When Blue-Ray playback is not smooth is that caused by bit rates that are too high or too low?
As I understand it, the standard for AVCHD discs has a maximum permissible bitrate of 18 Mbps (18,000 kbps), though some say 20 Mbps. Normally, that would not be a problem since the majority of AVCHD camcorders used the old international standard maximum of 18 Mbps. But the international AVCHD standard -- for the video itself, not AVCHD discs -- was changed to 24 Mbps. So if you somehow burned your AVCHD disc with a bitrate higher than 18 Mbps, this could be your problem. To do so, however, I think you would just be transferring the AVCHD to disc using some other program, as VS and I am pretty sure MF will only burn an AVCHD disc using a maximum bitrate of 18 Mbps.
Some other post mention a time length limitation. My AVCHD disk is 26 minutes long, should it be shorter? Is there a really time and length limitation of movies on AVCHD disk or is it really a disk space limitation of the underlying DVD media, 4 or 8 GBs? I wonder.
Those "other posts" possibly included mine. I found that, using the maximum bitrate of 18 Mbps, I could get not much more than 20 minutes of video (plus menu) onto a single layer 4.3 Gb DVD. These all worked very well for me and gave the highest possible quality. Moreover, like you, I was using HDV as the original video. You can, of course, fit a lot more AVCHD on a DVD, but that means lowering the maximum bitrate, and that in turn means lowering the final quality. It should not, however, affect the ability of the disc to play.
I should, however, add one caveat here. MF 7 Pro (and SE) don't allow you to specify a burning speed. It is grayed out, so you end up using the maximum rated speed for the disc you are using. That may cause the sort of problem you describe on some Blu-Ray players which, like their stand-alone DVD player equivalent, may be more selective about reading AVCHD discs burned at too high a speed. The theory is that a slower burn speed will enable to video signal to be burned into the disc a slight bit better, allowing a wider range of reading lasers to read the signal properly. A higher burn speed might result in a signal on the disc which is fainter in parts, causing some reading lasers to skip or stop.
Should test burns be made using DVD-R media instead? DVD+RW has a slower write speed versus DVD-R media, I wonder if the read speed is also slower. I wonder.
I always test my AVCHD disks on a +RW DVD. I use TDK discs for that. And I have never had the problem.
My AVCHD disk was burned at 100% compression, was that too high? I wonder.
This is another possible problem. Essentially, I leave that compression slider alone at its default point. At best, it might give a small increase in quality. I personally have never noticed such an increase, though that may just be my eyes!
Some people, on the other hand, swear by it. But the point is that for less powerful computers -- especially using an incredibly demanding format like AVCHD -- pushing the compression slider up to 100% can cause problems, and we usually suggest people reduce it to, say, 90% or less, and see if that works...
Any clues appreciated.
I personally never used X3 to burn AVCHD discs. I always used X2 with the "old" burning module in it. I have thus never used the silly new burning module in X3 nor MF 7 (either SE or Pro) to burn such a disc.
The only other thing I can think of, since you are not making a menu to go with the disc, would be to simply burn your final AVCHD file to disc using some other program in DATA mode i.e. just as though you were burning some other sort of file for storage on a DVD. But of course, use a lower burning speed. Your Blu-Ray player should nevertheless be able to detect the video and play it.
I went to BestBuy, a national electronics chain store, to test my AVCHD disk on a brand new Blue-Ray player attached to a 54" HDTV because I do not own a Blue-Ray player.