Progressive is newer and cleaner, but it can only be viewed in all its glory on a progressive scan monitor. Digital TV broadcasting has already made the shift to progressive, though most affordable TV's have not yet. The smaller 720p has a number of monitors available to it. 1080p still commands a premium price, but the equipment is getting more reasonably-priced all the time.

If it is your wish to go progressive (maybe you are in broadcasting) you will want to choose a progressive format that suits your needs. You will then need to make your interlaced video compatible with it. So you must deinterlace! To deinterlace, go to the left hand corner of the export settings sub screen. That option waits above the viewer, under the Output tab. (Figure 6.)

If you shot in 1080i and choose to deinterlace it to go progressive, that shuffling of image data may affect quality. This is not necessarily true on every system, though.

When you are ready to export, make sure you have enough room on your hard drive. Avoid exporting to external USB or FireWire drives (though eSATA is OK). That simple degree of separation will usually crash the program and maybe the whole computer. When exporting HD, close all other programs and take a break. It's a process that could take several hours.

Once the video is compressed in Premiere all you have to do is transfer it into the Adobe Encore disc authoring system. Open up Adobe Encore and make certain its settings match the ones you chose when compressing in the Media Encoder. Be sure to specify the project is Blu-ray Format in the authoring mode. (Figure 7.)

Authoring the disc is a process unto itself, but for the purposes of this tutorial we will focus on the compression. Go to File and Import your video and audio as assets and drop into the Encore timeline at the bottom. Author the Blu-ray as you see fit. This includes menus, chapters, and extras etc. Photoshop is a strong companion with Encore. Just be aware of how much space you are using. (Figure 8.)

Note: Burning: Many computers do not yet have Blu-ray burners. As this is the case, you may need to purchase an external burner to finish the job. (Figure 9.)

When you are ready to finish you will go to the build tab. Here are the pitfalls to look out for. (See Figure 8.)

Make certain you set your format and output to Blu-ray.

Make sure your disc info does not exceed the allotted amount of memory. There are two types of Blu-ray Discs, 25GB (single-layer) and 50GB (dual-layer). Some burners (and some software) only support 25GB discs for burning.

Fix any authoring issues that may arise in Encore. The computer will prompt you if you need to correct something that has been neglected.

Press build. Depending on the complexity of your project, e.g. whether there's a lot of recompression involved, it could take as long as a day for your disc to be ready; but it might only take a few minutes.

While Blu-ray Disc burners have already gotten reasonably fast in their short history, sometimes you need to make more than a few discs. If you want to make many copies, I recommend purchasing a Blu-ray duplicator to free up your computer. They're easy to find on the Internet (generally not in stores) and fairly reasonably priced, considering the time they'll save you.

The most up to date editing platforms, (AVID, Adobe Premiere, etc.) and their DVD authoring counterparts, (Adobe Encore, etc.) all provide functions for creating Blu-ray Discs. As separate systems they each have merits and flaws in how they approach HD output. What makes them all accessible is that each platform follows a similar set of rules. Bottom line: choose a platform you like and learn to navigate it. It's all about troubleshooting, my friends. Good luck!

John Joyner is an independent video editor and producer specializing in DVD authoring.