Encore insists on transcoding H.264 Blu-ray encoded file (Blu-ray legal)

[HarpuaFSB]

I have a Blu-ray legal .m4v file encoded out of Adobe Media Encoder as H.264 Blu-ray VBR 2-Pass, maximum render, target 25Mbps, maximum 30Mbps.

My project is H.264, maximum 40Mbps.

Encore keeps listing the video file as untranscoded and wants to transcode it.

I've tried encoding just a portion of the video file instead of the whole thing using the same settings and when I bring this into Encore it recognizes it as Blu-ray legal and sets it to "Don't Transcode".

Can anyone think of a reason as to why this is happening?  I really don't want to sit through another eight hour encode that could degregade pq further.

Thanks!

[gr8bob]

Well, actually "elementary streams" means double, not +1.  I often play files on BLU-RAY player from thumb drive.  I think I'll have to put video & audio back in single file to do that.  So elementary files are a hassle.  Multiplexed files that Adobe Encore creates are of type "m2ts", found in STREAM folder of Adobe Encore output.  These can always be imported as asset back into Adobe Encore without re-transcoding.  I wonder what's so magical about them compared to what comes out of Adobe Media Encoder?

[Jeff Bellune]

Playing files from a thumb drive isn't part of the Blu-ray spec.  Blu-rays are discs that have been authored in a Blu-ray authoring program.  Playing M2TS files from a thumb drive is a "cool" and "nice-to-have" feature, but it's not Blu-ray.

The finished files on an authored BD are indeed multiplexed, but for authoring to disc you want elementary streams.  Under the hood, Encore has to de-multiplex the audio and video before building the disc, so if you start with separate assets to begin with, you save En the trouble (and possible errors) of splitting them up.  Further, if the audio in a multiplexed file doesn't match the project audio settings, or if the audio isn't Blu-ray legal, then En will re-transcode everything, even if the video is OK.

Jeff

[gr8bob]

OK.  Understood.  But still, life is simpler when one file does all I need/want.

Saying what's true seems ellusive for me in this business, but it seems that another tool I have, VideoReDo TV Suite 4, can combine elementary streams into a single m2ts file that Adobe Encore will accept without retranscoding.  Adobe Encore takes longer to say it likes the m2ts file than it does the elementary streams, which I guess confirms what you've said.  But overall it's less headache for me.

I don't see a way to create an m2ts file with Adobe Media Encoder; it only outputs m2t.

Thanks very much for your input.

-- Bob

[Jeff Bellune]

You're welcome.  I'm glad you found a tool that does what you need!

Jeff

[gr8bob]

Well, let me retract (what's true seems ellusive).

After combining elementary streams with VideoReDo into m2ts file, sometimes Encore accepts without retranscoding, sometimes not -- I've now found that it will not accept a small test file; not sure Encore hasn't remembered somewhere about an older invalid file -- erased media cache and cleaned database -- don't know where else to look.  Guess I'll have to leave as elementary streams; after changing profile to "Main" they always seem to be accepted without re-transcoding.

Pretty frustrating state of affairs.