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Old 03-05-2008, 05:08 PM   #1
guartho guartho is offline
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Mar 2008
Default Blu-ray authoring options, Encore v. DVDit v. Movie Factory

Reading over my post I see I made it too verbose. Here are my two real questions:

Does Mpeg-2 (vs. h.264) give you reliable 1080p playback on a variety of Blu-ray players?

Approximately how much time can you fit on a single layer BD-R using Mpeg-2 at 1080p?

I'd also be interested in any unsolicited thoughts on Ulead's Movie Factory.

For more details on my situation, here's my original post
Quote:
I've spent the morning searching this forum and haven't found the answer. If this has been spelled out before I apologize and request direction to the appropriate thread since I wasn't able to find it on my own.

I need to start authoring my videos, specifically HD wedding videos, on Blu-ray by the end of June. Right now it looks like my options are Encore as part of Premiere Pro for $750, DVDit Pro HD for $300, or Ulead Movie Factory Plus for $80.

I've read quite a bit about Encore and DVDit Pro. I just learned of Ulead Movie Factory in my searching of this forum today so I know the least about it.

Other than price, my concern is versatility. It seems that with DVDit Pro I can only author in Mpeg-2.

Encore supposedly can author Blu-ray discs using H.264 in addition to Mpeg-2.

Perhaps it's a non-issue on Blu-ray, but for HD-DVD I never could get Mpeg-2 HD discs to play properly. The H.264 encodes were almost bullet-proof. Is burning to BD-r as Mpeg-2 going to be good enough?

In addition to reliability, my other codec-concern is space. I'll be wanting to be able to fit a max of 2 hours of 1080p on SL 25 gB discs. Is that possible using Mpeg-2? Most of my wedding DVDs land under 90 minutes total, but the first one booked is a full-Mass Catholic wedding.

As I said, I don't know much about Ulead's Movie Factory Plus. I'm guessing that it's Mpeg-2 only as well. If I go with one of the cheaper two, I really would consider it a stop-gap measure until Apple updates DVD Studio Pro. If I can "get by" with Mpeg-2 until then, I wouldn't mind.

Well, there's a whole truck-load of information. Any thoughts?

Last edited by guartho; 03-05-2008 at 07:07 PM.
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