copying Blu-Ray videos

[Roy1]

Can anyone recommend a programme to copy Blu-ray discs. I have good programmes to copy DVD's but can't find one to copy Blu-ray that doesn't cost the earth.

[Michael Slowe]

Titanium Toast Pro 11 will do almost anything in the copying and burning line. Be sure though that you have the BD plug in.

[tom hardwick]

If your editing PC has a Blu-ray burner fitted, you've probably also got a version of Nero that will copy the disc easily.

[Roy1]

Tom. Nero is not on my PC

[col lamb]

Imgburn is free and with it you can write an image file from a DVD or Blu-ray and also create a DVD or Blu-ray from an image file

So whilst not as straightforward as Neo or Toast fand as it costs nothing you cannot beat it

There again this is for region free DVDs or Bly-rays, to backup your commercial Blu-ray discs take a look at Pavtube

[Roy1]

Colin. I've tried to get on with IMGBURN but it's got me beat. In fact I've having so much hassle in trying to burn HD using Vegas and DVD architect I'm on the point of ditching HD. Everything was great until I installed Windows 7 pro, since then everything has gone haywire. Everything I could do when on XP I now can't.

[Michael Slowe]

Roy, I assumed in my first reply that you have a BD burner, either free standing or built in to your kit. You obviously need a BD burner to make Blu-Ray discs from your HD material. All I do is make sure my burner is connected to my computer (MacPro), open Toast Pro 11 and drag the HD (ProRes 422 HQ) file into Toast and it will encode and burn a BD.

[Roy1]

Michael. It's a long story. I have a Blu-ray internal re-writer and have burnt many of my own produced HD videos. These were all produced using Windows XP. After installing Windows 7 something has gone wrong I don't know if its the rewriter or the DVD architect.
However the re-writer will now only recognise one brand of BD-R disc and no longer can I burn short HD videos onto a Standard DVD disc. Further more when I have burnt the first HD disc the programme won't burn a second copy. So at the moment if I require copies I have to do them individually which takes about 2 hours each. So until I get everything working again I need a programme to copy the first burnt BD-R disc. I think my problem could be lack of memory seeing as I am using XOP mode on Windows 7. Or the re-writer is not compatible with Windows 7, this I am beginning to think is the problem. Thanks for your interest.

[Dave Watterson]

Deep breath time!

first: visit the Sony site and check if there are any software updates or new drivers for DVD Architect which may help it work better with Windows 7.

second visit the website of the company which made your DVD burner and make a similar check.

This may help because quite often manufacturers and software writers provide updates to solve just the sort of problems you describe. If this approach works you should be able to work exactly as you did before.

If that does not work, then try asking DVD Architect to make an ISO (disc image) instead of burning. An ISO file saves on your hard disc all the information needed to burn a CD / DVD or Blu-Ray disc. You should then be able to burn copies quickly without all the rendering etc

Windows 7 has an ISO burner built-in.
There is a simple guide here:
http://www.win7articles.com/burn-iso-im ... ows-7.html

and here is Microsoft's own note, which makes clear it can do blu-ray too:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/wind ... n-ISO-file

Not having updated to HD/Blu-Ray I cannot test this out myself, but it should work.

Dave

[TimStannard]

first: visit the Sony site and check if there are any software updates or new drivers for DVD Architect which may help it work better with Windows 7.

It is always worth checking the website for updates - but not neessarily always worth upgrading to the latest as Sony seem to have started down the slippery slope of releasing versions of software that are a bit buggy in order to get to the market ASAP. Many people have reverted back to Vegas 10 until Vegas 11 has settled down.

However, it has to be said that no-one seems to be reporting any issues with burning Blu-Ray (and believe me, any real issues find their way onto the official forums pretty quickly!). I don't burn Blu-Ray myself, but one of our members who works Vegas pretty hard and has had several issues with GPU accelleration and is not averse to complaining, has never had any problems burning DVDs in DVD Archictect 5.0 or 5.2.

Vegas Pro 10 and 11 both have the facility to burn a BD from within Vegas so you don't even need DVDA (Obviously you miss all the menu stufff, but the purpose here is to narrow down where the problem lies). It's under Tools | Burn Disc | BluRay Disc. Give that a try. If it also fails we've eliminated DVD Architerct from being the culprit.

Roy, of course if you're using Vegas Movie Studio and DVD Architect Studio, these are cut down versions of the programs and so the above may not be available.

Quite honestly my suspiscion is the issue is an incompatibility betweeen your BluRay re-writer and Windows 7. You don't say whether you're using Windows 7 64-bit - if so are you sure you ahve current 64 bit drivers for the drive or maybe you need a firmware update.

[TimStannard]

UPDATE
I've just come across this. Another Roy (I presume) using Vegas Movie Studio/Architect Studio - head down to the final post:

http://www.videoforums.co.uk/blu-ray-dv ... nised.html

[Roy1]

DAVE. Thanks for your very informative reply. I shall see if a brainier (PC WISE) person can follow this up. Meanwhile I have had info from several sources icluding the Manufacturer of the burner (LG) that the model rewriter I have is not compatible with Windows 7. The model number is LG GGW-H20L Could you possible check it out for me. If is true about it's not being compatiable, it will answer a lot of questions. Thanks Roy

[Roy1]

Tim. Thanks for your interest. I'm using Windows 7.32bit. I have had quite a few people on various forums saying that my rewriter LG GGW-H20L is not compatible with W.7 and I myself seem to get the imprssion from the LG website itself that it's not compatible. In that case I don't know whether it's better to go back to W.XP or carry on with W.7 and get another Rewriter.

[TimStannard]

Thanks for the update, Roy. It sounds pretty conclusive.
If you're planning to keep the PC for more than a few months, I'd recommend you replace the BluRay re-writer. It will only be a matter of time before something you need to run on your PC will require Windows 7. Indeed Vegas Pro v11 specifies Windows Vista or Windows 7 32 or 64 bit in its requrements - but not XP.

[col lamb]

You have also had one person on this forum (on another thread) advising of the problem with LG's combo drive.....................me

Do not waste your time any more with it, bin it and buy another.

It is the firmware which is in the chip inside the burner that is the problem, LG do not have an effective update for it that works. Mine was exactly the same model as yours.

Mine originally worked OK with Windows 7, I updated W7 so that I could install CS5 and then the burner would not work as a Blu-ray drive but it would read DVD's also with a new batch of Blu-rays it burned coasters and yet more DVD coasters whilst I was trying to sort out the problem.

Fitted a new burner and all is OK