Best Blu Ray authoring method: FCP vs Encore vs Toast

"And she won't take any answer except from legitimate sources online such as Ken Stone and etc."

LMAO!!!

You just made my day.

Here's a suggestion since you seem to be in a collage. Why not do original research?

Take some source footage and encode in the various methods then run some tests (scopes?, double blind reviews?, difference mattes?) to determine in an objective manner what is the BEST?

Of course, first off, you have to determine BEST - which you haven't done.

Seriously, there is probably a thesis in there someplace - probably not at a Ph.D level, but certainly at the B.S. level.

You could title it: Psychometric Comparison of Multiple Encoding Systems: A RT study.

Make sure I get a proper footnote. Around here we require MLA style.

Have fun.

x

You must understand that no one has done "objective" testing. As I stated in my earlier post - it all depends on how YOU define "best".

Tell your lab professor that she is a cheap idiot - or simply point her to this post - and I'll take it from here.

x

fwiw - Most Universities that I am associated with will not accept Wikipedia or other Internet sources for ANYTHING other than evidence that a range of unsubstantiated junk exists in cyberspace. Just because some yahoo claims it to be so, does NOT make it so.

Because I seem to be making enemies very quickly in this new forum configuration, I'd like to point out in advance that this post contains sarcasm and is intended for humorous purposes.

As I see spinning around my head every day at work, academic research doesn't generally involve any actual testing or trial and error. You are off to a good start, but to truly get into the spirit of things, you should probably gather at least 3 of your lab-mates, create a SurveyMonkey.com survey with several pages of questions about BD authoring, and send it to a very large sample of people, like your entire University, or state. Then, once you've collected thousands of responses, it will probably take you at least a couple years to examine the data and write a paper on your results. By the time you've completed the paper and submitted it to numerous scholarly journals and publicly released the findings, which would prove to be indecisive, the new "PurpleRay-X" will have been released, effectively making BluRay obsolete and proving that 4D video played via a chip inserted into one's wrist is the true future of video distribution.

Now for the non-humorous section of the post.

What features are you trying to evaluate? Simply the video quality of the feature itself, or menu capability and creation, etc.?

I've not created a BluRay, but my vote would be for a simple video DVD with no menus straight out of FCP.

RE: Sarcasm.

My turn.

Last time I checked it was the professors job to educate the student not the other way around. Now you are turning to this board and issuing the assignment to us?

What course are you taking?

Gimme a break! Either this post is a work of fiction or your professor shoots weddings on the weekend and doesn't want to spend his/her own time sorting through the new technology so they're passing it off to their students.

Sorry dude, but your posts boarder on absurd:

"... Go forth, and find me proof ... on the internet! ... but NOT Random internet... only Apple FCP forum user internet... it is there you shall find the true gospel... go forth and find me the good internet truth about how to best burn this wedding video... If you bring me internet truth from say, Ken Stone, etc... then we will know it to be true..."

behold

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The internet gospel according to Goldfish 2:0-4:11

And Apple saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

And it is given unto you to know the mysteries of blu-ray.

Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and neither do they understand.

And ye shall use thyn Blu-ray template in Compressor to author thyn discs. And soweth the average bit rate to exceed your original footage bit rate but avoid the maximum bit rate for this could be the cause of skipping in the players of the goyim.

And Apple said, Let there be Qmaster. And the data was processed in abundance and with great speed. And it was very good.

When the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?

He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries Blu-ray, but to them it is not given.

The disciples were pleased and issued gold stars.

The internet gospel according to Goldfish 2:0-4:11

It is the professor's job to teach the student, but there is a large disconnect these days, it seems.

Here, the professors are still requiring the students to shoot & edit in 4x3 DV on the HDV cameras, because that's the most recent thing they've bothered to learn themselves. They don't want to spend the time to figure out anamorphic and HD and new setups in the software.

Your professor is abdicating her role, and actually switching roles.

A quick response:

All things being equal with encode rates, media and original footage, then the encoding engine makes all the difference.

Encore CS3/4/5 and Toast use the MainConcept encoded. Compressor uses Compressor.

Matrox also provides the CompressHD encoder.

The best blu-ray™ output I've seen is from CompressHD, and then Compressor. Don't like MainConcept as much

That's a pretty hefty assignment from your college instructor. And I completely agree that she should be teaching you (not the other way around). Sure sounds like she's moonlighting or at the very least shooting weddings and/or special events on the weekends. Lucky you! You get to do all of her research. Perhaps as a direct result of one or more disgruntled clients who requested their wedding and reception on Blu-ray as opposed to Standard Definition DVD-R. Sure hope you get an "A" on this particular assignment and at least a footnote's worth of credit once you turn in your paper.

Unfortunately I don’t have a definitive answer for you. But I will offer one link that might help steer you in the right direction ....

http://eshop.macsales.com/articles/howto-burn-bluray-toast

Here's a second link as well:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1394530?answerId=6651239022#6651239022&messageID=6651239

Good luck on this and feel free to keep us posted on the 'correct answer.'

You've lost me.

I have a Panasonic blu ray™ set top player tethered to a Pioneer Elite Plasma via HDMI.

When I encode identical DVCProHD footage to blu ray™ using Encore, Toast, Compressor, and Matrox Compress HD, the footage from CompressHD looks the best to my eye.

The evaluation is subjective. There are no objective ascertainable standards where "what looks best" is concerned.

Some people think the Mona Lisa looks beautiful; other's don't.

A thousand people swearing it's true doesn't make it true.

I'd suggest that your "professor" get her hind side out of the classroom, do some real world tests, and then instruct you on the answer rather than abdicating her role to an internet search.