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Hi, All

I have been faithfully editing my High Def mpeg2 video footage for two years now. Always my last step is to downconvert to SD (as advised by the great & learned SJJ) before burning to a standard 4.7 gig DVD. Then I play it back using a new but cheap DVD player hooked up to my HD-ready plasma TV.

One day, I tell myself, as I gaze at the slightly fuzzy round the edges images, all this work and money will have been worth it. One day, I will be able to simply burn some High Def DVDs and watch them on my telly.

Can anyone tell me if that day has yet arrived?
What's the latest guys?

What do I need to do to watch my work in High Def glory on my TV?

btw - my son does have an X-box 360 but I suspect that will be moving to University with him 12 months from now and I was looking for a more permanent solution!

The X-box probably would not be very much good in the long term anyway. As I understand it, it could play, but but not record, HDV discs. But as you would be aware, no more HDV burners are being produced since Blu-Ray won the war a few months ago.

Unfortunately, though, one way or another, you will need to spend money to be able to watch your HDV on your HDTV. The only way which does NOT involve expenditure is the simple one of editing your HDV project as normal in that format, and when it is done, exporting it back to your HDV camera in that format to a new mini DV cassette (Share > HDV Recording); connecting your camera by its HDMI connection (I assume it has one) direct to your HDTV and in effect use the camera as a high definition player. It works very well, and in fact as I write, I am looking at the latest one I did this way.

Unfortunately, that will not work if your camera is, like mine, a Canon HDV model such as the HV10, 20 or 30. Other brands are fine. The really curious thing is that this conflict was recognised after VS10 came out and Corel/Ulead issued a specific Canon patch to fix it in VS10+. But somehow or other that code does not appear to have been incorporated in VS11/11.5+. I have tried exporting to my Canon HV20 using Adobe Premiere Pro 3, but that also does not work.

In fact, the only work around I have found presumes you have VS10+ already. I reinstalled that on my computer, as well as VS11.5+. I installed the Canon patch for VS10. I edit my HDV in VS11.5+ (though I could also do so in VS10+), then save the project in VS10 format. I open that project in VS10+. I connect my HV20 via firewire and turn it on in PLAY mode, and then go to Share > HDV Recording. And it works! Wonderfully. I would like to think this defect is corrected in the forthcoming VS12, but I am not holding my breath...

The other options -- the ones that cost! -- involve lashing out (considerably!) and buying both a Blu-Ray burner and player, plus the very expensive blank Blu-Ray discs, and actually burning your project as a Blu-Ray disc.

But there is a half-way house: a hybrid AVCHD disc which involves converting your edited HDV to high definition AVCHD, but burning that in its high def format to a standard DVD. But the catch is that you require a player than can play such discs. Again, that involves Blu-Ray and Blu-Ray players are still rather expensive, and in addition, not all of them are rated to play such hybrid discs.

But the Sony PlayStation 3 is one such player (not the X-Box, I am afraid). And the PlayStation 3 (PS3) adds a number of options. First, it will play hybrid discs. But the catch with them is that if (like me) you want the best quality playback from your high def original video, then you have to, understandably, use the highest quality settings for AVCHD. And that means that you can only squeeze about 20 minutes of high def video onto a single layer standard DVD. That's OK for me since I pay only about 25 cents per DVD blank (when the cheapest Blu-Ray blanks here are literally 100 times that price -- each!) VS11.5+ (and the recently released Movie Factory 7) also allow you to build a proper menu for such discs, unlike a number of other editing packages at the moment.

But the PS3 is even more versatile. I have mine networked to my computer, and the PS3 also connected via HDMI to my 46" HDTV. Using Windows Media Player or Nero Media Home as the server, I can thus play all my edited video (in any format, not just HDV; plus still images and music) direct to the HDTV via the PS3. Top quality and wonderful!!

But wait! There's more!! (Sony should be paying me! ) You can also transfer your edited HDV to either a suitably large USB stick or even an external hard drive, and plug either of those into the PS3 and play your edited HDV back on the HDTV that way. The only catch is that the PS3 can only see drives formatted with the 'old' FAT32 system, not the current NTFS one. This in turn means the maximum size of the individual files it can play is 4 GB (a FAT32 limitation). For HDV format, this is again around 20 minutes of video, which luckily, 95% of my projects are -- I don't like to bore people (too much... )

And finally, you can burn an edited HDV clip slightly larger than 4 GB to a standard DVD (i.e. max. 4.3 GB) but as an archive/storage disc, not a video disc. And when you put that in the PS3, as long as it is in a folder labelled VIDEO (in upper case!), the PS3 can see it and play it in all its high def glory as well...

All of my personal options above, of course, mean that you have to invite friends and family to your home to see your masterpieces in high def. But until such time as the price of Blu-Ray burners, players and discs come down considerably, and all your family and friends have at least a Blu-Ray player, your options are in any case limited to either standard DVDs (still) or one of my options...

Hi, Ken

Thanks for your prompt and detailed response. Much appreciated. It gives rise to a bunch of comments and further questions.

1) Keeping the Faith: It sounds like the BluRay cavalry will eventually make it over the hill carrying cheap burners, players and discs. Until then I must keep the faith. I guess the rest of this post is therefore concerned with shorter-term workarounds.

2) X-box: You're certainly right that this is not going to be a long term player (pun intended) but might it be a short-term fix? Two questions here. First, do I need special HD-DVD disks to burn an HD-DVD? Second, do you think it would be possible to simply burn an HD-DVD file to an external drive and connect that drive to the X-box in the way that you describe for your PS3?

3) My camera is a Sony HDR-HC1E so I am not experiencing any of your Canon problems

4) AVCHD: Are you saying the advantage of this approach is that you DON'T need a BluRay burner but you DO still need a BluRay player (hence you save on the cost of the burner)?

Re (2) I have to confess I know almost nothing about HDV discs and burners, though I am 100% sure there were special discs, with a large capacity, I think even larger than Blu-Ray ones. Some shops will obviously have them still and you would probably get them cheap! Ditto HDV burners. Ditto HDV burners. In Singapore a few months ago, I was offered one free with a HDV camera I did not want (and didn't buy)... But I simply don't know whether there was such a thing as a hybrid HDV disc which could be burnt to a standard DVD like the AVCHD disc I described; nor whether the X-Box could play that kind of disc or see a HDV burned on standard DVD as an archive disc.

Re (3) -- Lucky you!!

Re (4) -- Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. Plus the fact that the Blu-Ray player that you buy has to also be rated to play hybrid discs. The PS3 can, but not all the others can. You would have to look closely at what is written on the box or else consult the manual for the player.

Hi, Ken

Looks like you're right (not surprised) on the HD DVD route.
I could get a cheap HD DVD burner although the blank discs are still looking a bit pricey. Might offer a short-term solution but no matter how cheap the kit is I figure I may as well invest that money in going to Blu-ray.

One last thing; I notice from your notes that you have Premiere Pro which I reckon is a very expensive piece of kit, yet you clearly retain your passion for VS. Although this is not a forum for comparing products (but I figure I can ask because your response is almost certainly going to be favourable), how come you stick with the cheaper software? Especially interested in your comments regarding Hi Def editing.

Well, I moved up to Adobe a couple of years ago, and I confess I have used it for some of my projects. Oddly enough, though, it is for standard def ones. I am sure I probably only use it to about 50% of its possibilities as the learning curve is enormously high, and I am still learning after 2 years.

Video Studio, on the other hand, despite a lot of complaints here, is relatively speaking, child's play. Even from the start, I found it pretty instinctive to use. Sure, some of its more powerful features are hidden away, but it does not take all that much to find them -- especially on a board like this where so many people have used it in so many different ways that all sorts of little treasures are revealed. I am still learning, and happy to do so.

And that goes triple when you talk about high def. Adobe can do it, and I am sure that it probably does it brilliantly. But it is pretty opaque to me. After buying my Canon HV20, I tried capturing and editing in Adobe. I never managed the capturing -- had to use HDVSplit instead, which in fact I still use with VS11.5+ because, as its name suggests, it splits HDV on capture, which VS does not do.

But while you can edit HDV in Adobe (as you can in VS) -- and I still find Adobe's sound editing feature so much simpler to use than VS, but then again for several times the price, you kinda expect that! -- the video side was pretty challenging. And finally, I found that the only format that Adobe would output HDV to in high definition format was .m2v which -- and the v in m2v gives it away -- is a video-only format. There is also a separate audio file output. But essentially, if you don't then have Adobe Encore, the production side program, you can't do anything with the output to bring it all together. So then, when I also discovered I couldn't use Adobe to export to my camera, I just gave up and happily went back to VS11.5+.

Given its ability to edit and burn what I want, and also downconvert and produce a standard def DVD as well as everything else, and do so in, for me, excellent quality without all the hassle, I guess you now know the answer...! I'll be sticking with VS for the foreseeable future!

Hi, Ken

Thanks for the candid views on Premier Pro. When I get frustrated with VS my mind does wander to Adobe so it's very helpful to hear from someone who has hands-on experience of both.

Unfortunately, that will not work if your camera is, like mine, a Canon HDV model such as the HV10, 20 or 30. Other brands are fine. The really curious thing is that this conflict was recognised after VS10 came out and Corel/Ulead issued a specific Canon patch to fix it in VS10+.

Kenn, I use VS 10+ and I recently bought a Canon HV 20. For me HD capture is no good so far - playback very jerky, so I capture DV (SD).
Where can I get this Canon patch you speak of? The only patches I've found for VS 10 are the SP 1 patch and the DVD burn patch.

If I ever manage to edit my HD footage I plan to invest in a multimedia external disk with HDMI socket. Wouldn't this be an interesting alternative to using the camera to play back on TV? With such an external disk DVD's are no longer necessary. Or am I mistaken?

The Canon patch is on the same page as all the others (there are 4) for VS10. It's at http://www.ulead.com/tech/vs/vs_ftp_10.htm and if you scroll down the page, it is second from the bottom.

Re the external disk, it might work for you, but what if you want to distribute your video to family and friends?