Newbie help for making disc with multiple TV episodes

[RoyGBiv-inRI]

I am new to burning backups of BDs. I recently found that my Panasonic BD65 player will not play a full movie that has been recoded with BDRebuilder to a BD5/9. It will play AVCHD discs, so if I just backup the main movie with the "strict AVCHD for movie-only mode" box checked, I get playable backups.

The issue is backing up TV shows with 4 (or sometimes more) episodes on the BD. Right now I use DVDFabHDdecrypter to copy the files to my HDD, separating the episodes into their own folders. Then I use BDRebuilder to recode using the "main movie" mode and make individual BD5s of just one episode each.

I would like to take the multiple episodes, join them in some way into one file, and then use BDRebuilder or something similar to shrink them to fit on a BD5 or 9 in AVCHD mode. I don't care about menus. I only need one audio track (probably a DD 5.1), but I DO need subtitles.

I have read the guides for multiple products, but I can't find an easy way to do this. Also, being a Newbie, I don't understand everything I am reading.

I guess the alternative would be to buy a BD burner and start backing up to BD25s, but I would rather not go that route for now, as I have been told that BD25s should play in any BD player.

Thanks for any help.

SMK

[RoyGBiv-inRI]

Well, nothing like answering my own question, but I post this for anyone else who is interested as I was able to figure out how to do what I wanted.

First, extract the episodes from BD onto your hard drive in appropriately named folders. I used DVDFabHDDecrypter in main movie mode and selected each episode manually.

Open multiAVCHD and click on the "join mpg/m*ts/jpg" button. Navigate to the first m2ts file you want to add, and double click it or click it and "OK." multiAVCHD will put this first on the list.

Repeat the process for all the episodes you want on one disc. Make sure they are in the correct order. Usually, that will be numeric order, but I guess you never know.

Going through the different settings, set the output the way you want. In particular tell the program where you want the output files to be, I left most of the defaults, but for this test disc I did not create any menus/thumbnails, etc. In the chapter box, there were no chapters, which is actually fine with me as it is rare I use those to navigate through on TV episode.

Click "start" and you will get a listing of types of output. I clicked "AVCHD strict" as I know that is what my Panasonic BD player likes.

The program took about 50 minutes to produce the desired BD folder/files.

Then, I opened BD Rebuilder, and I set it to "full backup" mode. I navigated to the BDMV folder multiAVCHD produced as the input folder. Then I went through each file making sure the audio and subtitle settings were as I wanted. I set the output folder, and I started the backup. About 5 hours later (4 one-hour episodes at high quality), I had the output files, which I then burned with Imgburn to a DVD (BD5). I put it in my Panasonic BD65, and it read it and appropriately recognized it as DVD AVCHD, and it played perfectly.

The only title was the multiAVCHD logo and today's date as the date the disc was created. Each chapter skip would advance to the next episode as there were no chapter marks put onto each episode. I imagine in the future I might play around with chapters and thumbnails, etc, but I am extremely happy now that I can backup BDs of TV shows the way I want.

I greatly appreciate all the work of those who've developed these fine programs, and I will make donations to both to keep the process going!

SMK

[Chetwood]

Just an idea, does your player support MKV playback?

[RoyGBiv-inRI]

Unfortunately, it does not appear to.

SMK

[MrVideo]

About 5 hours later (4 one-hour episodes at high quality), I had the output files, which I then burned with Imgburn to a DVD (BD5). I put it in my Panasonic BD65, and it read it and appropriately recognized it as DVD AVCHD, and it played perfectly.

The video had to have looked like crap. You can get away with doing 720p @ 3 Mbps, which would allow you to get 4 episodes onto a DVD, but a 1080p souce will have macroblocking issues getting it down to ~ 1GB per episode. And since it only took 5 hours, it could not have been a 2-pass VBR encoding, also adding to macroblocking issues.

Why would you want to place that many HD videos onto a DVD in the first place?

[RoyGBiv-inRI]

The original BDs had 6 1-hour episodes (which are about 44 minutes each) on a disc. I put 3 (sorry about the mistake above) of the episodes on each BD5. BD Rebuilder did only take 5 hours, and it did to two passes at the "high quality" setting. They look surprisingly good, and a lot better than equivalent DVDs I've seen of the show. There is no macroblocking that I can detect. I am watching on a 58" Panasonic plasma TV.


SMK

[MrVideo]

Why not just watch the original BD, with its higher bitrate?

[RoyGBiv-inRI]

I guess the bigger picture is, why does anyone back something up? I want to be able to watch things when I want. I hate having to sit there through lots of warnings, ads, etc. I want to make sure if the originals are damaged (unfortunately, something that's happened to many of my DVDs over the years) I have something I can watch.

Why do you back things up??

SMK

[MrVideo]

I want to be able to watch things when I want. I hate having to sit there through lots of warnings, ads, etc. I want to make sure if the originals are damaged (unfortunately, something that's happened to many of my DVDs over the years) I have something I can watch.

Then make BD-R backups of your BDs, not really low quality backups onto DVDs.

Why do you back things up??

I do not make copies of my DVDs or BDs. I prefer the original quality.

[RoyGBiv-inRI]

Then make BD-R backups of your BDs, not really low quality backups onto DVDs.


At some point when I buy a BD burner and BD-Rs are 20 cents a piece as DVD-Rs are, I probably will.

SMK

[MrVideo]

Consider this. You get about 5.5 DVDs onto a BD. The cost of blank BDs are now in the range such that one BD is equal in cost to those 5.5 DVDs. I use inkjet printable media, so the price is higher in both cases. But still, the break even point, IMHO, has been reached.

I think you'll be waiting the rest of your life for BD media to come down to 20 cents each.

Even if you continue burning lots of DVDs, don't over compress the video.

[RoyGBiv-inRI]

Thanks for the advice and cost comparison. I believe that BDs will never be 20 cents each. At some point I will get a BD burner and switch to burning BDs.

SMK

[MrVideo]

I've not been doing BDs for ages either. It has only been in the past year that I've dipped my foot into burning of BDs. I now have two burners and will be doing more BD backups of data, since the cost of the media is much better now, than it was.

Easier to manage as well, since there are less discs. :D

[Chetwood]

Even less with harddisks which are getting cheaper by the minute.

[MrVideo]

Even less with harddisks which are getting cheaper by the minute.

So true. The Samsung HD204UI 2TB drives are a blessing. They run cool and I run them outside the chassis with a USB to SATA adapter.

They are on sale for $70 quite often @ newegg.com (must be a e-mail member to get the discount code).

Because of those drives, the tons of video that I capture are placed onto theses drives. No more DVD burning of stuff that I capture. There are some things that I'll still transfer to BD, but it is few and far between.