feature in Compressor.

I have made AVCHD discs using both FCP's Share feature and also Compressor.

Patrick, have you got a BD burner attached to your Mac as that might explain why you can make copies and I can't?

Message was edited by: Ian R. Brown

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Answer 13

Tom Wolsky

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Jan 26, 2011 7:00 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

The Compressor thing referred to earlier in the thread you were making a disk image by Sharing.

Again I'm surprised this work. Usually you can select the disc and make a copy with the DVD/CD function.

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Answer 14

Jan 26, 2011 2:02 PM in response to Ian R. Brown

Ian, the DVD media itself is just a UDF filesystem format which contains the folders/files in the defined AVCHD structure. I believe the top level contains "BDMV" and maybe "Certificate"? been a while since I've looked at one.

Being just a UDF file system disc, you should be able to make copies of it. The fact that you receive an

Ian R. Brown wrote:
+"Read Errors Have Been Found On This Media"+

error message makes me wonder about the quality of the disc you are trying to copy. There is nothing inherently odd or protected about the UDF file system format. I believe you'll find that all DVDs use this.

As you probably know, consumer players are more inclined to skip errors during playback whereas a computer being asked to make a faithful copy of the media will not ignore them.

If you can, try copying the files in their exact structure off the original disc. Place them in a folder on your HD. Then use Toast to burn them (with the same layout ) onto a UDF disc.

Patrick

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Answer 15

Ian R. Brown Author

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Jan 27, 2011 8:19 AM in response to Patrick Sheffield

Thanks for the additional info Patrick.

I have tried to follow your instructions but with no luck.

It may be theoretically possible but I can't make it work.

On my AVCHD disc I have a folder called "BDMV" which when opened shows this file structure:-

I dropped the folder onto Toast 8 and selected "Bin/Cue File" for the first test and "Image File" for the second.

Toast appeared to burn them normally but when placed in the BD Player I got a "Disc not formatted properly" message.

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