AVCHD on DVD+R to play on X-box 360?

skyml · Post by **skyml** » Thu May 15, 2008 9:27 pm

Am attempting to burn some AVCHD Video from a Sony CX7 using VS11+ to my standard DVD+R burner to palyback in an XBox360 (1080i). Anybody have any advice here? Footage was captured in HD format.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Thu May 15, 2008 9:59 pm

Since the XBox recognises the 'HD DVD' format, I imagine that is what you would have to choose in Share > Create Disc.

However, I am by no means sure that you could burn a hybrid disc using that format. I know you can do so burning AVCHD to an AVCHD format on a standard DVD and a Blu-Ray rated player (which includes the Play Station but not XBox) will play it. But you could try it since DVD blanks are so cheap these days.

skyml · Post by **skyml** » Fri May 16, 2008 2:17 am

Tried it on the Xbox 360.... did not play it though it recognized it as a multiformate DVD. Will look for a Blue-ray player or Playstation to see what they see.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Fri May 16, 2008 2:47 am

Yes, I wasn't really sure that you could burn a hybrid 'HD DVD' i.e. burning high def to a standard DVD blank, as you can with when you select AVCHD as the burn format (Share > Create Disc > AVCHD) but burn it to a standard DVD. I suspect that the HD DVD had to be actually burned to an actual HD DVD blank and then played on a HD DVD player (Xbox included)...

skyml · Post by **skyml** » Fri May 16, 2008 2:52 am

So I guess the correct procedure would be to edit my AVCHD video and select >share > create AVCHD DVD and burn it to an HD DVD Disc (Blue-ray?) on an Blue-ray burner?

Is there anyway of burning HD (1080i) video onto a standard 4.7GB DVD+/-R on a standard DVD+/-R burner and playing back in 1080i to HD TV?

Post by **Ken Berry** » Fri May 16, 2008 3:34 am

That would be the correct procedure if you had a Blu-Ray burner since a Blu-Ray player, including Play Station 3, will apparently not only recognise the Blu-Ray format, but also discs with AVCHD burned to them. And of course you would need to use Blu-Ray discs for an absolutely authentic Blu-Ray disc (and take advantage of the extra space on such a disc).

But as I say, such players will also recognise the hybrid type of disc involving AVCHD format being burned to a standard def DVD, but using the high def format. The only downside of this is that, because of the size of high def files, you will only be able to fit 30 - 40 minutes on a single layer DVD. However, that need not be a major disincentive, given the cheap price of DVD blanks these days. The limitation of this hybrid disc though is that it still requires a Blu-Ray player to read it. A standard DVD player will not be able to do it.

For what it is worth, I have a HDV camera that films to mini DV cassette in high definition mpeg-2 format. And I am in the same situation as you. I don't yet have either a Blu-Ray burner or even player. But I have a 115 cm full high def LCD TV (1920x1080p). I would dearly love to play my edited 'masterpieces' back on that TV in high definition. As it is, I download the HDV in its original format, edit in that format, and then future proof myself my producing an edited HDV final version of my project for the day when I do have a Blu-Ray burner or player, and the price of Blu-Ray discs has become even vaguely reasonable. But I also have to downconvert the file to a standard def mpeg-2 to burn to a standard DVD and play that back. It's as good as, if not better than, the quality of my usual standard def home made DVDs, and certainly looks great on a standard def TV. But while they are OK on a high def TV, they are simply not high def and tend to show every blemish.

rguthrie · Post by **rguthrie** » Fri May 16, 2008 7:48 am

skyml,

Have you thought of trying WMV-HD burned to DVD?

Post by **Ken Berry** » Fri May 16, 2008 8:26 am

What does that play on, apart from the computer?

rguthrie · Post by **rguthrie** » Fri May 16, 2008 8:37 am

I've heard that Xbox 360 can play them. I'll download some of the sample files that MS has....also NASA has some hi-def videos of shuttle launches. I'd be interested in seeing if I could play this on my Xbox 360. Again, I've heard, so that's why I asked if skyml tried that as an option to play hi-def on a Xbox 360.

skyml · Post by **skyml** » Fri May 16, 2008 6:45 pm

Sorry guys, on a very weird schedule.

No, haven't tried that option yet but will give it a go later today if I can. Seems with the advent of these HD camera's (AVCHD and MPEG2) there would be better options for burning to HD Discs for playback on HD TV's/Projectors.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Fri May 16, 2008 10:02 pm

Well, with the war between the formats (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray) no one wanted to be burned the way they were years ago with the war between VHS and Betamax. Now Blu-Ray has 'won', a lot of us are hoping that Blu-Ray burners and players, and the discs themselves, will start falling in price as more are manufactured and sold... just like DVDs, burners and players.

sdub · Post by **sdub** » Fri May 16, 2008 10:19 pm

rguthrie wrote:skyml,

Have you thought of trying WMV-HD burned to DVD?

Yes, the Xbox360 can play WMV-HD.... I stream them over the LAN like that all the time. Here's a link to a list of supported codecs on the Xbox360... note that AVC (Progressive H.264) is supported, but not AVCHD (Interlaced H.264)...

http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/archive/ ... k-faq.aspx

I assume that anything that plays streamed over the network would also play off of a physical disc (as a file... no menus or anything)

The biggest problem is that the open source tools (FFMPEG, MPlayer) can't convert AVCHD (Interlaced H.264) to AVC (Progressive H.264), and VS11+ can't output in AVC at any decent resolution.... WMV-HD is the best alternative for now.

skyml · Post by **skyml** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 11:22 pm

Follow up.....

Took my AVCHD disc comprised of mixed SD DV and (AVCHD) HD video and stills burned to a standard 4.7GB DVD+R disc on a standard DVD burner and put it in an AVCHD compatible Blueray player and HD monitor down at Bestbuy and guess what?! It worked!!! The video was only 4 min long but the disc looks like it could have taken up to 30 min of HD video.

Was trying to use an Xbox 360 as an HD player and it turned out the Xbox we used only had a standard DVD player in it (guess HD is an upgrade availbe to the Xbox).

It took a while to render and there was no hint of smart render of the source footage that was the same format and all as the output. Sure miss the days of MSP and smart render that actually worked! Don't know if this is just a limitation with editing in HD though smart render makes more sense here than it did with SD DV back in the day of slow systems.

Ian Sharpe · Post by **Ian Sharpe** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 11:46 pm

Ken,

So what does the hybrid AVCHD look like as far as quality goes.

I assume it looks better than SD, does it compare with playing your original or edited footage back to the TV from the Canon?? I reckon there is not much difference between original unedited footage , than footage that has been captured to PC (1440x1080) edited , recorded back the Canon & then played to the TV.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 12:22 am

I too will look forward to skyml's comments on quality. I am not absolutely sure about his workflow, especially the bit where he said the disc included SD video as well as AVCHD. It would in this regard also be useful if he could confirm that he used Share > Create Disc > AVCHD in preparing it, rather than using some other program than VS and perhaps only burning a data disc. Some Blu-Ray stand-alone players will (like the PS3) recognise high def video files on data discs and play the video regardless of how it was burned.

In my own case, to repeat what I have already said elsewhere, when burning a hybrid AVCHD disc I don't use the Video Studio default settings which use a variable bitrate with a maximum of 15000 kbps because the video, when played on my HDTV, looks a good deal worse than the original unedited high def video. It certainly looks better than SD, but just not good enough. Instead, when I get into the burning module, I change the burning properties to a constant bitrate of 16800 or 17000 since this seems to be the bitrate used by quite a few AVCHD cameras. I might note that the AVCHD disc uses a frame size of 1920 x 1080 though my original HDV which I use as the source is of course 1440 x 1080.

(The maximum bitrate for AVCHD since it was developed was 18000 kbps, but late last year I understand it has been raised to 25000 kbps. I am not sure if there are any consumer cameras as yet that use that higher maximum.)

The AVCHD discs I produce using these higher quality settings, to my eyes at least, is excellent and I cannot detect any difference in quality between it and the HDV original (which I can play back directly in its native format on the PS3) or the edited HDV which has been exported back to my Canon and played on the HDTV that way.

I might add as a footnote that using the above settings, I find that I can burn a maximum of about 38 minutes of video to a hybrid DVD. Using the VS default settings, I can burn just under an hour.