Want to burn AVCHD at 1280x720p

[Mauser]

Hello all - brand new to this forum and VS Pro X4 - I did some searching and 4 or 5 hours of reading on the forum so far, but cannot find this information.

Let me start by saying I do not consider myself an expert with video editing/authoring, but I do have a fair amount of experience with capturing/editing/authoring h.264 files via a Hauppauge 1212 HD-PVR, ArcSoft Total Media Extreme, and VideoReDo. In fact, I have burned around 5,000 DVD and 2,000 AVCHD discs with outstanding results using those products, as well as editing and storing thousands more captured programs directly to HDD. Unfortunately, these products do not allow me to create Blu-ray discs, so that is why I am trying to switch over to VS X4.

My baseline for what I want from VS X4 is simply what I have been able to do with no effort at all using ArcSoft Total Media Extreme (supplied with the HD-PVR): I capture HD programing at 1280x720p 60fps using a variable bit rate (usually 7 Mbps) and AC3 audio, edit out unwanted material, add menu and chapters, then burn directly to an AVCHD disc. Using this method, I generally get a minimum of 3 hours HD material on a standard DVD5 blank, and total authoring/burning time for a disc is somewhere around 20 minutes.

My problem is that I have not been able to come anywhere close to this efficiency yet with VS X4. The .ts source files play and edit in VS X4 just fine, but then I hit a wall when I try to produce the output. There don't seem to be any default project profiles to create AVCHD 1280x720p, and even when I try to use Customize, i cannot access the needed fields, such as user defined frame size. And everything I have tried produces HUGE output files, 4 or 5 times larger than the source files! Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanx!


Sample Source file MediaInfo:
ID : 0 (0x0)
Complete name : C:\Users\Public\Videos\Input for Edit or Resize\Holiday for Lovers 720p_7.1v.TS
Format : MPEG-TS
File size : 2.30 GiB
Duration : 1h 43mn
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 3 166 Kbps
Maximum Overall bit rate : 18.0 Mbps

Video
ID : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : 27
Duration : 1h 43mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 2 622 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 20.0 Mbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 59.940 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.047
Stream size : 1.90 GiB (83%)
Color primaries : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4, SMPTE RP177
Transfer characteristics : BT.709-5, BT.1361
Matrix coefficients : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4 709, SMPTE RP177

Audio
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 1h 43mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : -50ms
Stream size : 285 MiB (12%)

[teknisyan]

Hello Mauser,

You may want to use or create your own movie template, if AVCHD 1280x720p is not available on any of the preset settings on SHARE > CREATE DISC/VIDEO FILE.

You can go to SETTINGS > MAKE MOVIE TEMPLATES MANAGER > then select *.m2t for the file format, from there you can select the different attributes to your movie template like Frame rate, frame size, encoder and compression. You will then see the template that you created when you go to SHARE > VIDEO FILE.

After you have created a the AVCHD file, you can then open VS X4 again then go directly to SHARE > CREATE DISC then select AVCHD and on the next screen you can add the AVCHD video file that you created then just continue with the process.

[Mauser]

Hello Mauser,

You may want to use or create your own movie template, if AVCHD 1280x720p is not available on any of the preset settings on SHARE > CREATE DISC/VIDEO FILE.

You can go to SETTINGS > MAKE MOVIE TEMPLATES MANAGER > then select *.m2t for the file format, from there you can select the different attributes to your movie template like Frame rate, frame size, encoder and compression. You will then see the template that you created when you go to SHARE > VIDEO FILE.

After you have created a the AVCHD file, you can then open VS X4 again then go directly to SHARE > CREATE DISC then select AVCHD and on the next screen you can add the AVCHD video file that you created then just continue with the process.

Thank you for this suggestion, but I had tested variations of the .m2t file save already (and I repeated those tests after reading your suggestion). It does not produce even marginally acceptable results.

Problem 1: the resulting file size, even using the lowest possible variable bit rate, is more than twice as large as the original source file.
Problem 2: the picture quality is noticably worse on the saved file than the original.
Problem 3: saving the untouched source file in this format took 2 pointless hours to do nothing more than grossly inflate the file size and degrade the picture quality; therefore, using that output to burn an AVCHD disc would be a bad idea, even if the file size hadn't been inflated beyond the disc capacity.
Problem 4: even if this method didn't GROSSLY increase the file size and maintained a reasonable PQ, it is unacceptable not to see the estimated output size BEFORE you start the save process. Who wants to wait 2+ hours (and that was just for a single 2 hr video clip that should have barely taken 1/2 the disc) just to find out the resulting file size is slightly too large for the available disc?

However, that last idea about just importing the file into the Create Disc dialog was new information I did not have - it is good to see that it accepted the file as saved instead of showing that it would screw with it even more to convert it to unwanted 1080. Now, If I can just figure out a way to get VS to save my files in their existing format without insisting on destroying them by poor recoding, I'll be all set!

BTW, I have already tried saving the video using the option Same as First Video Clip - that did result is a reasonably quick save and reasonable file size, but the resulting file was virtually unplayable with jerky and shuddery motion. And there also doesn't seem to be any option to use that format and also mark it for AVCHD. Oh well...