Encore CS5, BluRay H.264 and Profiles

Question

I find in the manual that Encore is only allowing Main profile H.264 files to be used untranscoded.  Yet, everywhere I have read and learned about H.264, the ideal way to get the best compression is to use the high profile and a level of 4.1.  In fact, this is the most common preset in most encoders for BluRay preset H.264 encoding.
So, what gives?   Is Adobe really going to force me to transcode my H.264 high profile footage?   This is odd since one of the transcode templates in AME as instanced from Encode (1920x1080i hihg quality) is preset to high profile, level = 4.1
I guess it is OK for AME to transcode it when triggered from Encore... but not anywhere else.  For example, use this same AME preset from PPro, import the resulting H.264 file into Encore, it wants to transcode it...   very frustrating.
I have an encoder that I feel is superior to the one in AME and it has the same template settings as the BluRay presets in AME.  Encore won't take them...
Am I missing something here?

Answer 1

4tKingAV wrote:
I agree with your comments.  Any experience with BDR media and 25m rates on players? 
As much of my material is mid-band, or darker...   I am worried about banding that I see in X.264.  Also a lot of footage I shoot is interlaced due to the high motion of the event.  So, I am in a bad place.  I have a lot of mid-band footage that has a lot of motion in it.  I could go to 30p, but I don't alway like how it looks when some of the events are fast moving.
I am open to investing in a solid H.264 encoder if it gives me what I want...
Every burn I've done to TDK BD-R50B or Sony BD-RE50 has played fine in my PS3, with rates as high as 40mbit/s (burst for a minute or so, not the entire project).  So I can't comment on lower-quality media, because it's all worked for me thus far.
Like I said, I've done interlaced with x264 just fine, but the x264 developers claimed (as of three months ago, anyway) that interlaced encoding was "broken" so you author with such output at your own risk. 1080i @ 29.97 works for me on powerdvd9 and a real PS3, all 60 fields present, using the following batch file:
x264 --crf %3 --preset veryslow --weightp 1 --bframes 3 --nal-hrd vbr --vbv-maxrate 40000 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --level 4.1 --keyint 30 --b-pyramid strict --slices 4 --tff --aud --colorprim "bt709" --transfer "bt709" --colormatrix "bt709" --sar 1:1 %1 -o %2
Called like this:  batchfile.bat infile.avi outfile.m4v NUM
...where NUM is the crf number I want to use (I use 16 unless the files get too large).  If you're trying to keep maximum bitrate down then this is not what you want to use, use the one with bitrate contols on the website URL in my last post.  My input footage was upper-field-first, hence the "--tff" in the above example.
One note on large files and dual-layer media:  Don't create a file larger than about 24G.  Otherwise Encore and other programs will blow a gasket (in my experience) when it comes time to try to place the layer break, which it can't do because the file goes over the layer size.
There are good commercial programs that can produce H.264 content, but they range from $700 to $8000.  I've used some of them, and they do have significant advantages if you want to re-encode certain sections with different bitrate targets, but generally most of my work can be serviced just fine using AME or x264.