Quote: I “produced” a video that looked good in Preview (chapters, sound, menus, etc.), but when I burned it to BluRay, the disc was not playable as a movie. BluRay players identify it as a data disc, but with no accessible files.

The movie was created using a bunch of high-resolution .jpg images and a few very short film clips, and continuous series of .wma sound files. Most of the images were not originally 16:9, but I cropped each within PD to that aspect.

Originally did this project with PowerDirector 12 Ultimate 64 (and recently posted this problem in forum for older PD versions). Yesterday upgraded to PowerDirector 14 Ultimate 64 bit on Windows 10. Still have the same result: Disc unplayable on BD players. On PC can see disc has 2 folders: BDMV w/8 subfolders, including STREAM with 23 .m2ts files; 00000.m2ts is 9.9 GB & has full movie.

At Produce stage, I selected H.264 AVC, with profile of AVC 1920x1090/60i (24Mbps). I had tried other profiles with same result.At Create Disc stage, Menu Structure looked good AND Preview looked good. Selected: Movie format (BDMC-with menu), Widescreen (16:9), H264, Smart Fit, Dolby 2 channels, Enable True Theater, Living Room, Burn in 2D. Burned on 2 new empty BD-Rs from 2 brands (did not erase or set up other than disc name). In various attempts so far I've ruined 9 BD discs.

I have successfully stumbled through making BD videos in the past w/PowerDirector and other products, but this one stumps me and led me to join the Forum. HELP!

To make a Bluray Video Disk that plays in Bluray players:

Open your project.

1. Click on CREATE DISC on top of the Powerdirector user interface.


2. Click on 2D disk tab, Select Bluray disc.


3. Under Video and Audio settings.


4. Select the video encoding format and quality, H.264, HD 1920x1080/60i


5. Audio encoding and channels, You have a choice 2 channel sound, or 5.1 channel sound.


6. LPCM is WAV and 2 channel sound only (Plays on most players)


7. Dolby Digital, gives choice of 2 channel or 5.1 chanel sound. (2 channel sound plays on most players)


8. DTS 5.1 channel sounds only. (plays on some players, not all)


9. Click on the Menu Preferences tab at top, you can choose your menu or you can create a disc with no menu.


10. There are choices at the bottom of this page. read carefully.


11. If you choose a menu that is not already selected, be sure to click apply to all pages when asked.


12. When in the Menu Preferences you can click in the preview on "My Videos" and change your title. You must check each chapter page.


13. Click Burn in 2D. (Bottom Right) Takes you to Final Output Window


14. Several choices: Burn Disk, Save as Disc image (makes ISO file), Create a Folder (Writes to your hard disk). You can check one or more. Safest is Create a folder or Save as Disc image. (if you create a folder or disk image, you need external software to burn the actual disc.)


15. Should be done and have a playable disc.

Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

welcome back Mike.

Quote:

... In various attempts so far I've ruined 9 BD discs...

you have the same problems with PD12 & PD14!

well PD14 came with screenrecorder. record what you're doing and attach to your response

or a srceen shot. i use free FastStone Image Viewer.

so that we can see what is happening. picture is worth thousand words.

do not record the whole process, it'll be too huge of a file to upload.



this time shorten the movies to 1 hours or even 10 minutes and use a DvD,

then choose AVCHD for troubleshooting...

resulting DvD can be played in BD player and the PC. can not be played in DvD player.


if you're doing it everything right then it's your BD players!


PepsiMan

'garbage in garbage out' 'no bridge too far'

Yashica Electro 8 LD-6 Super 8mm
Asrock TaiChi X470, AMD R7 2700X, W7P 64, MSI GTX1060 6GB, Corsair 16GB/RAM
Dell XPS L702X i7-2860QM, W7P / W10P 64, Intel HD3000/nVidia GT 550M 1GB, Micron 16GB/RAM
Samsung Galaxy Note3/NX1

Will try to capture my actions when I get a chance. Movie is only 54 minutes with menus, but that is around 11GB. BD players used to test are 2 Samsungs and 1 Panasonic. I'm wondering if there is a problem with my burner or if there is some setting in my PD that needs changing or if some segments of the project are at lower resolution than most. On the other hand, everything seems perfect in Preview and in playing the largest .m2ts file on my computer. Looking at Carl's directions I already seem to be doing just what he says. Mike
Always a learner

do not throw away the 9 BD discs yet. it might be perfectly useful.

do you have a software on your PC that can play BD? i have MPC-HC & VLC player.

if you can play the BD you've just burned on your PC then it's your standalone BD players.

now we have to work it to play in every player you've got!



PepsiMan

'garbage in garbage out' 'no bridge too far'

Yashica Electro 8 LD-6 Super 8mm
Asrock TaiChi X470, AMD R7 2700X, W7P 64, MSI GTX1060 6GB, Corsair 16GB/RAM
Dell XPS L702X i7-2860QM, W7P / W10P 64, Intel HD3000/nVidia GT 550M 1GB, Micron 16GB/RAM
Samsung Galaxy Note3/NX1

Quote: (16:9), H264, Smart Fit, Dolby 2 channels, Enable True Theater, Living Room, Burn in 2D. Burned on 2 new empty BD-Rs from 2 brands (did not erase or set up other than disc name). In various attempts so far I've ruined 9 BD discs.

Be very carefull you understand what "Smart Fit" is doing. For current PD14, for BD's, if you are under the 25GB disc capacity, it will encode your timeline at 59.94fps for NTSC region, ~28Mbps in progressive format on BD. This format is not compatible with a lot of BD players. You can verify by doing a MediaInfo of the file on the BD located at \BDMV\STREAM\00000.m2ts.

Rather than "Smart Fit" I'd try a more common 1920x1080/60i or 1920x1080/60i (24Mbps) as those will create a typical interlaced 29.97fps format for NTSC regions which is more compatible with many standalone players and see if you fair any better.

Jeff

I redid the Produce stage and in the Create Disc stage did:
Movie format (BDMC-with menu), Widescreen (16:9), H264,1920x1080/60i (24Mbps), Dolby 2 channels, Enable True Theater, Living Room, Burn in 2D. Same problem with unplayable BD. Possible clues:
1) Placing the BD in BD drive not used to burn it, I can see the BDMV and Certificate folders, plus "Files ready to be Written to the Disc: desktop.ini."
2) IN BDMV/STREAM I see 23 .m2ts files, starting with 0000, which has all the movie content in 4.5GB.
3) **THE OTHER .m2ts files** include duplicates and duds. 0015 is the opening menu; 0001-0007 are the same file with menu choices for the first 6 chapters plus 0017 is the same with music; 0008-0012 duplicate the second set of 6 and 0019 is the same with music; 0013,14,21 duplicate menu choices for the final 2 chapters, of which 21 has music; 0016,18,20, & 22 are <100k/ea and are black. So the only "good" .m2ts files seem to be 00, 15, 17, 19, & 21---- 5 of the 23. Mike
Always a learner

Quote: I redid the Produce stage and in the Create Disc stage did:
Movie format (BDMC-with menu), Widescreen (16:9), H264,1920x1080/60i (24Mbps), Dolby 2 channels, Enable True Theater, Living Room, Burn in 2D. Same problem with unplayable BD. Possible clues:
1) Placing the BD in BD drive not used to burn it, I can see the BDMV and Certificate folders, plus "Files ready to be Written to the Disc: desktop.ini."
2) IN BDMV/STREAM I see 23 .m2ts files, starting with 0000, which has all the movie content in 4.5GB.
3) **THE OTHER .m2ts files** include duplicates and duds. 0015 is the opening menu; 0001-0007 are the same file with menu choices for the first 6 chapters plus 0017 is the same with music; 0008-0012 duplicate the second set of 6 and 0019 is the same with music; 0013,14,21 duplicate menu choices for the final 2 chapters, of which 21 has music; 0016,18,20, & 22 are <100k/ea and are black. So the only "good" .m2ts files seem to be 00, 15, 17, 19, & 21---- 5 of the 23.

For reference, you do not need the "Produce stage", as you have done it here, it offers nothing extra for the "Create Disc" stage in this instance.

From your description, I think the basic structure of the disc sounds correct:
Your Item 1 sounds correct
Your Item 2 sounds correct, would have been nice to see exact properties of the 4.5 GB files with MediaInfo but I'll assume good
Your Item 3 sounds correct, they are not really duds, but the structure you describe sounds correct.

I'm beginning to suspect your standalone player compatiblity with PD when you say the disc is unplayable. Any chance of taking the disc to a friends BD player or a box store that has models connected on display and give it a try? Keep in mind, it won't playback with menu and such on your computer unless you have a true BD player, a CL product player, VLC or any other free/paid players.

Another debug option you could try is the MPEG2 format instead of H.264, for now just use the 1920x1080/60i and try again. No need to go through a "Produce" stage. See if this is functional in your standalone BD player.

Another debug option would be to use H.264, 1920x1080/60i (24Mbps) but select the no menu option just to see if you can play this in the standalone BD player.

Jeff

It seems unlikely the stand-alone BD player is faulty. I have a collection of players and could not play the created BD disc on two different Samsung BD models or on a Panasonic one, and all 3 work with commercial BD's.

I just tested the BD disc on my computer, using Cyberlink PowerDVD 14, and it was fully functional with menus and everything--but that is a Cyberlink product playing on a Cyberlink product, not on a stand-alone player.

Creating a disc with the no menu option worked. The BD disc played in a stand-alone Samsung player, and I could jump to a next chapter, but there obviously were no menus. I haven't tried it on the Panasonic player.

Aren't the clues pointing to a menu problem, whether or not there are extra .m2ts menu files?

Mike
Always a learner

Quote: It seems unlikely the stand-alone BD player is faulty. I have a collection of players and could not play the created BD disc on two different Samsung BD models or on a Panasonic one, and all 3 work with commercial BD's.

I just tested the BD disc on my computer, using Cyberlink PowerDVD 14, and it was fully functional with menus and everything--but that is a Cyberlink product playing on a Cyberlink product, not on a stand-alone player.

Creating a disc with the no menu option worked. The BD disc played in a stand-alone Samsung player, and I could jump to a next chapter, but there obviously were no menus. I haven't tried it on the Panasonic player.

Aren't the clues pointing to a menu problem, whether or not there are extra .m2ts menu files?

In my view, PD creates a somewhat unique menu that causes some players significant issues. I did not say your player was bad, just maybe not compatible with what PD is doing. One thing PD14 does is create the main video, the 00000.m2ts as say 29.97fps for NTSC areas. The "Chapter" videos, like 00001.m2ts, 00003.m2ts, 00005.m2ts so on are 23.976 fps. I've seen this fps mismatch causes issues on some players. It also changes the bitrate between main video and chapter video, this may cause the issue. Using HA encoding or CPU encoding also changes these video details of what's put on the disc which can cause playback issues. Often somewhat a trial and error to find something that works for you and your players.

When one created the no-menu BD you end up with just a main movie at 29.97 fps of one scan type. So if the issues of differing fps is a compatibility issue, it avoids this. So yes, I suspect something with the menu, could be the menu itself or just how PD is writing the menu and your players compatibility with it. One can easily try a different menu. I keep a 25GB and 50GB rewriteable discs, well worth the investment to debug. With these differing issues, some players handle better if MPEG2 vs H.264.

Attached is a table I run for every version of PD on my system, you can see some of the anomalies I mentioned above. I don't know of a one answer fits all approach. During debugging turning off any HA in PD pref and not using hardware encoding on the "Create Disc" tab usually more robust.

Jeff

It is interesting that you stated that you had no problem previously producing a good BD in the past using PD12 on your other post. Something changed. In the Create disc/Burn in 2D/Final output/Configure button you are allowed to set a lower burn speed to create a more compatible BD. Your problem can be greater than this. See this link where another user solved his problem: http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/46591.page .

Let us know if lowering the burn speed or enable hardware encoding help in solving this problem.