Transcoding AVCHD (camcorder) for DVD and Blu-ray authoring

[HDClown]

I'm working with original source footage shot with a Panasonic TM90 at 1080/60p.

I've edited the original source footage in Panasonic HD Writer AE 5.0 project in the form of trimming clips, combining clips on at timeline, adding scene transitions, titles, and background music. I then output the project to a new .m2ts file.

Now I'm working on taking this .m2ts file and authoring so I can burn to single-layer DVD-R and single-layer BD-R. I have two final .m2ts files, one 8.5GB and 7.5GB that will be two chapters on the disc.

I've been working with Encore CS6/Adobe Media Encoder CS6. I didn't really like the MPEG-2 DVD output so I purchased TMPGEnc Video Mastering Works 5 and Authoring Works 5 (I got the bundle even though I've been fine with Encore CS6 for actual menu creation). I found the MPEG-2 DVD transcode from Video Mastering Works 5 to be noticeable better than what Adobe Media Encoder output

Transcoding for the DVD is pretty straight forward since it has to be MPEG-2. However, I'm a bit confused on the Blu-ray. There are options for MPEG-2 Blu-ray and MPEG-4 AVC Blu-ray in Adobe Media Converter. TMPGEnc Authoring Works has options for AVCHD Progressive and BDM and TMPGEnc Video Mastering Works has Blu-ray Standard MPEG (using MPEG-2) and AVCHD Standard MPEG (using MPEG-4 AVC)

I checked two commercial Blu-ray's (Hunger Games and Frozen) and see a BDMV folder in the root. If I understand correctly, these are "Blu-ray discs" as opposed to an "AVCHD Disc" and that this format is the best compatible with all Blu-ray players. The actual .m2ts files in the \STREAM folder all show AVC codec, so that tells me commercial produced Blu-ray videos are going to use the "Blu-ray Disc" format (referred to as BDMV by TMPGEnc) with MPEG-4 AVC.

The Blu-ray that Encore CS6 output has BDMV in the root so it looks like a Blu-ray disc format. The .m2ts streams from the Encore output shows that the video is AVC format, which tells me it uses MPEG-4 instead of MPEG-2. So that begs the question, why would one use an MPEG-2 Blu-ray? Is this for creating a Blu-ray by burning it to a DVD-R instead of a DVD-R? I've found references to this? What's the benefit here? Cant' a DVD player only play DVD spec stuff in general (720x480@30i/p max) or can it playback higher, such as if you mastered an MPEG-2 Blu-ray 1920x1080@30p or @60p) ?

Ultimately, I want to author this footage to a DVD-R SL (and in the future, I may do DVD-R DL) and a BD-R SL with the best quality and compatibility of players. The DVD side seems pretty trivial at this point, but on the BD side there seems to be a variety of options, and I don't know what to do. I'm even willing to go buy another piece of software(s) if it makes sense. Hopefully someone can help me understand a bit better!

[lordsmurf]

Wow. Never heard of anyone downgrading from Adobe Media Encoder (Mainconcept/Rovi) to TMPGEnc. That's a new one.

I can understand the desire for easier DVD and Blu-ray authoring. TMPGEnc follows the specs almost 100%, while Adobe does whatever it wants. It ignores a huge chunk of the DVD and BD specs.

Blu-ray is either MPEG-2 or H.264 (AVCHD).

The main reason for using MPEG-2 on DVD is for interlaced content. H.264 doesn't handle it as well. SD 720x480 @ 15mb/s MPEG-2 is awesome quality, and better than DVD (which had a max of about 9mb/s). For HD (which is almost always progressive), you're right, there's not really a point. Only interlaced HD would best be served as MPEG-2.

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