multiAVCHD - author Blu-ray/AVCHD (Blu-ray players, camcoders, Viera TV) + (HD) DVD

[pancserzso]

Can someone confirm the settings to make a menu-less, infinite-repeating BD-5 from a single video track?

I don't want anything special, just a simple video track, encoded using x264 in 1080p24, and burnt onto a DVD-R that can be played back from most BluRay players in 1080p24.

I know the encoder settings in MeGUI, but I don't know what are the settings needed to make this happen in multiAVCHD.

Can you write a quick list of the important settings for this?

[MrVideo]

Originally Posted by konran

I also have to BDEdit the compiled disk because multiAVCHD always generates a play all list that is started as first play. No matter if I activate the "play all" option in the author section or not.

That is strange. When I was using mAVCHD, it never did that to me. It went to the menu for me.

[MrVideo]

Originally Posted by konran

btw. one question on this matter: Any suggestions of professional BD authoring software that is affordable?

No such thing as "affordable" when it comes to professional authoring software.

I have the need to work with vc-1 codec (to transform older hddvd's into blu-ray media because there is no more active hddvd player) and e-ac3 or dts. I tried a test installation of Sony Vegas Pro 10 - but it can't deal with none of those codec's mentioned above

Really, that is strange since the Sony package will author BD and VC-1 is part of the BD spec.

I don't know if Scenarist BD would handle it, but on the other hand this one is not considered as "affordable" within the environment used (for some private authoring stuff only).

Definitely not "affordable."

[tawh]

I have a digital set top box for my pc that will also play mkv or mpg files (or vob files renamed to mpg ;-) off a hard drive. Unfortunately, as it plays mpg/vobs but not .ifo files, i have to hard encode the subtitles of my dvd rips to mkv or mpg (sd-dvd or hd-dvd in multiAVCHD).

I have tried both of these options and the transcoding with the "hardcode subtitles" option seems to work fine but before the end of the process i get this for both mkv or hd-dvd outputs...

[20:21:36] *** Transcoding successful!

[20:21:36] Detected frame reference count: 3 (max:5).
[20:21:36] Detected video: ID#0:V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC 720x576, fps=25.000, ref=3
[20:21:36] Display properties: 1024x576 (AR:1.78)
[20:21:36] Total of 1 tracks found in this file.
[20:21:36] Adding subtitles (dvddump.0.eng.sup) (eng)
[20:21:36] Adding subtitles (dvddump.1.eng.sup) (eng)
[20:21:36] No audio tracks found!
[20:21:36] Creating FILE (MKV/AVC)...
[20:21:39] Failed!

So multiAVCHD is reading the subs fine from the ifo file and has previously processed the audio fine during transcoding but then... something not working.

Anybody out there got any solutions? Thanks!

ps: deanbg's forum seems to have died since the last time i posted there. weird.

[Music Fan]

Are you sure that your set top box can't play subtitles in MKV container ?
Most of MKV compatible devices can play subtitles in MKV.
You will only have to convert your dvd subtitles to another format (like srt) and mux it in mkv with your mpeg-2 video.
It will allow to avoid a hard encoding of the subtitles.
You can also try the TS container if your set top box accept it.

[konran]

Originally Posted by MrVideo

That is strange. When I was using mAVCHD, it never did that to me. It went to the menu for me.

Yes it returns to the menu - but first it plays the first title which is set as first title and configured to return to menu; in fact this one doesn't return to menu, instead plays the next title which is the main movie and then jumps to the menu. The multiAVCHD option for play all doesn't change that behaviour. So I patch it with BDEdit.

[konran]

Originally Posted by MrVideo

Really, that is strange since the Sony package will author BD and VC-1 is part of the BD spec.

Yes indeed very strange. I'll have a look if the Sony package can be configured. Maybe the problem is that VC-1 and DTS both are configured with ffdshow to get it handled properly with multiAVCHD?!

[MrVideo]

Originally Posted by konran

Yes it returns to the menu - but first it plays the first title which is set as first title and configured to return to menu; in fact this one doesn't return to menu, instead plays the next title which is the main movie and then jumps to the menu. The multiAVCHD option for play all doesn't change that behaviour. So I patch it with BDEdit.

Thanks for the clarification. When I was using mAVCHD, I never have a first play title. Only the main menu.

Let me clarify. I didn't like the menu structure that Dean used. I only used the title menus and even those weren't any better. One person complained that he couldn't read what was there.

I gave up.

[calamari]

Originally Posted by calamari

I'm having a Title Menu problem. I have 13 titles, so the 13th title ends up on the 2nd page. When I go to the 2nd page and select that title, it plays title 1 instead of title 13. If I play title 12 and let it finish, it goes to title 13 without a problem. Am I doing something wrong or is there a workaround? The title menu is the only menu I have (no main menu etc). This is for Blu-ray output. I tried looking at it in BDEdit but I couldn't find the title menu (although I dunno what I'm really looking at in that mess). Thanks for any suggestions!

Hate to bump.. but I'm nearing my deadline for the project. I did a hexdump and compared the 93001.m2ts and 93002.m2ts files, but I never got a good feel for what I was looking at. I wasn't sure if those files were just giving me the overlay bitmaps (the squares and such that show where you are as you move around the title menu). I also hexedited index.bdmv, and saw the title numbers there, it looked good to me. I'm not sure I've actually looked in the right place yet. If anyone knows what file would be telling it where to go when a title entry is clicked, that would be a help, because then I could focus on that file. I wish the multiAVCHD source code was available..

Any ideas? Or am I pretty much stuck with a max of 12 titles per disc unless I can work out a binary file miracle?

[thghgv]

trying to build a similar structure with the menuing facilities in this app but gave up after multiple trys. I too attempted to have a main menu page then use the title for extras material. The main "play" would not play the feature as one would guess and I could not find a place in the app, that would work, to "hard-wire" the feature m2ts to the play button anywhere. Finally gave up on the 2 page approach and went to a single title screen that had all the content on it. However it seems if one has more than 12 pieces of content and you have to try and navigate to the "next" page of titles, you get there the first time only. Trying to navigate BACK to the first 12 is pretty much not doable.

Also re: poster images...
There is a button function to advance to a frame of a title, via the properties screen for that title, and grab a poster image to use in the menus. That simply did not work at all. the only way to get poster images for use in menus is to to screen grabs in another app and save to a 1920/1080 .jpg file and physically point to that file via the manual box for poster images.

I have concluded that this app, for doing menuing type tasks, is pretty worthless. About all it really does well is doing "remake" type editing on BD structures and can be twitchy at that rate sometimes as well. Unless you SAVE your project regularly the app can crash down around you taking all edit and project data along with it.

[calamari]

Originally Posted by thghgv

trying to build a similar structure with the menuing facilities in this app but gave up after multiple trys. I too attempted to have a main menu page then use the title for extras material. The main "play" would not play the feature as one would guess and I could not find a place in the app, that would work, to "hard-wire" the feature m2ts to the play button anywhere. Finally gave up on the 2 page approach and went to a single title screen that had all the content on it. However it seems if one has more than 12 pieces of content and you have to try and navigate to the "next" page of titles, you get there the first time only. Trying to navigate BACK to the first 12 is pretty much not doable.

Also re: poster images...
There is a button function to advance to a frame of a title, via the properties screen for that title, and grab a poster image to use in the menus. That simply did not work at all. the only way to get poster images for use in menus is to to screen grabs in another app and save to a 1920/1080 .jpg file and physically point to that file via the manual box for poster images.

I have concluded that this app, for doing menuing type tasks, is pretty worthless. About all it really does well is doing "remake" type editing on BD structures and can be twitchy at that rate sometimes as well. Unless you SAVE your project regularly the app can crash down around you taking all edit and project data along with it.

Yeah I noticed the same thing re: poster images, crashing, etc. One thing that helped me avoid crashes was to NEVER click the convenient title links below.. always use the ones at the top. Then, after you do any operation wait at least 10 seconds before doing the next one. And like you say, save often.

MultiAVCHD pretty much violates every rule of what I consider to be good software.. it's closed source, unstable, phones home, begs for money, etc. It gets away with it because it's offered as freeware and is pretty much the only option.. and it happens to work (for the most part). So, I'm definitely glad for it, even though I hope for a free software alternative someday.

I found the default title menu to be rather ugly (and text too small to be legible on an SD TV set).. so I created my own title menu using ffmpeg, yuv4mpeg, x264, and tsMuxer. In case it helps anyone else (this is for Linux, but I'm sure you guys could translate it to Windows somehow), here's how to encode your own title menu:

#!/bin/bash
BITRATE="6000"
NAME="83001"
VIDEO="menu-%02d.png"
ffmpeg -i $VIDEO -y -f rawvideo -r 23.976 -vcodec rawvideo -pix_fmt yuv420p -s 1920x1080 -aspect 16:9 -an vdec.yuv &> $NAME.mlog
cat vdec.yuv | yuv4mpeg -w 1920 -h 1080 -r 24000:1001 -a 1:1 > vdec.y4m
X264OPTS="--fps 24000/1001 --bitrate $BITRATE --preset placebo --bluray-compat --rc-lookahead 120 --vbv-maxrate 11800 --vbv-bufsize 14750 --level 4.1 --keyint 24 --open-gop --slices 4 --colorprim bt709 --transfer bt709 --colormatrix bt709 --sar 1:1" 
x264 $X264OPTS -o $NAME.264 vdec.y4m &> $NAME.xlog
rm vdec.yuv vdec.y4m

I made 25 symlinks to the 1920x1080 source image, one for each of the 25 frames.. each named menu-01.png, menu-02.png, etc. If you want an animation you'd use different images for the frames of course. After running this, use tsMuxer to mux 83001.264 to 83001.m2ts (adding an audio track did not seem to be necessary). Then, after building your project Blu-ray in multiAVCHD, go to the BDMV/STREAM directory and replace 83001.m2ts with the one you made. Now your new title menu will show up instead!

Keep in mind that this does not change the cursor positions.. so your layout will have to be somewhat similar to the original (and you can't get rid of the useless < > X buttons)... I think the secret to removing those buttons and moving things around is in the 9300*.m2ts files. But, I don't know how those files are structured.

EDIT: While searching around for the Blu-ray spec, I came across page 154 in this thread. That shows a little about how to edit the menus in BDEdit. The key that page doesn't show is in order to edit the menu, you must load the 93001.m2ts file (click Load at the bottom). So, it appears that all the action is in those files after all. BDEdit also has a handy preview (Click Start) where you can try it out. With BDEdit, I think I'll be able to fit everything onto one page, get rid of the bottom buttons, etc. This will be awesome!

EDIT #2: I got it to work! Using BDEdit to understand how things are structured, I used a hex editor to modify the buttons. I replaced the unused button 3 (in page 2) with the commands to load title 13, I removed the bottom < > X buttons, and I also moved the buttons around (X + 200, Y - 100) and changed the navigation. Was a hell of a lot of work and pretty complicated. I've attached the resulting 93001.m2ts for a working 13 title menu. You could expand this up to 16 titles on the menu since buttons 2, 4, and 5 are now available. But I didn't need that so I didn't do it. To use it, build the project like you normally would. After it is done, then replace their 93001.m2ts with this file. Since I moved things around and added a title, you'll have to build a custom 83001.m2ts as I described above. Also attached the image for the menu I made (for positioning).

[thghgv]

wow looks like you are really testing the crap out this thing.

I have been trying to find an alternative "remake/reauthor" BD app, payware, shareware, freeware, whatever, that will import & work with m2ts files natively, NOT re-encoding them on output, and that also will handle Dolby HD and DTS HD audio the same. I haven't found anything yet that doesn't require selling crack to afford, and then taking 2 years of college courses to work with. Someone suggested TEMPGEnc Authoring Works as a possible alternative, but haven't had a chance to see if there is a trial that I can test with.

[data129]

I think this software is outdated eac3to won't convert dts, dts-ma to ac3. it refuses to. Also If i want to put multiple dvds on a bluray disc with no transcoding the video is jurky, if i use transcoding, the video and audio are out of sync.

[konran]

Originally Posted by thghgv

Someone suggested TEMPGEnc Authoring Works as a possible alternative, but haven't had a chance to see if there is a trial that I can test with.

Two days ago I had a look at the technical specs for TMPGEnc Authoring 4 which should be the current version. It says that on INPUT most HD contents can be used. Unfortunately there is no DTS audio and no VC-1 as I need. But now the bummer: on OUTPUT if you've chosen Blu-ray it only writes MPEG-2!
That will mean anything you put in as MPEG-4 HD footage has to be down transcoded into MPEG-2 wasting lots of space on a BD. So that one is out of focus.
... and I'm also looking for a tool that is affordable and can make the menu authoring stuff for BD. The rest like muxing and transcoding is no problem.

[Music Fan]

@ konran : did you test BDEdit ?
It could maybe help you to modify menus made with MultiAVCHD.
I never tested it but it looks great ;
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/BDedit#features

edit : I just saw above that you already tested it, so I guess this program can't do what you need.

[thghgv]

Originally Posted by konran

Two days ago I had a look at the technical specs for TMPGEnc Authoring 4 which should be the current version. It says that on INPUT most HD contents can be used. Unfortunately there is no DTS audio and no VC-1 as I need. But now the bummer: on OUTPUT if you've chosen Blu-ray it only writes MPEG-2!
That will mean anything you put in as MPEG-4 HD footage has to be down transcoded into MPEG-2 wasting lots of space on a BD. So that one is out of focus.
... and I'm also looking for a tool that is affordable and can make the menu authoring stuff for BD. The rest like muxing and transcoding is no problem.

hrmm... So it looks as though TMPGEnc is not a solution for my efforts either. Transcoding (video especially) when it's not needed pretty much precludes the whole need for a tool of this sort. Even Encore CS5, which will give total control over menus etc, will transcode the stuff (audio & video) on output which knocks down the quality even though it uses a really good encoder.

I have never been able to make BDedit work to any advantage. Tried the tutorials and the like and still cannot get previews to work or make sense of the work flow of the tool. I guess for now the simple removing of unwanted content from a BD is best accomplished with multiavchd until something better comes along, but if your application is for creating or remaking BD menuing multiAVCHD is quite lacking.

[calamari]

With a combo of x264, mencoder, and ffmpeg, you can encode pretty much anything. Definitely takes research and effort tho. When I make something work I keep it documented in a file so next time I have examples to start from. Has helped me a lot.

[konran]

Originally Posted by Music Fan

edit : I just saw above that you already tested it, so I guess this program can't do what you need.

In fact BDEdit can exactly do what I need ... the problem is to handle this tool good enough. A tutorial for BDMV vm opcodes would be very helpful indeed. Unless I don't find one I have to fiddle a lot into it.

Finally I've found a solution to get a first play intro movie in multiAVCHD quite properly (with some test streams for now):

• I activated generation of a welcome screen and set the length matching the real intro movie,
• then applied the same audio track to the welcome screen as used in the intro movie,
• after multiAVCHD compile replaced 80000.m2ts with my real intro movie naming it same...

... unfortunately there is another bug within multiAVCHD which re-encodes my DTS audio stream of the custom welcome screen into AC-3, even if I had configured NOT to encode anything into AC-3 in the subtitle & audio tab.

That is where BDEdit comes into place. There are really some dependencies between playlists and clipinfo. The benefit is that BDEdit corrects the packet length of the intro movie which was replaced. And finally I found it to change the stream type flags for the audio stream which was DD instead of DTS.

Nevertheless there is no seamless branch between welcome screen and the main menu. I think this is high sofisticated work if it's done with BDEdit...

[konran]

Originally Posted by calamari

With a combo of x264, mencoder, and ffmpeg, you can encode pretty much anything.

Well, when I have to re-encode something I do this with StaxRip in many cases. It is a frontend to x264, well-documented and works with templates.

[tawh]

Originally Posted by tawh

I have a digital set top box for my pc that will also play mkv or mpg files (or vob files renamed to mpg ;-) off a hard drive. Unfortunately, as it plays mpg/vobs but not .ifo files, i have to hard encode the subtitles of my dvd rips to mkv or mpg (sd-dvd or hd-dvd in multiAVCHD).

I have tried both of these options and the transcoding with the "hardcode subtitles" option seems to work fine but before the end of the process i get this for both mkv or hd-dvd outputs...

[20:21:36] *** Transcoding successful!

[20:21:36] Detected frame reference count: 3 (max:5).
[20:21:36] Detected video: ID#0:V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC 720x576, fps=25.000, ref=3
[20:21:36] Display properties: 1024x576 (AR:1.78)
[20:21:36] Total of 1 tracks found in this file.
[20:21:36] Adding subtitles (dvddump.0.eng.sup) (eng)
[20:21:36] Adding subtitles (dvddump.1.eng.sup) (eng)
[20:21:36] No audio tracks found!
[20:21:36] Creating FILE (MKV/AVC)...
[20:21:39] Failed!

So multiAVCHD is reading the subs fine from the ifo file and has previously processed the audio fine during transcoding but then... something not working.

Anybody out there got any solutions? Thanks!

ps: deanbg's forum seems to have died since the last time i posted there. weird.

Originally Posted by Music Fan

Are you sure that your set top box can't play subtitles in MKV container ?
Most of MKV compatible devices can play subtitles in MKV.
You will only have to convert your dvd subtitles to another format (like srt) and mux it in mkv with your mpeg-2 video.
It will allow to avoid a hard encoding of the subtitles.
You can also try the TS container if your set top box accept it.

Thanks, I will give it a go.

although from my discussions on other topics with the techies of this media player i have my doubts!