""create disc image" grayed out in VS PRO X4

[snoopcat]

I have a Sony HD Handycam that makes great HD movies. I do not make DVD's but rather put all my videos on a Western Digital media player which offers a very convenient way to both store & view them. After I select "share/create disc" & follow the menu creation instructions the final screen does not allow me to select the option to create an iso file. I can see the title of the file & the iso extension on the line but it is grayed out. I am running windows 7, 64 bit, 5GB ram. Any ideas.

Confused in new york.

[Ken Berry]

No -- unfortunately you can only make ISOs of SD videos. But you do have the option of making a Blu-Ray Folder (which is labelled BDMV and contains a number of sub-folders, including STREAM which in turn contains all the video labelled sequentially up from 00000.mts). You should be able to play that from the Western Digital.

[snoopcat]

I hear your comment but last night I suddenly found the option available so I selected it & created an .iso file. Unfortunately, I was not able to mount it on my virtual clone drive so I figured something was wrong. I guess that answers my question. I haven't tried to play it on the WD player but I doubt it will work.

[canuck]

I hear your comment but last night I suddenly found the option available so I selected it & created an .iso file. Unfortunately, I was not able to mount it on my virtual clone drive so I figured something was wrong. I guess that answers my question. I haven't tried to play it on the WD player but I doubt it will work.

Where or how did you find the "option available"?

[Ken Berry]

Naturally enough, I too would be most interested to know how you did it.

[snoopcat]

I remember that the 1st time I tried it (when the .iso choice was grayed out) I had not properly set up the menus, because I had not figured it out yet. The second time I had set them up properly. I'm going back again to try to duplicate it. I searched the WD forum for their takes on this issue & this is 1 of the replies I found:
Blu ray ISOs play back fine from the Hub's internal hard drive and from locally connected USB drives. Not so from the My Book Live or another Hub used as a media server - the folder is there, but the Hub reports no content. I am trying MakeMKV now to see how that works, but others have reported that MKV's wont stream if the audio track is Dolby HD.

Obviously it didn't work for me.

BTW: I used create disc/blue ray/save to folders (not to dvd) as you recommended but I haven't tried it yet in the media player. I'm not sure how to copy it in because I would have to copy the folder not just 1 file. It's the menus that I want to record.

[Ken Berry]

The menus are converted to video as part of the burning process, including 'burning' to a folder. So the menus will be there in the STREAM sub-folder, probably as video 00000.mts

EDIT: I have tried it again in both X4 and X5, both with and without menus, but still don't get an option for an ISO -- and never have.

[canuck]

I have also tried (with and without menu) to get a BlueRay iso file without success. So I am curious to know how snoopcat supposedly did it.

[canuck]

BTW: I used create disc/blue ray/save to folders (not to dvd) as you recommended but I haven't tried it yet in the media player. I'm not sure how to copy it in because I would have to copy the folder not just 1 file. It's the menus that I want to record.

I don't understand what you mean by this.

[erdna]

From a BDMV folder one can create an iso file using ImgBurn (free program). The iso file can be played back (mounted) on a PC virtual HD drive, but HD iso file playback with full menu selection doesn't work on mmplayers. Only one file (the main movie) will play.
Newer Realtec 1185 based mmplayers seem to play with a simplified menu.

[Ken Berry]

Thanks for that Erdna -- I know other programs can make a Blu-Ray ISO file. But the point here is that we don't think successive versions of VS can do so, which is why we are hoping snoopcat will be able to inform us how he claims to have done it using VS X4...

[erdna]

Indeed Ken, a BD iso is impossible in VS. An SD iso is no problem. I suppose this is because BD uses a Java script for the menu structure, and that's also the reason I think why mmplayers have difficulties with BD(AVCHD) iso's containing menus. I mainly wanted to inform mmplayer enthousiasts (like me) that not being able to make BD iso's within VS is not the only thing, the more important thing for mmplayer users is that BD iso's with menus are is not (fully) useable with the todays mmplayers.

[snoopcat]

I tried to duplicate it but without success. I think I just blundered down the wrong path.The .iso file i generated did no even appear as a choice when i tried to load it into my virtual disc drive so i was not able able to view it. I would say I'm as confused as everyone else. More to the point (for me) is the inability of media players to include the menus even if i can convert them to .iso. That's very disappointing. I just cobbled to together 3 separate hd home videos to make a 50 min video. It would have been nice to make them separately selectable at the beginning. It's difficult to fast foreword on my WDTV hub
Thanks to everyone for contributing.
snoopcat