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I use a Sony HDR SR10 camcorder in high definition, edit using VS11.5 and, in order to show the rendered project at its full resolution, save it using the VS11.5 AVCHD H.264 1920x1080 25fps option.

My problem is that I can't transfer the output file back to the camcorder in order to connect it via HDMI to my HD TV screen. I change the file extension from MP4 to M2TS so that the Sony transfer utility recognises the file, but part way through the transfer it always reports an error and stops. Using Windows to copy the file to the camcorder hard drive doesn't work either as it is then missing some management infor that the Sony utility would create.

If I create an output file using Sony Vegas instead of VS11.5 the transfer works fine (but I don't want to use Vegas as my editor and Vegas won't accept the AVCHD files output by VS11.5 either).

I wonder if anyone else has been able to achieve this? Or can suggest a workaround?

I am not really sure about this but AVCHD is a variant of MPEG4 (mp4).
M2TS is MPEG2.
I don't think simply changing the extension from an MP4 to an MP2 will work.

Thanks for your response. I'm finding this all very confusing.

The camcorder does indeed use AVCHD with MPEG-4 compression, but its files all have the m2ts file extension.

If I use the VideoStudio 11.5 option to save in the same format as the first clip it creates a .mpg file. When I try to transfer that back to the camcorder the Sony program refuses because the camcorder will not accept MPEG-2 files.

Unfortunately that now makes two of us that are confused.

Hold tight and one of the High def guys will come on the forum and shed some light on the matter...and us!

Lance -- I am afraid Davwok is correct: .m2ts is mpeg-4/avchd. It is .m2t which is high def mpeg-2/HDV...

That being said, I am afraid I don't know anything about how to get the m2ts into the format recognised by the camera. Like the HDV cameras, it is my understanding that they film in a particular variant of the format, but that is changed when captured by VS. But how to change that one back in the case of AVCHD is a mystery too far for me...

I know I am struggling when I have to read the post out loud to myself...
I really have to bite the bullet and get a grip on the Hi Def terminology very soon.

davwok wrote:My problem is that I can't transfer the output file back to the camcorder in order to connect it via HDMI to my HD TV screen

I had the same problem with my Canon HG10. I read that I could transfer back to the camera's hard drive. When I read the instructions for the tenth time I realised that it meant I could only transfer the original M2TS file back. Once you have done any editing at all the transfer back does not work. Problem is you can't save the edited file in a video editor in the exact same format that the camera originally records at. I guess this might apply to the Sony as well. I'm saving the pennies for a Blu-Ray recorder

Thanks for all this help, guys. A Blu-Ray recorder might need to be my solution too but I'll persevere a little more first.

The Sony Vegas editor produces output files that can be transferred to my camcorder so I can possibly do all my editing in VS, save in some suitable hi-def format, input that file into Vegas and transcode to .m2ts for the camcorder. Hopefully the extra encoding won't cause the quality to deteriorate noticeably.