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Safest way of burning blu-ray discs for stand-alone playback?

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RahulMIB

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Hey everybody,

Thanks a lot for reading my first post, and double thanks in advance for any help!:bowdown:

I have AnyDVD HD 6.1.6.5, Windows Vista and the Sony BWU 100A blu ray burner. I have gone through many posts trying to identify the best possible method (or the one with the lowest failure rate) of burning the Any DVD HD backups of original blu ray movies to BD-R/RE for playback on stand-alone players like Sony, Samsung, Pansonic, etc. (I most probably won't playback on a PS3 though)

My biggest confusion is - which folders do I include in the burn? There is a BDMV and a CERTIFICATES folder and no AACS folder in the backup. I have read that sometimes the BDMV alone is sufficient but in other cases the certificates folder is needed. Has there been a case where even the AACS folder is needed?

I understand that Nero burns blu ray discs as data discs, so we have to be absolutely spot on with our folder structure and all to ensure proper playback, including telling it specifically to burn in UDF 2.5 and maybe select the 'DISC AT ONCE' option or something similar. I still haven't gone about burning and testing a movie yet, still waiting on the BD-RE disc I ordered. Just wanted to confirm if there is anything else at all I need to set up in Nero 7.10.1.0?

Finally, I have heard of programs like Adobe Encore CS3 and DVDit HD PRO which are blu-ray video authoring programs. I read that DVDit can't handle m2ts files so it will be a bigger hassle to operate with. If I use Adobe Encore CS3, will the program be able to simply take the BDMV folder and figure out the rest and burn a fully compliant blu ray disc ready for playback, or am I expecting too much from Encore?

Thanks again guys for any help at all. Cheers...
 
Once you have ripped it to your hard drive use Nero to burn, just make sure you set UDF to 2.5 or above and tell it to close the disc, and to be on the safe side copy the BDMV folder and the Certificate folder onto the BD-RE. The AACS folder will never be needed as you've removed the need for it.
DVDitPro HD only writes out mpeg2 files in the BDMV format and doesn't support importing a bdmv folder or m2ts files
Encore also will not allow you to import the BDMV folder.
These programs are designed for making your own discs from your own footage, and only support standard DVD type menu's and up to AC3 5.1 audio nothing above that. If you want to be able to do your own popup menu's you'll need to learn Scenarist 4.3 (as 4.2 discs won't play on a PS3)
 
Thanks a lot Adbear, really appreciate it, I had been running all over the place for this info, but always found it disjointed and scattered, never in one piece:doh:

I initially used DVD Fab Decrypter HD to rip a few discs, and that only produced the BDMV folder, but when I tried AnyDVD HD, it gave a certificate folder as well, which started this doubt in my mind for which folder is needed.

Guess I will have to redo the DVD Fab discs, but thanks again for clearing it all up!

Cheers...
 
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RahulMIB said:
but when I tried AnyDVD HD, it gave a certificate folder as well, which started this doubt in my mind for which folder is needed.
Click to expand...

The certificate folder is only required, if the JAR applications on the disc are digitally signed.
I don't know of any discs other than "Pirates of the Caribbean" that presently use signed JAR files.

Note: while the BD specs actually allow completely unencrypted BDMV discs, they still require these to be "AACS-compliant" by using MKBs, CPS Unit key file, content hash table and the like... even though most of that stuff will not even be touched in this case.

This means, that even an unencrypted copy of an encrypted disc would really require an AACS folder - which is stupid but this guarantees, that the AACS LA can even charge license fees from studios, that don't want to encrypt their discs. (don't I hear the distant yelling of some specific person in this forum, constantly telling us NOT TO BUY BLU-RAY, but to stick with HD-DVD? ;) ).

Anyway, you can't copy the AACS folder along though, because of the content hash table, which would need to be altered after decryption of the content.

So what I'm getting at is: the copied discs don't really meet the full specs of a BDMV disc, so you can't be sure, every player is going to play them. PowerDVD does and so does the PS3.

Hope that clears it up a bit? :)
 
Adbear said:
DVDitPro HD only writes out mpeg2 files in the BDMV format and doesn't support importing a bdmv folder or m2ts files.
Encore also will not allow you to import the BDMV folder.
Click to expand...

Don't know about Encore, but DVDitPro HD has a tool which allows you to burn existing BDMV folder to disc. The folder doesn't have to be created by the program itself and can be one ripped by AnyDVD HD. But as far as I remember the tool limits you to burning 25GB discs only.
 
Encore only lets you burn your project or an image file, but not a folder
 
peer said:
So what I'm getting at is: the copied discs don't really meet the full specs of a BDMV disc, so you can't be sure, every player is going to play them. PowerDVD does and so does the PS3.

Hope that clears it up a bit? :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for that peer, I suspected something very vaguely similar in my non-technical head, but could never think it through! So the only way is to go out to the stores and test on each player before I fork out the cash, damn the PS3 seems so much more attractive now, now that you mentioned it plays copied discs without a hitch.

SuperGoof said:
If you use Vista, you don't need expensive software or even Nero to burn Blu-ray backups. Vista can do it out of the box.
Click to expand...

Hey SuperGoof, yeah, I had come across that during my readings,thanks for the link, was pretty amazed at Vista's capability. The only reason I would use Nero instead is that my PC specs are not upto scratch and it needs all the help it can get to burn a blu-ray disc;), so Nero's buffer protection and other 'stabilizing' features might come in handy, but yeah, don't see any reason not to try the direct Vista method on a faster PC.
 
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peer said:
... even an unencrypted copy of an encrypted disc would really require an AACS folder - which is stupid but this guarantees, that the AACS LA can even charge license fees from studios, that don't want to encrypt their discs.
Click to expand...

This probably only applies to BD-ROM.

You should always be able to author your own BDMV disc (there are already programs for this), burn it into BD-R/RE, and then watch on standalone players. What is the difference between such discs and those backed up with the help of AnyDVD? Probably no difference. And applying for AACS licence for each such disc is not practical.

That's why they are now pushing "HD Watermarking", which is additional information embedded inside video/audio streams. Players should be able to read this information and decide whether it is legitimate to play the stream from unencrypted disc. While I do not think this technology can prevent copying per se (because on a PC one can always use a software player which ignores this stuff), it may work well to prevent playback of such discs on standalones.
 
So far I've used BD-re's to watch back around 40-50 back ups of my blu-ray films ripped using anydvd HD, and have even done dual layer ones as well and so far every one has worked
 
Adbear said:
So far I've used BD-re's to watch back around 40-50 back ups of my blu-ray films ripped using anydvd HD, and have even done dual layer ones as well and so far every one has worked
Click to expand...

I had read that dual layer backups would cause problems with the layer change on standalones. That is, at the layer change it would stop playing.

Do you have any playback issues on these dual layer 50GB backups when the layer change occurs? That is, have you watched a full 50gb dual layer backup on your standalone with no problems?

Can you also tell us what brand and model standalone you are using and if it has the latest firmware. Also details/steps of process you used to burn them (Nero BD Video, Nero BD Data, etc).

If anyone else has had success with dual layer Blu-ray backups on standalones, then please comment here also with your brand/model and maybe process you used to burn (i.e. Nero. ImgBurn and type of disc, data or video).

It seems that I have only heard of being able to burn the BDMV structure as a blu-ray data disc in Nero as UDF 2.5 and it works in some standalones. But last I heard is that no software out there allows you to burn a true BDMV disc. Has this changed? I thought I maybe heard that Roxio DVD-It HD might support doing a BDMV Disc.

Also, it seems Slysoft mods in this forum post often and recently that playback of Blu-ray backups to standalones will not work. Why is that if people claim to have it working? Is it because not all standlalone players support this? Slysoft mods?
 
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jfcarbel said:
I had read that dual layer backups would cause problems with the layer change on standalones. That is, at the layer change it would stop playing.

Do you have any playback issues on these dual layer 50GB backups when the layer change occurs? That is, have you watched a full 50gb dual layer backup on your standalone with no problems?

Can you also tell us what brand and model standalone you are using and if it has the latest firmware. Also details/steps of process you used to burn them (Nero BD Video, Nero BD Data, etc).

If anyone else has had success with dual layer Blu-ray backups on standalones, then please comment here also with your brand/model and maybe process you used to burn (i.e. Nero. ImgBurn and type of disc, data or video).

It seems that I have only heard of being able to burn the BDMV structure as a blu-ray data disc in Nero as UDF 2.5 and it works in some standalones. But last I heard is that no software out there allows you to burn a true BDMV disc. Has this changed? I thought I maybe heard that Roxio DVD-It HD might support doing a BDMV Disc.

Also, it seems Slysoft mods in this forum post often and recently that playback of Blu-ray backups to standalones will not work. Why is that if people claim to have it working? Is it because not all standlalone players support this? Slysoft mods?
Click to expand...
If you really want a 1:1 copy, avoid going through the UDF2.5 file system. Make a sector copy instead, preserving the layer break. This will preserve the interleaved file allocations as well. Good luck, you'll need it. ;)
 
Like I said, I've had no problems with any of the films I've done, They don't seem to record onto the disc the same way DVD's do as when you have a film larger than 25GB it's all 1 file. So if I have a disc thats around 40GB the main movie file tends to be about 35GB. I've always just burnt the rips back from HD folders and never had a problem with layerbreaks as they don't tend to apply to Blu-ray discs.
All you do is just go into Nero and tell it you want to make a Blu-ray data disc (it only has 2 options, Copy disc or Data disc) Set the UDF to 2.5 or above and burn the disc. I've done this ove 100 times now and never had any playback issues at all. I think whereever you got the information from it must be wrong as I've never come across anyone that has a problem with them.
Adobe Encore CS3 and DVDitPro HD will both allow you to author you're own discs using your own footage and create a BDMV file structure. They both only allow you to use a DVD style menu structure though. DVDitPro HD only supports Mpeg2, whereas Encore supports Mpeg2 and H264. We've found that many of out customers have had lots of problems with DVDitPro HD, either with having to get a new version due to conflicts, it gets to the end of the disc and fails for no reason, or weird memory errors, so we recommend now that people use Encore CS3 as it seems much more stable
 
Adbear said:
Like I said, I've had no problems with any of the films I've done, They don't seem to record onto the disc the same way DVD's do as when you have a film larger than 25GB it's all 1 file. So if I have a disc thats around 40GB the main movie file tends to be about 35GB. I've always just burnt the rips back from HD folders and never had a problem with layerbreaks as they don't tend to apply to Blu-ray discs.
Click to expand...
Oh hell, they do. Newest AnyDVD versions display the sector allocations in the dirlist.txt file. You might want to take a look.
 
James said:
Oh hell, they do. Newest AnyDVD versions display the sector allocations in the dirlist.txt file. You might want to take a look.
Click to expand...

P.S.: HD DVD doesn't have this problem. Sorry, couldn't resist... :D
 
well I've never had any problems with the playback from dual layer BD-re's, no strange pauses for layer break or anything like that, and HD DVD get round it by splitting the film files to be smaller than the layer is
 
Adbear said:
well I've never had any problems with the playback from dual layer BD-re's, no strange pauses for layer break or anything like that, and HD DVD get round it by splitting the film files to be smaller than the layer is
Click to expand...

1.) you're probably lucky or have a PS3 with lots of horsepower to overcome this problem.

2.) HD DVD doesn't use the interleaving on the UDF level, so you can burn files on optical media and you'll get what you expect. With Blu-ray you don't, cause you *will* loose the allocation if you save the data as *files*. If you burn *files* back to optical media, the sector layout will be lost.
 
I've tried dual layer on a few settop players and PS3's and it never has a problem on any of them, no matter what the make, and I know a lot of other people who do the same with absolutley no problems. I know you don't like Blu-ray, and I have no preference either way, but going by my own and others experience there appears to be no problems with burning back to disc across the layer break and playing back.
 
I can't say that I do back up a Blu ray every day. I buy HDDVD if the movies are availible on HDDVD. So for now I have 3 Blu ray movies. I followed the instructions Adbear gave how to back them up(rip to harddrive, and burn the certificate folder and the BDMV folder with UDF 2.5 to a BD DL (close the disc afterwards)and also had no problems(all three are BD 50GB). I tested the backups on my friend's LG BH100 and on my son's PS3.
 
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