Need Best formatting for 50gb blu ray VS x6

[OldTimeVideoGuy]

I'm hoping someone can help me out here. I had some home videos from the 60's scanned and they are now in .mov files. Huge files, like 70Gb+ for 1hr20 min worth of video, archival quality cost a fortune. I'm trying to get the best video onto a blu ray disk. I have 50Gb (dual layer) blu ray disks. I'm using Video Studio x6 and need some help with encoding options.

So far I'll go to the 'make blu ray disk' option, create my menu, etc. But, when I see the options for encoding this is where I need help.

I see that my default option within the 'MPEG properties for file conversion' are as follows:
"MPEG files
24 bits, 1920x1080 29.97fps
Upper Field First
(HDMV-NTSC), 16:9
Video data rate: Variable (Max 35000kbps)
Audio data rate: 384kbps
Dolby Digital Audio, 48khz, 2/0 (LR)"
The settings above provide a Blu Ray disk total size around 25Gb

However, if I select the button "Change MPEG Settings" to Blu Ray H.264 I get the following:
MPEG files
24 bits, 1920x1080 29.97fps
Upper Field First
(HDMV-NTSC), 16:9
H.264 Video
Video data rate: Variable (Max 20000kbps)
Audio data rate: 384kbps
Dolby Digital Audio, 48khz, 2/0 (LR)"
The above setting provides a Blu Ray Disk file size of around 14Gb.

I'm a bit confused because I thought that the H.264 would provide a larger file size with better quality? When it's cutting the file size down nearly 50% and I truly don't know what it's doing to the quality.
Basically I'm looking for the highest quality possible since I'm putting these on archival blu ray disks and want this project 'done once done right'.

I can then go into customize and do a higher quality setting within these two options too?

Thanks for any help.

[lata]

Hi OldTimeVideoGuy

Don’t worry about the file size, to put in perspective the older DV-Avi uncompressed is 64 Gb per hour, compressed to type 1 at 13Gb per hour.

Your best option is to convert the Mov to m2ts which is Bluray compatible.
Similar to the settings you show, either of them is Bluray compatible.

Usually the higher 35000kbps would produce the better quality with less footage per disc.

Once you convert the video to m2ts ( Share – Bluray) ( Share – Avchd) you can use that video to burn a Bluray disc.
The burner settings (do not convert compliant video) are irrelevant as you are using a compliant video that will not be converted when burning the disc.

How
Start a new project, that empties the timeline
Now Share Disc – Bluray – add your m2ts video
You can add more than one video to the capacity of the disc.
Each file you add creates a Title on the main menu.

Before we go further can you provide the properties of the Mov files, as that may influence the settings to convert to m2ts.
Of course you would play the m2ts to check quality before committing to disc.

[Ken Berry]

Welcome to the forum!

First off, it might be useful if we had the properties of the .mov files. By the sounds of it, to have 1 hr 20 min of video taking up 70 GB of space, it sounds to me as if the video is uncompressed -- though why they wrapped it in the .mov format instead of .avi is another matter.

But if you can insert that video into Video Studio, can you right click on it and copy ALL its Properties here please, or else take a screen shot of the Properties box and upload it here as an Attachment.

I thought that the H.264 would provide a larger file size with better quality? When it's cutting the file size down nearly 50% and I truly don't know what it's doing to the quality.

When making a Blu-Ray, you essentially have to convert your .mov files (or any other format) to one of the two formats for which you have already provided properties. A Blu-Ray video disc needs either high definition mpeg-2 or mpeg-4 using the H.264 AVCHD codec. In fact the latter is a much more heavily compressed format than mpeg-2, and that explains why the resulting file will be smaller. But the final quality of each format using those properties should be just about equal.

You could increase the bitrate of the AVCHD to something higher e.g. 28,000 or even 30,000 kbps. This would give you marginally better quality though the resulting file will be much bigger -- though not as big as the mpeg-2 file. However, given that the material on the video is 1960s quality, it is unlikely that your eyes would notice much, if any, improvement over the suggested 20,000 kbps.

So the bottom line is that it is really up to you. Choosing either format should give you equal quality. With the mpeg-2 option, you will come very close to -- and if you include a menu, exceed -- the limit of a single layer Blu-Ray disc which is 25 GB. You would likely therefore need one of your dual layer discs. But if you choose the AVCHD option, you would get the same quality but it would easily fit on a single layer BD disc.

EDIT: I see lata (Trevor) was writing a reply at the same time as me. It appears, however, that our responses do not thankfully clash!

[lata]

Hi

Just to add that using X6 to edit HD video may cause some issues as the project properties are limited to using standard definition at 720 x 480/576
Generally we recommend setting the project to use the same/similar settings as your video, you cannot do that using X6
We can however convert / render the project to Bluray settings but with a data rate limit of 20Mbps using H.264, Mpeg2 can use a higher rate.
The later versions of video studio have improved HD editing, I would recommend you consider upgrading your program,( your choice) look out for deals on those popups when you close X6.

[asik1]

These probably 8mm film wet scan so they can be above SD resolution. But as high as 70GB per 80minutes is ridicules wasteful. maybe gut to give you more 00 for your $$.