VideoStudio 2020 - BluRay menu not working correctly

[Delta123]

Hi all,

I'm new to this board, because the Corel support itself was not too helpful.

I'm using Corel VideoStudio 2020 Ultimate incl. the BluRay-Authoring module on a Win10 (64bit) machine.
I made my first BD-project and I'm facing issues with menus.

My project consists of 3 clips (MPEG-4, 1920x1080, 16:9, 25.000 FPS) of various lengths (20 min/1 hr/6 min).
Creating the BD went through without any errors and I created a BD structure on Hard disc which I burned to disc using Ashampoo Burning Studio 2018.

Initially the resulting BD was a little too large for a BD-25 so I used a BD-50.
When watching this BD on my Sony BD-Player I faced the following issue:
- the Top menu (there is only the top menu) can be started and shows clip 1 highlighted and the first seconds in the preview
- when I start this highlighted clip 1 it only shows in the preview
- same happens when I scroll down in the top menu to clip 3 and start it
- only clip 2 is highlighted, shown in the preview and started correctly
- when I scoll down in the top menu to the Play All button it gets coorectly highlighted, but plays only clip 2

I also made a BD-25 after shrinking the folder (output to another folder) using BD-Rebuilder.
I burned again with Ashampoo Burning Studio 2018
When watching this BD on my Sony BD-Player I faced the following issue:
- the Top menu can be started and shows clip 1 highlighted and the first seconds in the preview
- when I start this highlighted clip 1 it only shows in the preview
- when I scroll down in the top menu to clip 2 the highlight button vanishes and no more action is possible

I downloaded DVDFab BD-Creator (Testversion) and added the same clips.
I also burned this BD with Ashampoo and played it in the same Sony BD player.
Here evrything worked fine.

But since VideoStudio is much more comfortable to use (and I bought the BD authoring module) I really want to use VideoStudio for creating my BDs.
Therefor any help is highly appreciated !

Best regards
Delta

[Davidk]

There seems to be a confusion of methods and software here. You don't need different software packages to create a BD structure on disc - creating the project+menu using a blu-ray media does that when you render it, or burn it.

So, from the beginning . . .
- open VS.
- leave the main edit workspace empty and choose share mode
- scroll down to the disc icon in the tool bar, select it
- choose the media you want to burn to - Blu-ray - and select it. The burn panel will appear. If you don't have a blu-ray plug-in installed, there will be no reaction and you cannot burn to one of these. An alternative is to use the AVCHD format, which is almost BD - you can use a standard DVD disk to burn, but cannot play it on anything but a BR player.

The next steps apply to any of the media selections
step 1
- using the top left-most icon (add video files), click on it, and a navigation panel opens - use it to locate the rendered video components you already have and want to include in this composition, select them and OK. Those video files appear as thumbnails in the clip strip, and the estimated disk use will in green on the running strip. If you go into yellow it may or may not all get onto one disk, and if it goes into red it certainly won't all fit onto one disk. In either of these case, review your contents and consider reducing the resolution or (better) delete one of more clips on this author and use them to create a multi-disk set.
- sort (click and drag) the thumbnails into the order you want them to be in - this directly influences the order they appear in in step 2 - menu creation.
- if you have an intro clip - eg a production house logo - make sure that it is the first clip in the strip, and tick the box for introductory video. What that does is play the intro clip once before showing the menu.
- ensure the create menu box is ticked.
- set your disk preferences with the cog-wheel icon at the bottom of the panel: particularly when a selection has completed playing whether you want the disc to play the next item or return to the menu. MPEG settings can also be changed using the button for that.
- when finished with step 1, click next

Step 2
This is where you choose a theme for the menu, modify the menu, add or change text, backgrounds and music, and do a preview.
- choose a menu theme from the options in the gallery tab
- choose alternative menu music and background photo/video using the edit tab
- select and edit the labels in the menu as shown in the preview window, including position, and (rt-click) font, size, colour
- use the preview button to review what you've done, go back and change anything you are not happy with
Happy? click next

Step 3.
This is where you actually create the burned disk - either directly or as a disk image in an iso format. Burn to an iso format is strongly recommended as it will save you many wasted disks useful only as drink coasters.
- click on the show more output chevrons
- deselect everything but create disc image
- make sure that your burn options (the disc 'i' icon) are correct: select the option which is the same or lower than the disc you want to burn to. Too high and the disk cannot keep up with the incoming data stream and you wind up with corrupted results.
- choose a location on the PC for the result, give it a file name and click burn.
- when it's done exit and save the result as an author composition vsp (all the burn panel details are in the vsp, but simply loading that to a timeline view won't show you anything: you will have to share and choose the disk options again to see the composition details in the burn panel).

When it's done, open the iso file in the VLC player (can play BR files) and play it. If you want to change anything (music, text - spelling errors - etc) then re-load the author composition project file and make the changes you want, then repeat step 3. If you are happy with the result then
- open VS, select tools/burn from iso file in the main menu, navigate to the iso file and burn it. Note the caution about burn speed above.
OR
- use another burn program to burn a disc from the iso image.

[lata]

Hi
In addition to David’s reply………….
Can you tell us how long the actual Mpeg4 video file are?

Afaik a Bluray disc has to use Motion Transport m2ts files, your Mpeg4 will be converted by the burner module (Convert Title)
We can convert from the main timelines, using m2t compliant video files will reduce the actual burner time as the process to convert again would not be required.
Your Mpeg4 show as HD at 1920 x 1080 these could be converted to m2t using Share – Avchd
The data rate in kbps will influence the size of the video, your 25Gb disc could / should hold 3 hours of movie.
You mentioned shrinking the folder, I am not sure what impact that will have on the menu structure especially if you have used chapters.
Allowing the burner to auto convert the files will use 35,000kbps and produce a large file, and the reason for you to shrink the files.
Creating / rendering the video files, you should render the project or Mpeg4 files to m2t by using the option Share – Avchd 1920 x 1080 x 25fps x 20,000kbps, give them a meaningful name as that will show on the disc menu. (one hour at 8Gb approx.)
The total size of those files should be less than 25Gb, you will now have 3 m2t files.

To burn a disc you should start a new project simply to clear the timelines, ideally the properties should match the m2t files properties
Share – Disc – Bluray will open the burner module – top left for add media – add your 3 m2t video files
Menu Structure
For each video you add to the burner module a thumbnail / link will show on the Main / Title menu
For each video we could add chapter points although I do not know how you wish the disc to play.
At the bottom of the panel is an options cogwheel for Project Settings, there you will see Navigation Controls – check those out.
Create a BluRay Folder – Which you are doing so that’s a good choice.
The actual video files will be saved to the BDMV-Stream folder as 00000.m2ts, etc we can add these to the main timelines to compare the properties with the originals, which should be the same as no further conversions were made.

As a test
I would create 3 short sample M2t files, say 5 minutes, then use those to test the burner process and the menu structure.

Some info on my web site
http://lata.me.uk/corel/all.htm

Video Studio also provides a MyDVD program that is used to burn discs, both DVD and BD, lots of menus available.
I have to say I have not used to burn a disc only as a test, but maybe worth a look, test with short sample files.

[Delta123]

Hi David and Trevor,

thanks a lot for your feedback !

@David: Sorry for being unprecise: "I created a BD structure on Hard disc" means, that in the "Share" panel of VideoStudio I did not select to output to disc directly, but to create a hard disc folder.

The rest of your very detailed description is as I proceeded - except creating the ISO-Image. This time I did so and the menus are working! Additionally the output was smaller, so that I was able to burn it to a BD25 disc.
The only thing I wonder about is, that it took more than three hours to write that ISO-image (two times long as the whole project is), but this may be corrected by Trevors tip.

@Trevor: The MP4 clips I inserted are of the following lengths
clip 1 - 20 min
clip 2 - 1 hr
clip 3 - 6 min

I will do the project again today by rendering the initial clips to m2t files before adding them and then create an ISO image in order to see if that's faster now.

I found the MyDVD and I have to admit I ddin't see that before. I'm using VS2020 only for about a week now, but I'm not sure if it was there with VS2019 as well. I will give it a try as well, because there are much more menu templates than in VS.

@Both: When I was creating the BD menu in VS I was not able to select the starting time for the preview - which is possible for DVD menus by double-clicking in the preview. Since my clips all start with some seconds in black followed bya a title I would like to start the preview after trhe title. But thze clip itself when selected should start from Time stamp 00:00.

Thanks again to both of you for your valuable tips !

Best regards
Delta

[lata]

Hi
One point regarding MyDVD, it does re-encode the video file prior to burning the disc, using a compliant video file m2t should not require this additional render. It changes the data rate and sets the frame rate to 24, that I think needs fixing by Corel,

Video Studio burner should be ok with the burning process starting with Create Menu, and not using Create Title.
So you may be best in using Video Studio, although a little limited in menu templates. How many templates do you have for Bluray
Although we can customise each template and save to our favourites

Start point for Menu thumbnail
Go back to the first page where you add video.
Play each video past the black feed in, right click thumbnail for “ Change Thumbnail”

[Davidk]

MyDVd has been a standard VS "add-on" for some years, so it was there with 2019.

[Delta123]

Hi David and Trevor

I finally got the time to produce an ISO from m2t files and - voila: The size of the disc was reduced by 50%.
So you both helped me a lot and I say a big THANK YOU to both of you !

Best regards
Michael