Need a great mac compatible DVD-BluRay burner

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Need a great mac compatible DVD-BluRay burner

I have a late 2011 iMac, 32 GB memory, with a LaCie 4tb external thunderbolt hd. I burned finished DVD's on the mac's 'super drive' or whatever it's called, but I can only burn regular DVD's that won't hold more than 45 minutes or so of any quality, plus the peeps said some wouldn't play on their t.v.. I need to purchase a DVD (bluRay also would be great) burner that can burn layers or large files with high quality and dependability. Also, I purchased a quikie el cheapo DVD creator for menu's because I don't need the complications right now of big programs, but am wondering if it really matters what authoring/burning program you use (please say no). It would seem that if I export my files in the proper format for DVD or BlueRay, the quality should transfer? (Shouldn't the NTSC,H.S64, AAC 48kHz do for DVD, or H.264 Blue-ray 1080i 29.97 format options as supplied in PP work?) Learning, ever learning.

Thanks much in advance.

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.5), I can't say for sure

Posted on Nov 18, 2012 6:25 PM

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Answer 1

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mishmumken

Level 5

4,000 points

Nov 20, 2012 3:05 AM in response to nadinefromwa

nadinefromwa wrote:

.... but I can only burn regular DVD's that won't hold more than 45 minutes or so of any quality, plus the peeps said some wouldn't play on their t.v.

A regular DVD-R should hold up to 120 min (incl. menus) of video. If you encode/burn them right 99.5% of them should reliably play on any set-top DVD player. If you encounter playback problems you have probably one or more of these:

• low quality DVD media or wrong media (DVD+R)

• burn errors caused by high burn speeds (more than 4x)

• wrong encoding setting: if the bitrate is too high the player will choke on it.

• authoring errors that prevent the disc from playing

The first two are the most common and can easily be avoided: Get Verbatim DVD-R and burn at 2x.

nadinefromwa wrote:

I need to purchase a DVD (bluRay also would be great) burner that can burn layers or large files with high quality and dependability.

Bear in mind that burning Blu-Ray discs is only useful if you have HD content to begin with and you will need a burner as well as authoring software. Available software at the moment is Toast, FCP X and Encore DVD.

Personally I have had good results with LG burners.

nadinefromwa wrote:

.... but am wondering if it really matters what authoring/burning program you use (please say no). It would seem that if I export my files in the proper format for DVD or BlueRay, the quality should transfer? (Shouldn't the NTSC,H.S64, AAC 48kHz do for DVD, or H.264 Blue-ray 1080i 29.97 format options as supplied in PP work?)

Apart from the quality of the original video the software will determine how high the quality of your finished disc is. The encoding engine is the most important part of the whole process.

There is no need to encode to h.264 if you are going to standard DVD .... that is MPEG-2 in any case. Blu-Ray, on the other hand, accepts h.264 but the stream must be compatible.

You might want to tell us where the video originates, what codec it is, what you use to edit it and so on .... that way it may be easier to give specific advice.

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Answer 2

nadinefromwa Author

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Nov 20, 2012 6:58 AM in response to mishmumken

You have answered all my questions. Thank you so much. Right off the bat, I bought the wrong DVD's. Why, tell me, do they make DVD+R if they are not right to use? I have mixed HD (Panasonic P2 cards) and SD media in my sequences, so I need to stay with MPEG-2 until I get to the point of all HD content then. I am learning Encore (was pulling my hair out until I figured out my library doesn't have any content, which I'll be with Adobe supoprt today trying to figure out why - I bought the suite on disc)

I, for some reason, thought the faster the burn the better the quality but not so. I will stay slow. And the bitrate has always been a mystery to me. It seems like if I leave everything at the default in PP and Encore, I'll be okay.

I finally found an exceptional tutorial on Encore, and am now figuring it out. As soon as I get my content, I should be able to move forward.

One question - I found I could bring in my mxf files and size them to fit the frame in premier pro with the SD footage. Do you think that would create an issue for the final product? (Although I didn't do that on the previous DVD's that didn't work) I haven't attempted a burn yet from this mixed bag.

Also then, it sounds like I shouldn't need to worry about the new burner until I reach the point of wanting to burn bluray? The iMac super drive should be fine for the regular DVD's for now?

Again, thank you for your information. Very, very much appreciated.

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Answer 3

mishmumken

Level 5

4,000 points

Nov 20, 2012 8:35 AM in response to nadinefromwa

nadinefromwa wrote:

I have mixed HD (Panasonic P2 cards) and SD media in my sequences, so I need to stay with MPEG-2 until I get to the point of all HD content then.

If you are mixing HD and SD footage it is best to stay in an SD sequence (unless you absolutely must go HD for some reason) and author a regular DVD. If you up-scale SD content to HD you will loose quality.

nadinefromwa wrote:

I, for some reason, thought the faster the burn the better the quality but not so. I will stay slow. And the bitrate has always been a mystery to me. It seems like if I leave everything at the default in PP and Encore, I'll be okay.

The burn speed itself has nothing to do with the video quality of the final DVD. Lower burn speed simply means that will avoid write errors during the burn process. The video quality is determined by your encoder settings; The bitrate in general should not exceed 7.5 mb/s and you should use a constant bitrate for content under 60 min and variable bitrate for longer videos. Adobe Media Encoder certainly has more settings but I'm not that familiar with this particular piece of software.

nadinefromwa wrote:

One question - I found I could bring in my mxf files and size them to fit the frame in premier pro with the SD footage. Do you think that would create an issue for the final product? (Although I didn't do that on the previous DVD's that didn't work) I haven't attempted a burn yet from this mixed bag.

You would be better off asking Adobe-specific questions either in the Adobe forums or maybe over on the COW. I personally have very little experience with either Encore or Premiere Pro.

As is the case with most authoring software Encore will create DVD Images that can be played on your machine prior to burning. That means you can do tests to try out your workflows and settings without having to physically burn a DVD.

http://helpx.adobe.com/encore/using/building-finished-project.html

nadinefromwa wrote:

Also then, it sounds like I shouldn't need to worry about the new burner until I reach the point of wanting to burn bluray? The iMac super drive should be fine for the regular DVD's for now?

Absolutely. Blu-ray is for HD and DVD is for SD.

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