AVCHD with Sony DVD Architect V5.0

The page discusses mastering an AVCHD on the Windows platform. It is included here because there is currently no open or closed source software which runs on Linux which is capable of authoring AVCHD disks with IGS menus. Although Sony DVD Architect V5.0 does not have the ability to master a AVCHD image, the BDMV images that it does create only require the addition of an AVCHD attribute field to the index.bdmv file in order to play on Panasonic and other AVCHD compaible blu-ray players from DVD media.

Needed Software

This method relies on the following free and and commercially sold closed source software:

Procedure

Use TsMuxer in avchd writing mode to create an AVCHD directory structure. Copy the index.bdmv file from the output of TsMuxer and save it for later. Note that it doesn't matter what files you multiplex with TsMuxer, just so you have a copy of index.bdmv that contains the AVCHD attribute for later editing in BDedit.

Now create a blu-ray project using Sony DVD Architect with the menus and all the video files you want. Master the project to an iso file. Create two empty directories bd and avchd and extract the contents of the iso created by DVD Architect into each of them. The two directories bd and avchd should each contain an exact duplicate of the iso. Overwrite the contents of index.bdmv in the avchd directory with the index.bdmv file from TsMuxer that was saved in the first step.

Open two copies BDedit. One for the bd directory and and one in the avchd directory. Modify the remaining entries of index.bdmv in the avchd directory so it agrees with the index.bdmv file in the bd directory. Make sure to keep the AVCHD attribute while you are editing.

Now use ImgBurn to write the avchd directory to DVD media using a UDF 2.5 filesystem.

Last Updated: Sun Mar 27 22:09:23 PDT 2011