Making Blu-Ray movies on Mac

[warhawk21114]

I am videographer ( a poor one monetary wise)and want to expand into blu-ray once I can afford it. My question is, how can I make a total blu-ray movie. I have Final Cut Studio 2, but DVD Studio 4 does the "other" format when putting all files together. Thats no biggie. I can drag and drop my content with the best of them. I'D like to design a menu in High Def., put in all proper files where they go and it all interact with Blu-Ray. Any ideas?

[HDJK]

I was really amazed that Apple didn't announce official support for Blu-ray with Finalcut Studio 2. But, DVD Studio Pro didn't get an upgrade (all other apps in the bundle did) so my guess (or hope) is, that as soon as they start shipping Macs with a Blu-ray drive, they will announce the new version of DVD studio Pro with Blu-ray support. If you can I would wait it out for another couple of months.

[warhawk21114]

Originally Posted by HDJK

I was really amazed that Apple didn't announce official support for Blu-ray with Finalcut Studio 2. But, DVD Studio Pro didn't get an upgrade (all other apps in the bundle did) so my guess (or hope) is, that as soon as they start shipping Macs with a Blu-ray drive, they will announce the new version of DVD studio Pro with Blu-ray support. If you can I would wait it out for another couple of months.

Well my bank account is nothing so I guess I have to wait no matter what, but I may assume DVD Studio Pro will get it in a free upgrade. You can only get DVD Studo Pro with the Suite and I don't think they want to launch another Suite so soon, so to appease us that have bought the suite an upgrade may occur.

[Polyh3dron]

Originally Posted by warhawk21114

I have Final Cut Studio 2, but DVD Studio 4 does the "other" format when putting all files together.

The wording of it is tricky. DVD Studio can make High Definition DVDs, but it means it in the literal sense. DVD Studio authors High Definition video on to a plain vanilla red-laser DVD R that can be played back only on Macs IIRC. It can not burn to Blue Laser HD DVDs of the 15 and 30GB kind.

[SmilesLots]

I'm about to do the same thing. Got a Mac Pro. Canon HV20 hd camcorder, got a Sony internal blu-Ray burner, and Toast 8 supports blu-ray burning. iMovie hd supports 720 and 1080, so if iDVD will create or export a disk image with hd formatting I can burn using Toast 8 to bd-r or bd-re. I know iDVD does not currently support blu-ray burners.

[warhawk21114]

Originally Posted by SmilesLots

I'm about to do the same thing. Got a Mac Pro. Canon HV20 hd camcorder, got a Sony internal blu-Ray burner, and Toast 8 supports blu-ray burning. iMovie hd supports 720 and 1080, so if iDVD will create or export a disk image with hd formatting I can burn using Toast 8 to bd-r or bd-re. I know iDVD does not currently support blu-ray burners.

Let me know how it works out! And in reference to the person 2 slots above me it said 15 and 30 GB which are the spaces on HD DVD so I would have assumed that is what they were talking about.

[SmilesLots]

Warhawk - I tried today but Toast wanted to compress the file so much that it lost all detail. I had a 10 minute HD video from iMovie saved as a Quicktime file. When I dropped it into Toast and selected the BD drive and BD burn rate X1, it compressed an 11gb file down to 684 Mb - like it was putting it on a cd. It did play on my Sony BDP-S1 but looked horrible to me. Got to see what else will work when time permits.

[warhawk21114]

hmmm In that regards I think I will just sweat it out until macs come eqquipped with a drive and buy leapord and the official drive as from what I heard, with movie purposes, toast does not help. good luck fighting with it!

[arrowem]

Toast 8 does NOT support BD video burning it supports burning DATA to BD. I an in the same boat. This was my year to go HD. Got the BD external burner, Canon hv20, and a souped up iMac but no software to get my movies from A to B(d).

[warhawk21114]

Originally Posted by arrowem

Toast 8 does NOT support BD video burning it supports burning DATA to BD. I an in the same boat. This was my year to go HD. Got the BD external burner, Canon hv20, and a souped up iMac but no software to get my movies from A to B(d).

I read that. Well as apple is in the bd camp i excpect they will do something about it.

[SmilesLots]

Originally Posted by arrowem

Toast 8 does NOT support BD video burning it supports burning DATA to BD. I an in the same boat. This was my year to go HD. Got the BD external burner, Canon hv20, and a souped up iMac but no software to get my movies from A to B(d).

Yeah I just found out the hard way. Big disappointment. Almost $3000 invested and still cannot make a bd of my own stuff. Come on Apple - get with the times!

[ATD]

Has anyone created their own blu ray dvd yet, and which software worked

i am a customer installer for home automation and cinema rooms in the UK
and a enthusiast with the HD cam

i have a Mac, Lacie External blu ray writer sony HD1R cam lots of DV tapes with high def two years worth.

have bought some BR-R sony 50G and TDK 25GB
somebody please help!

[shueardm]

It's just not possible on a Mac.
I use Adobe CS3 on Windows & Roxio DVDit PRO HD.
Burn my HDV to Blu-ray disc and play on PS3- it's great.

[dalejrfanfreak]

Originally Posted by shueardm

It's just not possible on a Mac.
I use Adobe CS3 on Windows & Roxio DVDit PRO HD.
Burn my HDV to Blu-ray disc and play on PS3- it's great.

I just purchased a macbook pro and i'm curious to see if there are any external blu ray drives out there for a decent price that would work? If not i'm pretty confident that once blu ray wins this format war there will be plenty of options and software.

[inaz4sun]

Originally Posted by SmilesLots

Yeah I just found out the hard way. Big disappointment. Almost $3000 invested and still cannot make a bd of my own stuff. Come on Apple - get with the times!

SHould have gotten a Dell dude. ;-) My new one for $1700 has an internal BD burner. (Quad Core, 3GB RAM, 512MG SIMM, 750GB HDD, +++)

[monkeytap]

Originally Posted by shueardm

It's just not possible on a Mac.
I use Adobe CS3 on Windows & Roxio DVDit PRO HD.
Burn my HDV to Blu-ray disc and play on PS3- it's great.

what program would you recommend for importing video clips from VHS? I recently undertook a project to transfer all of our old family videos onto blu-ray discs since my parents, brother, sister, and myself all have a ps3.

Originally Posted by inaz4sun

SHould have gotten a Dell dude. ;-) My new one for $1700 has an internal BD burner. (Quad Core, 3GB RAM, 512MG SIMM, 750GB HDD, +++)

seriously? do you go into every thread that has something 'apple' in the title and say the same thing?

[shueardm]

[QUOTE=monkeytap;537939]what program would you recommend for importing video clips from VHS? I recently undertook a project to transfer all of our old family videos onto blu-ray discs since my parents, brother, sister, and myself all have a ps3.

/QUOTE]

On a PC? Not many options for HDMV, DVDit PRO HD, Adobe Encore CS3 (Premiere PRO), Nero 8 with plugin (untried). Probably DVDit PRO HD because it's only $299US at the moment.

[plee]

Originally Posted by monkeytap

what program would you recommend for importing video clips from VHS? I recently undertook a project to transfer all of our old family videos onto blu-ray discs since my parents, brother, sister, and myself all have a ps3.



seriously? do you go into every thread that has something 'apple' in the title and say the same thing?

You can buy a dvd recorder and hookup your vhs to it or get a video capture device (usb, card, etc...) for your pc. The PC option may have more flexiblity to allow you to capture to an mpeg file and all you would need to do is to burn the captured files to a BD-R (since your family is all PS3), they can use the xbm to select which ever file to view. If you go with a dvd recorder you'll need to get dvd decrypter (or similar) to rip the movies off the dvd. Also, you may want to edit the files also so look for a mpeg editor.

If you want to create menus, etc.. then you'll need an authoring program like the ones shueardm suggested.

[monkeytap]

thanks for the suggestions guys, but I should have been more specific.

I have an ATI TV Wonder 650, hooked up to my VCR and want to import clips from VCR to burn to blu-ray. I assume I can do the importing with some of the ATI software, and eventually can burn it with Nero, which I also already have....

but I am wondering what programs you suggest on a PC for importing and editing. I have always used iMovie on my Mac, but not familiar with PC programs.

[plee]

Originally Posted by monkeytap

thanks for the suggestions guys, but I should have been more specific.

I have an ATI TV Wonder 650, hooked up to my VCR and want to import clips from VCR to burn to blu-ray. I assume I can do the importing with some of the ATI software, and eventually can burn it with Nero, which I also already have....

but I am wondering what programs you suggest on a PC for importing and editing. I have always used iMovie on my Mac, but not familiar with PC programs.

You can probably use the ATI stuff which should give basic editing/capturing capabilities. But if you want to do more there are quite of few editing programs from the cheap to the expensive.