Blu-Ray authoring - solutions for Mac users part 2

In the last post, I talked about using Roxio Toast as a low cost solution for authoring Blu-Ray on a Mac. Here I will discuss another solution, Nero 8.

Nero is an application that only runs under Windows. This limits it's use on a Mac to Intel based machines running Windows either in a Boot Camp partition or in a virtual machine using Fusion or Parallels. If you have an Intel powered Mac, Nero will provide a much better solution to Blu-Ray authoring than Toast.

Nero can run either in a Boot Camp partition (where Windows is running by itself), or in a Windows virtual machine (running in OS-X by using Parallels or VMWare Fusion). I used the VM method. This has certain advantages as you can access files on your Mac filesystem by putting them in a shared directory. You should probably avoid running in a VM however if you have a low-end Intel Mac, or one doesn't have much memory. I was using a 2.66Ghz Mac Pro with 4GB of RAM running Windows XP in a Fusion VM. You will need to install Nero 8 Ultimate Edition and if you are authoring real Blu-Ray disks, you will have to purchase an activation code for the Nero Blu-Ray/HD-DVD plugin. This is not required however, if you are authoring AVCHD DVDs (This is Blu-Ray compatible video on a regular DVD).

As I don't have a Blu-Ray burner, I decided to work with creating an AVCHD DVD. Authoring is done using the Nerovision appication which is part of the Nero Ultimate suite. This is an all-in-one video capture, editing, and DVD authoring package. After selecting AVCHD on DVD, the next step is to add media assets. Nero being a consumer app, does not have the flexibility of DVD Studio Pro regarding the type of media that it will accept. You must have both video and audio multiplexed into one file. It accepts MPEG2 and H264. MPEG2 should be saved as an m2t (MPEG2 transport stream). H264 can be a Quicktime or AVI file.

Although Nero is supposed to be capable of not reencoding Blu-Ray compatible files, this does not seem to work. Because you have to assume that it will reencode, it is best to start with best possible source file. Therefore I exported my HDV timeline in Final Cut Pro as a 25mbps (roughly equivalent to the full HDV data rate) MPEG2 transport stream. This can be done using Compressor. I also exported another timeline as an H264 Quicktime file in Compressor. Both of these were added to the Nerovision project. After importing, you can then create chapters (Nero will not import chapter markers from FCP).

Once you have added assets, the next step is to create menus. Nero provides as full set of templates to work with, and some of them are not bad looking (you will have to download them from Nero if you don't have a boxed version). The nice thing is, unlike Toast, you are capable of doing a lot of customization. You can even create your own menus and save them as templates. While it is not DVD Studio Pro, you can still build some very nice custom menus. Just make sure that you click the advanced option on the menu creation screen.

After creating your main and chapter menus, you are ready to preview. Nero provides a preview screen where you can test things out. When you are satisfied with your menu, you will be ready to encode and burn your video. There are several options that you can set for encoding, and you can encode either MPEG2 or H264 (H264 is much more efficient). One note of caution. If you are using AVCHD to burn to a standard DVD, do not set the data rate higher than 1500kbps. While you can encode to a Blu-Ray disc at up to 4000kbps, you will get skipping if you go much over 1500 on a red laser DVD.

I found that even using the default encode settings that I got some very clean results which played pefectly in my PlayStation 3.

Before you create any Blu-Ray or AVCHD discs, you should read Phil Hinkle's article in EventDV on Blu-Ray authoring with Nero, and the Nero Vision 5 AVCHD Authoring Guide in Digital Digest.