HomePage 6 of 6: Rendering the project and Burning to disc
Step 5: Rendering the project and Burning to disc
The "Burn Options" screen will show you the summary of your project, any problems with it and then a selection of burning/rendering options. Here, you can burn the project straight to a blank media, or create the BDMV folder (the AVCHD folder structure) on your hard-drive. You can also change the volume name and the record settings (if you have inserted the blank disc into your DVD writer drive already).
You can select any of these options. Normally my preference is to use the "Write to Hard disk Folder" option, since this way you can test your creation in a real AVCHD player like PowerDVD Ultra or Corel WinDVD 9 Plus (using the "Open DVD files on hard disk drive" option). But software capable of burning AVCHD is not as readily available as software capable of burning DVDs, and so in this case, you might want to burn straight to disc (use a re-writable disc to be safe). However, if you wish to write to the hard disk first, then instructions will also be provided here for burning with Nero Burning ROM.
Nero Vision 5 has a bug where if you use the "Write to Hard disk Folder" option, the output directory structure and files would be incorrect. Specifically, some files were renamed to fit into the ISO naming standard of 8 characters max with 3 character extensions (so MovieObject.bdmv becomes MOVIEOBJ.BDM), despite AVCHD using the UDF file system that supports longer file names. When the incorrectly named files are burned to disc, the AVCHD would only read as a "data disc" on the PS3 at least. The latest version of Nero Vision at the time of writing this guide is 5.3.3.0 and this bug has not been fixed yet. This problem does not exist for discs burned straight away using Nero Vision, since the file names are all correct.
Click on "Burn to" or "Write to Hard Disk Folder" to tell Nero where to create the AVCHD (either to disc or to hard disk). Then click on the "Write" button to start the creation process. Sit back, relax and many minutes to many hours later, the AVCHD folder will have been created.
If you burned straight to discs, then this tutorial has now ended for you and you can take the disc to your AVCHD player to test (I use my PS3, which works great with AVCHD discs burned on DVD). If you've chosen the write to hard disk option, then continue on. Nero Vision should have created a "AVCHD" folder containing a "BDMV" folder (which itself contains all the required AVCHD files) on your hard-drive.
As mentioned before, the Nero Vision file extension bug means we have to go and change some of the filenames of the files that Nero Vision produced. Now some Blu-ray players might still allow playback of the incorrectly named AVCHD disc (at least both PowerDVD Ultra and WinDVD 9 Plus did not seem to care about the file names), but to be safe, it's best to do the renaming process. Use Windows Explorer to go to the BDMV folder. If your system is configured to hide extensions for known file formats, we need to first disable this option. From the Windows Explorer window, select "Tools" -> "Folder Options" -> "View" -> and make sure the "Hide extensions for known file types" option is not checked".
Here, you need to rename every ".BDM" file to ".bdmv", so that "INDEX.BDM" becomes "index.bdmv". You also need to rename the file "MOVIEOBJ.BDM" to "MovieObject.bdmv". Rename all ".CPI" files to ".clpi"; all ".MPL" files to ".mpls" and all ".MTS" files to ".m2ts". Do so for every file in every directory and sub-directory, including the "BACKUP" directory. To sum up, you need to rename the following files:
- INDEX.BDM -> index.bdmv
- MOVIEOBJ.BDM -> MovieObject.bdmv
- *.MPL -> *.mpls
- *.CPI -> *.clpi
- *.MTS -> *.m2ts
You can now use PowerDVD Ultra or WinDVD 9 Plus to test the created DVD. Just use the "Open DVD files on hard disk drive" option in PowerDVD Ultra or select "Source" -> "Open from Folder" in WinDVD 9 Plus to navigate into the BDMV folder and then press the "Open" button to test playback, including all menu functions.
If you are happy with it, you can then use Nero Burning ROM to burn the AVCHD folder. Start Nero Burning ROM.
You should be presented with the "New Compilation" window. If not, press the "New" button on the menu bar to activate it. Select "DVD" and on the left hand side, select "DVD-ROM (UDF"). The right hand side should present you with "DVD-ROM (UDF)" burning options. Set "Multisession" to "No multisession" for maximum compatibility. Click on the UDF tab and use the "Manual settings" option to unlock the UDF options. Set "File system attribute" to "UDF 2.50" ("UDF 2.60" should work as well).
The "Label" tab allows you to specify a label for the disc ... no specific requirements here. Press the "New" button down below to create this new compilation. Now, we will load the BDMV folder that Nero Vision created into the compilation - simply locate the BDMV folder on the right hand side and drag it into the left hand side. Note that you should only drag over the BDMV folder, not the "AVCHD" folder (your compilation should look something like below).
Press the "Burn" button at the top, re-check to see all the burning options have been set properly and then burn the disc (use 4x or slower for DVD burning to ensure maximum compatibility) and there's nothing left to do but wait. Once the disc has been burned, take it to your AVCHD player and it should play without problems.
We're done 
