convert hd to sd

[sleeper]

I have a sony 550v camcorder. I recorded a video for a friend in hd but I need to change it to sd to burn it to a disk for him.Under share, I tried making the video as project settings, using custom settings and tried dvd settings. None of these work. What now? Iam using img to burn the video and it could be within this program I am just not sure. Thanks for any help

[Ken Berry]

You don't say exactly which version of the 550V you have -- and there are several -- but nonetheless, I believe you are filming in AVCHD HD/mpeg-4 format 1920 x 1080. Unfortunately, beyond that, you have not really given us enough information on which to base a sensible answer. You say you tried various things, but that "None of these work". What exactly does that mean? What exactly happened when you tried them? Did the program crash? Or were you simply unhappy with the new video produced?

You also say you used "project settings, using custom settings and tried dvd settings", but you don't say what the exact settings in those were. One immediate problem could have to do with Field Order. AVCHD uses Upper Field First, but if, say, you used the default Project Settings, these normal include Lower Field First. And if you get the Field Order wrong, the end product would not be very good. Similarly, I would have to know exactly what Custom settings you might have used before making any comment -- apart from, again, stressing the importance of using the same Upper Field First setting as the original video; and ditto for DVD settings.

Your computer is certainly up to the job of editing AVCHD and you should normally have had no problem converting it to an SD DVD. But of course, the other thing to bear in mind is that, if it works, you should get a high quality DVD -- but it will never look anywhere near as good as the AVCHD original video.

[sleeper]

Thanks Ken for the feed back. Sorry I didn't give you all the information. Iwill now. My camcorder is the sony cx 550v. And you are right I am recording in h.264 avchd. The project settings are: 720x480 ntsc frame rate of 29.97. Aspect ratio in 16:9 I use varable 8000 lpcm audio and mpeg file format.The field is lower field first. As you pointed out with hd the field is upper field first. What is happening is this.The share file is being created without any difficulity. The disk playes in the computer with windows media player.It just won't play in a stand alone dvd player. I am using vs pro x3. Do you think it could just be me changing the field order?What do you think. If you need any more information let me know. Thanks for your help.

[Ken Berry]

No, it would not be a question of the Field Order, though you should definitely be changing that to match the original Upper Field First (use Share > Create Video File > Custom, and change the Field Order there...)

Unfortunately, not all stand-alone DVD player are created equal, and even more unfortunately, the higher priced, brand name ones are the most finicky about what they will play. On the other hand, the el cheapo ones from China or Korea will play almost anything round and silver you put in them!

The basic problem is that home-made DVD are burned to disc, whereas commercial ones are pressed. And some DVD players simply don't like certain kinds of discs. Some don't like a particular brand or batch made in a particular factory. Some don't like the colour of the dye used on the disc. Some don't like +R discs while others don't particularly like certain -R discs; and some don't like RW discs of either persuasion at all... So I am afraid it is a bit of trial and error to find a suitable type of DVD which will tend to play in most players.

One thing many of us here recommend is to burn your DVD at a much lower speed than the rated speed of a disc. The theory is that the slower speed allows the burning laser to embed the signal more deeply or firmly in the disc, and thus potenitally allow more reading lasers in a variety of stand-along DVD players to be able to read it. For instance, I have settled on 12x or 8x Ritek blank DVDs as my own favourite and they happily burn on my LG, Pioneer, Matshita and ASUS burners, and appear to play on all the stand-alone players of the family and friends who receive my discs. But though they may be rated to burn at 12x, I set the burn speed at 4x. Higher rated disc may not allow 4x, but if they allow 8x then choose that...

The problem here, though, is that for some unknown reason Corel appears to have eliminated the ability change burn speeds from VS X3 (though it existed in previous versions). So I now use X3 to "burn" a DVD Folder (Video_TS) instead of an actual disc. You could also "burn" a disc image file (.ISO). And then you use a program like Nero or Roxio to burn the Folder or ISO file to disc, choosing your own burning speed.

[sleeper]

I use img for burning a disk at 2x. It does a good job with avchd disk. And they play fine in the stand alone dvd player. I even made a sd disk from the camcorder and it plays fine in the stand alone dvd player. I'll try the field changes and then see if I can do the conversion with the camcorder itself. Oh well , thanks for trying Ken I appreciate the effort. Too bad vs 3 can't do it . Thanks again.