Cannot Burn HD DVD's

[scottdeane]

Ken,

I'm just a newbie here, but I would't rule out AVCHD yet.

I wanted to update this thread last night but at 1AM I decided to put it off till this morning.

Last night, with the added info from this thread, I decided to go down the AVCHD path with VS.

I (VS11+) successfully created an AVCHD disc on DVD media. It can be read by the computer by both VS and Intervideo DVD8 (the stand alone computer video player). I don't yet have a Blu Ray, but there's no reason to expect issues there. That's the next step. Take this DVD and a dual layer I will make to the video store and play it on the Blu Ray I will purchase.

Producing the disc in VS was a piece of cake. The AVCHD can either be imported directly from the camera or from backups made from the camera to the computer. Editing proceeds as usual. Writing the disc is as simple as selecting AVCHD and the appropriate media. No rendering is necessary - encoding type is not changed, so the burning process takes 10 minutes or so - TOTAL TIME! Also, as someone already pointed out, more data fits on the disc with AVCHD.

Sure, the debate of CODECs will go on forever (it seems), but if you have an AVCHD camera (such as the Canon HG10) I highly recommend keeping everything in AVCHD mode. VS11+ loves it and I would expect the non + version would too - likely no reason to upgrade. And its fast!!!

By the way, it is an awesome camera! Canon's replacement that will appear in April sounds like it will be fantastic! No more hard drive, all solid state (flash). I know this isn't a new idea, but everything else about this camera is so great, I believe they are on the right track. I hope they allow the frame rate to increase, scaled by the speed of the flash cards that are installed rather than default to the slower ones that are around. That would be a step forward.

thanks,
Scott

[neonbob]

Nero 7 and 8 (with the HD pack) will allow you to view these disks on your computer with XP. It is a little glitchy though.

The reason why you can't use these disks as normal in a computer is that they are written as UDF2.5 or 2.6. This is a format that the Toshiba HD DVD player understands since the disks are in fact written for those machines. However UDF2.5 is not a format that is frequented by computers. It is only very recently that software and OS's have come to recognize UDF formats at all.

[2Dogs]

Nero 7 and 8 (with the HD pack) will allow you to view these disks on your computer with XP. It is a little glitchy though.

When you say "view" I trust you mean "play" these on your pc? If that's the case, and you have a sample disk that's been filled up with video, does it get less "glitchy" as playback proceeds?

Initially, the disc will be read from the centre, but the read head will move outwards to the faster moving portion as playback continues.

I experienced this effect with a DV avi file burnt to a CD-r disc that I used to test playback in various pc's at a local store a few years back when I was looking to buy a pc for video editing. The 180 second DV avi file was 622MB, equivalent to a video bitrate of 28300 kbps. That's higher than the usual 18000 to 25000 kbps commonly used in AVCHD files, so perhaps your DVD drive is the limitation.

Good to know it can play, though, thanks for the info and for doing the tests!

Maybe you can do some more extensive editing and report back how VS handles that with the AVCHD format. I suspect it will be increasingly common in future camcorders, and there will soon be no reason to have hard drives in the camcorders, making them lighter, more durable, and perhaps.....cheaper! Battery life should be improved too!