Burning a Blu-ray DVD on your S-4000/PRO

[chetdavis]

Here is a step by step process for taking a High Definition project edited on the new Casablanca S-4000 /S-4000 PRO and burning it onto a Blu-ray DVD. To accomplish this, you will need to have the Blu-ray DVD drive installed on your S-4000 ot S-4000 PRO unit.


1. Complete editing of your HD project on the S-4000/PRO
2. In Project Settings menu:
2A Select 'HDV' as the mode (bottom right of window)
2B. Click on 'Backup Storyboard' (bottom of window)
2C. Select 'CD/DVD/BD' for destination
2D. Click 'OK'
2E. Click in the Text Field and name your Storyboard and again click 'OK'
2F. The system will ask you to insert a blank DVD (or BluRay burnable disc -BD-R). Allow the disc some time to spin up, then click 'Ok'

NOTE: With the above process a MPEG2 HD file will be created and saved to DVD. This would be used to play back the footage in devices like the Playstation3 or Windows Media Player 11.
The S4000 writes the HD content as a data-disc. No authoring with menus are possible for Blu-rays at this time. This means playback of these discs in Blu-Ray standalone decks may not be currently possible. However, this is a Blu-ray issue, so we expect future firmware updates from respective manufacturers. For now, we recommend using devices like the Playstation 3 to play back the HDV burned Blu-Ray discs. Macrosystem DE is working on a Blu-ray authoring program to enable more elaborate Blu-ray DVD menus.

[erictom]

Chet,

Thank you for the concise list of steps on burning Blu-ray on the S4K-Pro. I do have the optional Blu-ray drive installed and cannot wait to try it. I also have a PS3 and will confirm the "successful" burn there.

I have a finished HDV rendered project (wedding) that's 55 minutes in length. Its probably not a bad idea to create another HDV project under 20 minutes (for storage limitations) and burn it on a regular DVD (or a re-writable BD disc) so as not to waste an expensive BD disc in case an unexpected glitch occurs.

Have you tried burning Blu-ray with success yet?

Again, thanks for shedding some light on this.

[chetdavis]

You are welcome Eric! This info was presented in our Release Notes but not in the same fashion and maybe not as read-able as there is a whole lot of info in there.

As to the personal success, I have not experienced this myself but have direct contact with three different persons (whose opinions and experience I trust implicitly) who reviewed these steps and verified the accuracy. If truth be told - my S4000 PRO demo model in my home office does not yet have a Blu-ray drive, just the SD drive... (guess that tells you how I rate )

Regards,
Chet

[Alan]

Hi,
I have the S4000 pro with the the normal DVD burner and have made several HD discs on normal DVD's. They play superbly on the Play station 3. There is a problem though, if my film is more than 11 min. long it is split into separate files and will not play all the way through. Maybe it will play through if it is a BD disc? What have others found? I've had my S4000 for several months (PAL in England). Its reliable in that I have never lost a project but the software seems to be beta to me.

Cheers Alan