Not happy with quality of Toast Blu-ray video

Hi fox_m

I understand what you mean but the problem I have is that I'm not creating a true Blu-ray Disc but an AVCHD DVD-R disc whch can be played (in HD) on a Blu-ray player. This means that in Compressor I do the following:

1. Add source file to batch.
2. Add settings - H.264 for Blu-ray and Blu-ray Audio.
3. View the batch in Inspector.
4. Click on the Job Action tab.
5. Where it says "when job completes" I select "create Blu-ray Disc".
6. At this point I can either select Hard Drive (Blu-ray) or my Superdrive (AVCHD) as my output device.

The problem is that I have to select the Superdrive option to burn the files in AVCHD rather than Blu-ray format so that the files can end up on a DVD-R, playable on my Blu-ray player. My understanding is that if I select the hard drive option the files will be in Blu-ray format which must then be burned to a Blu-ray disc which I don't have. My main idea was to use the DVD-R discs because most of my material is short and they are cheap and comvenient. If I could copy them that is!

My original DVD-R discs play absolutely fine, the issue is making a copy of them.

I looked at the original DVD-R disc that gets produced and it looks to contain a single folder called BDMV. I thought I'd try making an image of just the folder (using Disc Utility) which I did and that worked fine, rather than imaging the disc. The problem was that the player didn't recognise it when I burned the image to a disc and tried it. Another avenue closed!

Thanks,

Q

Hi Michael

Yes, I did look at that option but it's well beyond what I can justify at almost £50 a month. I'm very much a hobbyist and it's an awful lot more than I can justify, unfortunately.

Q

The disc image doesn't care what kind of disc it gets burned to as long as it fits. In Toast, you *will not* be burning a "video disc" -- but a Data Disc. Toast has an option for Data > DVD-ROM (UDF) -- drag the *contents* of the image onto that window and burn (for regular dvd - that's just the TS_VIDEO and TS_AUDIO folders -- I don't know what it is for blu-ray [I don't have a blu-ray player]). It *should* work if you're burning the files to a regular DVD disc (4GB...) even if the data is Blu-ray (AVCHD...). Going rate for a DVD-R recordable is < 50 cents. That's all you have to lose trying it, and you can always use it as a coaster.

Hi fox_m

I'm not sure what I'm missing here but my issue is that I can produce the original DVD-R which plays HD video on my Blu-ray player. The problem is I can't then produce a disc image of that disc from which to burn further copies of the disc. If I'm understanding what you say correctly you are saying that I should "drag the *contents* of the image" but I'm not able to actually produce a disc image from my original disc in the first instance 😟

I'm not sure if this is what you mean but based on what you say I've just opened Toast and gone into the Data>DVD-ROM (UDF) option, dragged the icon of the disc I'm trying to copy into it, selected disc image as the output and set it on it's way, it looks as if this will produce a file with the extension .toast

Once that's been generated I'll see what I can do with that and report back!

Thanks,

Q

Hi

The .toast file was generated fine. Using Toast I'm now trying to burn a blank DVD-R from the .toast file so we'll see where that takes me, currently 65% of the way through.

Q

Hi Ian

I agree that the quality of these discs is excellent. Have you had an success in making copies of the DVD-Rs when you have produced them? I'm getting nowhere with the copying process which thought would be simple!

Q

I don't make a lot of AVCHD discs as most of my videos are converted to H.264 for viewing on a TV via a media player.

I don't know whether the following suggestion is a product of my imagination but you could try this, using a DVD-RW so you don't waste a disc if it goes wrong.

Put your newly created AVCHD disc in your Mac and when its icon appears, double-click to open it.

You will see a BDMV folder, drag it to the desktop, put a blank DVD-RWin and drag the BDMV folder onto it.

Burn it using the Finder or Disk Utility.

Hi

Cracked it, copying was a success, using the Toast - Data>DVD (UDF) route. Interestingly on the disc produced by the copying process an extra directory appeared on the disc called "certificate" which wasn't visible on the original but who cares, the ****** copy plays!

Many thanks to everyone who helped guide me down the right track, particularly fox-m.

Q

For anyone trying my suggestion I would like to state it appears to be a product of me hallucinating! 😝

I've just run off a quick test and the resulting AVCHD Disc (copy) comes up as "Unsupported" on my BD player.

However, when inserted into my Mac, the FCP X import window opens and it offers to capture the video.

I have just tried your suggestion and can confirm it works perfectly (Data>DVD ROM (UDF)), which leaves me wondering why my suggestion of burning via the Finder didn't work as the 2 processes appear to be the same.

Ian R. Brown

Yes, that was exactly what happened to me, there is "something different' about it that we can't see that stops it working that way.

Q

Ian R. Brown

🙂 Glad it's not just me, it's that magical "something different" that has proved to be so ****** frustrating. It's something to do with this "certificate" folder that Toast is adding I reckon which is making them playable. However, a solution has been found and I'm just over the moon that I can get HD video (40 minutes per disc) onto DVDs at 13p a shot and play them in a Blu-ray player in glorious HD. On top of that I can now burn off as many as I want at 13p a go and pass them out to friends and family 😎

Thanks for your input.

Q

Mac Finder tends to format and write HFS/HFS+. For other non-computer devices (players/recorders) DVDs need to be UDF (Universal Disk Format.) Toast prepares that file system format correctly. Using Disk Utility might work, but I took Larry Jordan's word for it when I started out and always used Toast for the job.

Thanks for the explanation fox_m.

From what I can see, the Finder/Disk Utility can't do it.

fox_m and Ian R. Brown

I tried everything I could think of, which isn't much, and everything I could find to try using Finder/DiskUtility and got nowhere and gave up in the end. I'm just so grateful to fox_m for mentioning the option in Toast or I'd never have got where I am now. Quite depressing to be just getting this sorted out as it seems disc media will be going the journey! I confess to rather liking disks, at least when you buy a disk you feel you've actually got something, unlike just downloading something. You can't wrap up a download in nice paper for Christmas 😍

Q