Authoring a Blu-Ray with SD and HD content

[ikantspelwurdz]

I want to make a Blu-Ray disc image with these properties:
13 titles in total, averaging 7.5 minutes each
3 of these titles have been extracted from a Blu-Ray in m2ts format, the rest have been extracted from a DVD in VOB format.
The 10 SD titles are all 4:3.
A menu allowing random access to any title
Total size just under 8 GB.

The disc image will be Blu-Ray format, but burned to a DVD-RL, and played on a Blu-Ray player.

What software should I use to author this? multiAVCHD looks like it should work, but it fails when I try to add SD content. If I have the three HD titles and nothing else, it will create exactly what I want. But if I try to make a disc with just one SD title, and then make PowerDVD 10 play it, the menu will work fine, but PowerDVD will freeze when I try to play the SD title.

If multiAVCHD should be working, what do I need to do? Here's a step-by-step instructions of what I do.
Launch multiAVCHD
Add Video Files
Files of Type: VOB (I've tried IFO too)
Open a VOB
Start
Blu-ray Disc
Wait
Run ImgBurn
Create image file from files/folders
Add the files/folders that multiAVCHD made (BDMV, Certificate, HDAVCTN, etc)
Build
Save ISO file
Yes, I would like to auto-adjust for BD Video settings
Load the ISO in D-Tools
Run PowerDVD 10
Navigate to SD title, hit Enter
PowerDVD freezes

[div007]

Convert the SD VOB files to BD complaint files and then try to import in MultiAVCHD, it should work.

[ikantspelwurdz]

I thought that multiAVCHD automatically converted them to BD compliant m2ts files. My BD structure does contain m2ts files, with properties like this according to Avidemux:
http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/3760/propsm.png

Is that not BD compliant? Because I was under the impression that the BD specification included support for 720x480 MPEG2's. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the bonus features on some of my commercial BD's are encoded that way.

I am considering using Avidemux to upscale to 1440x1080, then add borders to make them 1920x1080, and re-encode as MPEG-4 AVC. But it seems like there should be an easier way to do it.

[Capsbackup]

You could use BD-RB to do your converting of both .m2ts and DVD via the new import setting. Then you could use multiAVCHD to import those converted files to make your BD with your desired menu.

[rik1138]

VOB files from DVD are BD compliant. You can use the video and audio directly without transcoding if you want to, not sure why it's not working with MultiAVCHD (never used it). Maybe you need to demux it to the elemental streams first...

Another thing to keep in mind: some Blu-ray players (likely many of them, but newer ones might be better at this) don't have the data rate on the DVD-side of the drive to handle HD video. (Meaning, they won't necessarily play the HD video very well if you burn to a DVD-R.) If you are making this for yourself, and you know it will work on your player, you should be okay. If this is something you plan to give it out to other people or use on multiple players you haven't tested on, you should keep the HD video within the bitrates allowed for DVD, or burn it to a BD-R.

[ikantspelwurdz]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll give both of those a try once I have some time for it.

I hadn't thought about the DVD speed issue. Is a first-generation PS3 fast enough for HD video off a Blu-Ray? I don't know what the maximum bitrate for any of my videos are, but the one with the highest average (calculated by dividing file size by time) is 2.83 MB/s, which seems like it should be manageable by an 8X DVD-ROM drive.

[ikantspelwurdz]

I can't get BD Rebuilder's import function to work. I try to import a DVD, and it keeps saying "No working path specified. Can't import." I'll insert an actual DVD (not encrypted), select the root of the drive as source path, and then it will say "This appears to be a DVD source. Do you wish to import it?" I say yes, and it says "No working path specified."

Importing files has the same error. I've tried MKV and m2ts.

[Capsbackup]

Try setting the working path before importing. ;)

[ikantspelwurdz]

Ah. That does make sense.

I made another image, using BD Rebuilder and an imported short DVD movie, and IMGBurn. But the result still won't play in PowerDVD. When I mount the image and play, I just get a black screen. I can right-click the screen and choose "Go To" and a chapter. Doing this results in playback with audio, but no video.

The image does contain an m2ts file which plays back fine in VLC.

Just to check to make sure it wasn't PowerDVD being faulty, I just inserted my copy of The Terminator on Blu-Ray. The special features, which are 720x480 MPEG-2s, played back just fine.

[ikantspelwurdz]

Hmm. I just tried burning to a DVD-RL, using the AVCHD authoring mode. The disc still has the same problem with PowerDVD. HOWEVER - my PS3 plays the SD content (and the static menus) just fine! One minor issue - the popup menu is invisible when playing SD content.