Limited Success: HDV to playable Blu-Ray

[phloyd]

I have been experimenting with a number of broadcast streams and have found a couple of 'barriers' to compatibility with DVDit.

Bitrate: If the bitrate header is too high, DVDit will transcode the video, even if it is not the real peak bitrate. This can be fixed using Restream. An example is that HDNet Movies sets the bitrate header to 65 but that is not the real bitrate.

GOP Length: I gather that the GOP length should be no more than 24 frames for progressive and 30 frames for interlaced data on a BD. It is not clear where DVDit Pro HD draws the line but it is apparent that my ABC and NBC local broadcasts (28 frames in a GOP) and Showtime, Starz and Universal HD (29 frames in a GOP) are not acceptable to DVDit and it will transcode these streams. It is not clear to me how to get around this since I don't think it can be done without some additional I frames so some level of recoding is needed.