Creator Issues? or am I just a newb :)

[fwire]

I recently purchased DVDFab9, and am trying to figure out how the SW works... and at the same time take a few things I want to keep but don't necessarily need them on my Hard Drive, and put them to BD.

I tried several this I'll go through them in order:
1) I have a season of a show that contained 13 episodes. I Opened Creator and hit the "+" adding them to the work area.
2) I selected BD 50 as the output. The source was only 33 GB, but it told me it would not fit on the disk (I assume its upconverting the resolution).
3) I hit "fit to disk"
4) Next => I added an appropriate picture (jpg form the internet) for the show using the tool and arranged all the icons and preview of scenes to my liking.
5) Next => waited 9 hours for it to process (overnight), to find that it had errored out, something about the media - I figured I had done something wrong, as this was my first attempt... so I unfortunately did not pay close attention to the error.

second try - repeated previous steps but told it to write to a HD as an iso. BD50 selected - fit to disk selected.
I then tried to use "copy" to burn the iso to disk. failed... again I figured I did something wrong so I loaded up imgburn - the old standby and used that. failed - turns out the ISO file is 52+ GB, so its too large to fit onto the BD50... WTF I say to myself...

So I come to the boards to find out - WHAT AM I DOING WRONG? or if its a bug please let me know what the workaround is?

I see a lot of these types of posts are immediately followed by a please post your logs. I would do that but I do not know where they are stored. there does not seem to be a way to access them from the user interface that I can see. Please include instructions on how to find the logs - if that is the next step.

Thanks,
fwire

[signals]

Instructions for posting logs are linked in my sig, below. You can find the logs by selecting Open Log Folder from the DVDFab Settings dropdown in the upper right area of the Fab window.

Try writing it to HDD as a folder instead of an image, then make the ISO with ImgBurn.

[fwire]

OK I found the log folder but how o I know what log has the correct stuff. I looked through them briefly but have no idea what would be useful.

I'll try writing as a folder - although I did not see that option initially. I'll look for it now.

Thanks,
fwire

[fwire]

tried the IMGburn as suggested. The resulting folder is 53,478,382,363

The Destination BD-R DL = 50,050,629,632

My only conclusion is that the Creator SW did no compress "something" enough such that everything fit onto the disk, as the result of the process is larger than a disk.

AS I said I'm a newb to tis stuff and can barely find my way around the SW at this point. Is there a way I can have a finer grain of control over the process such that I can specify to compress the holy heck out of the menus for example, to regain the space. Or adjust the compression of individual pieces of the project.

Again the original source material for his is only 33GB... Why is the creation process adding so much to the to this?

Pointers on how to run this better would be appreciated

Thanks,
fwire

[fwire]

Oh and another thing... Not sure if its pertinent or not but in case it is... when I load the original files into the creator it seems to double their size.

The original files are 33GB (and change) but when they show in creator they are 66GB and change - double their size. I had assumed that it was some sort of upconvert until I noticed that its a double of the original... that just seemed a little too coincidental, so I thought I'd mention it.

so I tried playing with the items loaded into the creator window. In all cases the size the Creator indicated was significantly larger than the source material. this may be normal as the source was a 720p source and it was upconverting but maybe not... but I thought it might be useful info.

Thanks again,
fwire

[fwire]

internal log attached... read your instruction more carefully

Sorry it took me this long to figure it out... had to actually read the instructions again to see the "internal log" reference. Stupid me.

Anyway here is the extract from the internal log for the run I've been talking about.

Thanks,
fwire

[fwire]

no pointers to help me work around this issue? Or at least some type of confirmation that I was doing it correctly... Some feedback please

Thanks,
fwire

[signals]

fwire, I have read your thread several times in an effort to understand what you are expecting from this module and I think there is a disconnect somewhere. The Creator modules are not really designed to take pieces of DVDs or Blu-rays and make them one. Take a look at the detailed description here http://www.dvdfab.cn/blu-ray-creator.htm and see if it includes what you are attempting to accomplish.

[fwire]

Signals - thank you for responding. I'll try to be very clear with what I'm doing. I read that link you sent me to and it seems to me that it describes exactly what I'm doing.

What I am trying to do is create a Blu Ray disk from several mkv files.

These are copied TV shows... in particular 13, 720p files in an MKV format.

I want to load all 13 into creator and make a single disk that has a menu that can select an episode and watch it. The creator SW itself seems to allow this and allows me to configure the episode navigation and such.

Each of the 13 source files is approximately 2.2 ~2.75 GB in total 33GB.

The SW loads all the files into the tool and calculates the size as 66GB. Why it makes it 66 GB I do not know.

But I play along and then click the box that says "fit to disk" (50GB DL). some type of quick calculation goes on and the slider goes from green and red to green and yellow.

I hit next and the SW allows me to add titles and format the screens and navigation buttons so that all of the episodes are represented. I added a picture from the show as the navigation background.

I hit next button and the SW starts processing each of the 13 files. many hours later it finishes (see the log attached earlier), and the resulting ISO, or directory structure is too large to fit onto a single 50 GB Disk.

so here are the questions I'd like to understand

1) Why does 33GB of source material result in a 66GB data load into the tool?
2) Why does the "fit to disk button" not result in a process that will actually fit onto a disk?
3) Are there controls within the SW that will allow me to generate a workaround by adjusting the process? If so, how do I access them?

Thanks - I'm NOT bashing the SW... I'm a newb and could very well be doing it wrong.

Thanks,
fwire

[signals]

That is clear now, thanks. To help, please use MediaInfo (free, google if you don't have it) and let it analyze one of your input files and attach the results to a new post. What you are trying should work fine with this module.

[fwire]

New program for me so I hoe tis is what you're looking for:

General
Unique ID : 249151636440088169148845817805968708025 (0xBB70DC1759CD621EBA56A01802E711B9)
Complete name : I:\TV\SONS OF ANARCHY\SEASON 1\S01E01 Pilot.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 2.65 GiB
Duration : 57mn 11s
Overall bit rate : 6 630 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2009-08-05 10:58:14
Writing application : mkvmerge v2.8.0 ('The Tree') built on May 9 2009 18:02:06
Writing library : libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 5 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 57mn 11s
Bit rate : 5 120 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.232
Stream size : 1.99 GiB (75%)
Writing library : x264 core 68 r1195 5d75a9b
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=7 / psy_rd=1.0:0.0 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / wpredb=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / rc=2pass / bitrate=5120 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Audio
ID : 2
Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Mode : 16
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 57mn 11s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 509 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 617 MiB (23%)
Default : Yes
Forced : No

[fwire]

Was this what you needed? If there is something else that you wanted from the SW please let me know so I can get it for you. I'd really like to use the creator to author these disks, so I'm hopeful that you'll be able to see an easy fix/workaround for this

Thanks,
fwire

[fwire]

anything new on this?

Thanks again,
fwire

[fwire]

I don't mean to be a pest or anything but is there any advice on how to resolve this available?

Thanks,
fwire

[fwire]

Checking in to see if there has been a reply... Trust me when I say that I understand working on several issues at a time... but we need some type of feedback that it at least on the list.

Thanks,
fwire