A workflow to burn AVCHD camcorder video and 5.1 sound to BluRay disc.

Question

A workflow to burn AVCHD camcorder video and 5.1 sound to BluRay disc.
After weeks searching through many posts by the Forum’s experts with Final Cut Pro and Compressor, I have a crude workflow that seems to work for me, and might be of interest to others.  This information I couldn’t find in the Help files of either FCP or Compressor, and would appreciate feedback on other options. Thanks to the Forum contributors who have helped me with suggestions.
I have successfully burned a BluRay DVD of the video and audio outputs of my new Panasonic AVCHD camcorder, that is, 1920x1080 video and 5.1 surround sound,  using Final Cut Studio 2  (FCP 7.0.2, Compressor 3.5.4.) on an Intel iMac with  OS 10.6.3
Using AUNSOFT-PAVTUBE or CLIPWRAP, I converted the camcorder’s MTS files to ProRes 422 .mov files containing 5.1 six channels of audio.
In FCPro,  set the Sequence / Settings / Audio Outputs to 5.1 Monitoring:
     L+R Stereo,     Stereo
     Center             Dual Mono
     LFE                Dual Mono
     Ls +Rs            Stereo
Uncheck the “Downmix…to Stereo”  in Warning box that pops up when this step is completed.
Drag the ProRes .mov file into the time line of FCP 7:
The next steps are important for assigning each of the six audio channels to the Dolby 5.1 configuration (L, R, C, Lfe, Ls, Rs).  This step was new to me and something I couldn’t find in the FCPro or Compressor Help file manual. If anyone can reference a page number, I would appreciate that info.
In the FCP time line, unlink the video from the audio channels (Linked Selection) in the upper right corner of the FCP time line.
Select each audio channel, then right click in the area of the blank column near the padlock. Assign A1, A2, A3 etc to each of the audio channels as they fit the Dolby configuration ( L+R, C, Lfe, Ls+Rs) This process is kind of clunky and it may take patience to accomplish.
The best Forum ideas that I could find for setting up the six channel audio came from the following posts which I credit for their help:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/9095726#9095726
https://discussions.apple.com/message/12525373#12525373
In FCPro, Mark In and Out points, Select In to Out
Under File / Share option ………Select BluRay job……then Select either “Export” or “Send to Compressor”
(Note: At this point, the  Option Export which enables FCPro to burn a BluRay DVD, seems to work well, and the resulting DVD video and six channels of audio seems as good as that produced by the more complicated option of “Send to Compressor”……..which is described below.)
If the Send to Compressor option is selected, Compressor is automatically started by this selection. At this point, do not Quit FCPro, because Compressor needs to transfer file data (or something like that) to Compressor.
In the job pane of Compressor, will exist two targets, H264 for BluRay and Dolby Digital.
I deleted the Dolby Digital and replaced it with Dolby Digital Professional Auto.
Clicking any where in the Sequence 1 job pane (not in H264 nor Dolby target rows) will reveal the A/V attributes:
Under the Job Action tab, select the BluRay unit that will eventually do the burning.
Clicking on the target H264 for BluRay located in the larger Job Pane reveals the settings I chose:
Clicking on the target Dolby Digital Professional (Auto) reveals these settings I chose:
I left settings on the Bitstream tab untouched.  However the Preprocessing tab, I set the Compression Preset to “None”.
I found that turning on the BluRay burner with a preloaded BD/RE is best to do at this time, or even better, to energize the burner at the time that the “Send to Compressor” function is activated.
When settings are complete, select “Submit” in the lower corner of the Compressor larger pane and processing will begin, and a status pane indicating time elapsed and time remaining will appear. These estimates are not very accurate.
I have found that my 1 minute test video was initially estimated to require about two hours of processing time, but actually required only 1 hour which is still unusually long. Based on my experience, be prepared for an  “overnight” processing to occur for longer movie durations.
This is the part of the overall process I need to understand better:  How to estimate the duration to encode and burn 1 minute of video / audio?  This 1 hour duration for 1 minute of video/audio was the same whether I SHARE-Exported to FCPro to burn DVD, or SHARE-Send to Compressor option.
Wondering if the encoding of the six 5.1 audio channels caused the lengthy processing(?).  Perhaps settings that I made in Compressor affected time to process and burn.
Finally, I hope this poorly written process will help someone who has been looking for the same information as I had been. I would appreciate feedback from those who have already done this; what OS are you using, what hardware are you using? What software package have you tried.  And lastly, Thanks to all who contribute to these Community Forums, who take the time to detail their processes. You all have helped me to get this far.
BoBo

Answer 1

Go to https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4719249
BoBo