Please Help Making a Blu-Ray Disc

[nagysaudio]

My main goal is to keep the quality identical to the original, or as high as possible. Like using "smart rendering." Please let me know if I can use any other programs, or follow different steps for better results. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Here is what I do:

I take a Blu-Ray disc and transfer it onto my hard drive via AnyDVD. I then take the .mt2s file and transfer it to Sony Vegas Pro 10.0C Build 470. In Vegas, I ONLY make simple cuts (no special effects of any kind are added).

For my project video properties I use:

Template: HD 1080-24p (1920x1080, 23.976 fps)
Field Order: None (Progressive Scan)
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0000 (Square)
Output Rotation: 0 (Original)
Frame Rate: 23.976 (IVTC Film)
Pixel Format: 8-bit
Full-Resolution Rendering Quality: Best
Motion Blur Type: Gaussian
Deinterlace Method: Blend Fields
Adjust source media to better match project or render settings: Checked

I then do the simple cuts. After I make the cuts I go to Tools - Burn Disc - Blu-Ray Disc.

For the settings I use:

Video Format: Sony AVC
Video Template: Blu-Ray 1920X1080-24p, 16Mbps Video Stream
Audio Format: Sony Wave64
Audio Template: 48,000Hz, 24 Bit, Stereo, PCM

What happens with these setting is that Sony Vegas Pro 10.0C re-renders the entire video/audio. Smart rendering never kicks in. The output .iso file is also smaller than the original Blu-Ray disc. I think this is due to picking the Sony AVC codec.

I can also choose the MainConcept MPEG-2 codec, which gives me a .iso file similar in size to the original Blu-Ray disc.

If the original disc was encoded using MPEG-2, should I be picking MPEG-2 in Sony Vegas? If I pick Sony AVC codec, am I losing any quality?

Are there any other programs, or methods that I can use to achieve this task simpler and maintain higher quality?

Also, under Project Properties, should I be setting Pixel Format to: 8-bit, 32-bit floating point (video levels), or 32-bit floating point (full range)?

Thanks again for all of the help :)

[lutinor]

My main goal is to keep the quality identical to the original, or as high as possible. Like using "smart rendering." Please let me know if I can use any other programs, or follow different steps for better results. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Here is what I do:

I take a Blu-Ray disc and transfer it onto my hard drive via AnyDVD. I then take the .mt2s file and transfer it to Sony Vegas Pro 10.0C Build 470. In Vegas, I ONLY make simple cuts (no special effects of any kind are added).

For my project video properties I use:

Template: HD 1080-24p (1920x1080, 23.976 fps)
Field Order: None (Progressive Scan)
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0000 (Square)
Output Rotation: 0 (Original)
Frame Rate: 23.976 (IVTC Film)
Pixel Format: 8-bit
Full-Resolution Rendering Quality: Best
Motion Blur Type: Gaussian
Deinterlace Method: Blend Fields
Adjust source media to better match project or render settings: Checked

I then do the simple cuts. After I make the cuts I go to Tools - Burn Disc - Blu-Ray Disc.

For the settings I use:

Video Format: Sony AVC
Video Template: Blu-Ray 1920X1080-24p, 16Mbps Video Stream
Audio Format: Sony Wave64
Audio Template: 48,000Hz, 24 Bit, Stereo, PCM

What happens with these setting is that Sony Vegas Pro 10.0C re-renders the entire video/audio. Smart rendering never kicks in. The output .iso file is also smaller than the original Blu-Ray disc. I think this is due to picking the Sony AVC codec.

I can also choose the MainConcept MPEG-2 codec, which gives me a .iso file similar in size to the original Blu-Ray disc.

If the original disc was encoded using MPEG-2, should I be picking MPEG-2 in Sony Vegas? If I pick Sony AVC codec, am I losing any quality?

Are there any other programs, or methods that I can use to achieve this task simpler and maintain higher quality?

Also, under Project Properties, should I be setting Pixel Format to: 8-bit, 32-bit floating point (video levels), or 32-bit floating point (full range)?

Thanks again for all of the help :)
Transcoding will always reduce the quality. If you want the exact same quality you have to 'keep' the video as it is on the source. Vegas won't be your friend for this kind of job. Notheless, when the source is good quality and the transcoding well made, the quality loss is more 'numerical' than visible by human unless you zoom it or on very very big tv.

x264 + pro tool in a full reauthoring job will always be the best choice but hard to reach in term of price.

[mp3dom]

Is the source in mpeg2 format?
Smart-Rendering should work for AVI and MPEG2 files. Quite difficult that it works for AVC files.
If your source is in MPEG2 format you need to pick the MPEG2 as output.
Regarding the pixel format, you need to choose the 8-bit video.

[Sharc]

Did anyone try out this:
http://www.fame-ring.com/products.html
It promises smart rendering for .m2ts container and mpeg2 format

[nagysaudio]

My source is an MPEG-2 Blu-Ray disc (.mt2s file). I choose MPEG-2 as the output, but Vegas Pro 10.0 still re-renders the entire thing. Even if I don't do any cuts, or manipulate the file in any way, it still re-renders.

I know Blu-Rays are 8-bit, but if I choose 32-bit (Video Levels) for re-render will I gain anything, or make things worse? Render times are the same regardless of what I pick on my computer.

[Ghitulescu]

Do you need simple cuts only, no titles, effects and so on?
For simple cuts, tsmuxer and multiavchd may provide you a better alternative than Vegas.
Remember, Sony Vegas was not designed to reauthor final products (like BD), but original rushes (camcorder footage, RAW footage etc.).

[nagysaudio]

Simple cuts only :) I've tried using MultiAVCHD, but found it extremely difficult to use. Do I need to demux the Blu-Ray .mt2s file first? Let's say I know exactly which frames I need to cut, are there any step by step guides available? Or maybe someone could be kind enough to explain the cutting process in MultiAVCHD?

What happens after the file has been edited? Does MultiAVCHD do smart rendering on only the frames that were cut, or does it re-render the entire file? If it re-renders the entire file than I rather work in Vegas as the timelines/interface there is excellent.

[Ghitulescu]

Older versions (how old??) of multiavchd did not attempt to change the video, nor the audio. Newer versions may be used to change both the video and the audio (uncrop, resize, recode etc.). This is something that personally I don't like very much, it's one step towards microsofticization (the correct term is featuritis or feature creep (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_creep)).
SmartCutter is advertised to perform almost perfect cuts (smart rendering of the affected GOPs only), never tried it though.
TS-doctor is another SW that can be used to visually cut the TS/M2TS streams (as opposed to "editlists" of tsmuxer), however I use a pre-commercial version so I have no experience what the latest version can do.