Play High Def movies on HD TV

[Gerry]

I am using VS12 and would like to make a movie using my m2ts files that will play back in Hi Def on my HD TV. Is it better to try and burn a AVCHD or Blu-ray disc or connect my Vaio laptop directly to my tv via the HDMI connection? The DVDs I have made so far are not playing back in Hi Def.
Thank you.

[Ken Berry]

Hi Gerry, and welcome to the Forums!!

You raise a number of interesting points. First, as you know, your .m2ts files are high definition AVCHD mpeg-4. You say you have made DVDs from them, but exactly how did you do that? If you went Share > Create Disc > DVD, then no, you would certainly not get high definition since a video DVD is by definition standard definition. So that is answer number one.

You can, however, burn high definition to a standard DVD blank disk, but it is not a 'video DVD' in the traditional sense. Instead, it is what is known as an AVCHD hybrid disc. In effect, it creates something like a Blu-Ray disc folder, but uses a standard DVD for this instead of the much larger (and much more expensive) Blu-Ray discs. Given that you already have AVCHD files, you should be able to do this with ease. I do it fairly regularly. I do my editing of the high definition files, then I select Share > Create Disc > AVCHD. Depending on how powerful your computer is, that may take some time. If you include a menu, that will add to the time, but make your disc look more like a video DVD on your HDTV!

NOTE, however, that to play such discs you have to have a Blu-Ray rated player (which in my own case includes the Sony PlayStation 3 which is an excellent Blu-Ray player which has the added advantage of being easily networked direct to my computer and connects to my 46 inch HDTV via HDMI. In effect that means I don't even have to worry about preparing hybrid discs anymore, but can stream my high definition video -- and indeed any multimedia -- direct from my computer to the HDTV via the PS3.)

Note that the latter is not dissimilar to your idea of connection your laptop via HDMI direct to your TV and playing your high def video that way.

Otherwise, it all depends on the equipment you have. If you have a Blu-Ray burner in your computer and a Blu-Ray player which connects to your HDTV, then of course you could always burn either a full Blu-Ray disc or the AVCHD hybrid disc described above. But of course you can't burn an actual Blu-Ray disc without a proper Blu-Ray burner.

If you have a Blu-Ray rated player, then most if not all will also have USB inputs. My PS3 has two, and I can either transfer my high def video to a suitably large USB memory stick or external USB had drive, and simply play that into the PS3 which recognises the video and plays it back beautifully. Most Blu-Ray players will have something similar.

[Gerry]

Thank you for your help. However, when I select Share>Create Disc>AVCHD, I go to the next menu where I can select/deselect menu. I hit the "Next" button, and go the choose template page. At that point, I only have a "Back" button. There is no "next" button to go to the burn page I usually see. Any ideas why?

[Ron P.]

The next button problem and Win7 is suppose to be corrected with a patch provided by Corel. Go HERE to download it. It will be the second one, a 9.37 MB download.

[erdna]

I am using VS12 and would like to make a movie using my m2ts files that will play back in Hi Def on my HD TV. Is it better to try and burn a AVCHD or Blu-ray disc or connect my Vaio laptop directly to my tv via the HDMI connection? The DVDs I have made so far are not playing back in Hi Def.
Thank you.

My experience is that if your Vaio has a fullHD screen (FullHD capable vidiocard) and you use a good SW m2ts/AVCHD player (like PowerDVD8/9), you can have exactly the same results when connecting yr Vaio through HDMI with yr FullHD TV as what you will get through the AVCHDdisc/BD disc/standalone BDplayer route.

[Gerry]

Thank you all for your help. I was able to fix the next button problem in Win 7 and was able to burn a disc that played back in hi-def. I do have a question still for Erdna. Do you go Share>Create Video File>AVCHD and then playback the file?