avchd playback

[Ken Veal]

I have a Panasonic HC-920 camcorder and will be recording to a SDHC card.If it is set to record in the AVCHD format , can I burn to a standard DVD and preserve HD video , if not what method can I use to watch edited HD video on my HD TV(which is connected to a Blue ray player which has a USB port)

[BrianCee]

Yes you can burn AVCHD folders to a standard DVD to make what is known as a Hybrid disc - downside is of course you cannot get as much on a DVD as you would on a Blu-ray disc.

You do still need a blu-ray player to play a hybrid disc.

I have also copied the AVCHD folders to a USB flash drive and plugged that into my DVD player - but I did find that I had to change the extension of the movie in the folders to .mpg to get it to play - just that - no actual conversion of the video just change the extension so that my player would read it.

I have also had success by burning avchd folders to an SD card and plugging the card into a USB card reader plugged into the USB port on my blu-ray DVD player - again though I had to change the extension of the files to .mpg

[lata]

Hi Kenneth

I upgraded to HD last year and have burned a few Hybrid discs, I can get approx 40 minutes to a Standard 4.3 Gb disc.
The source files from my Panasonic 900, same format as Brian uses and probably the same as your camera.

Share Create Video File- same as first clip should convert the project to a MTS file, If that file is smaller than 4.3 Gb then it will fit to disc.
Copy the MTS file to a USB stick and it should play on your DVD player, if you have problems recognising that MTS, as Brian mentions re-name the file to use MPG rather than MTS. Whether you need to re-name seems to depend on the DVD players capability?

Share Create Disc—AVCHD – Add Media Files using the MTS video should burn to disc without further rendering, however
From the final page if you select Create AVCHD Folder will create the file structure containing the menu to your PC, copy the entire folders to a USB memory stick and it should play on the Bluray Player with menu.
At least you don’t waste a disc and can view the final quality.

I think you should give the USB stick or SD card options a try, playback through the Bluray Player and when you are happy with the results progress on to burning a disc.

[Ken Veal]

Thanks for all the info. Does it follow then that if there is 40 mins on the cam’s SDHC card that will be a 4o min video on a standard DVD if I go down that road , otherwise , it is the card's capacity that is the governing factor?

[lata]

Hi

I use 8 Gb cards they hold just over one hour of recordings at 16800kbps. I would assume that your camera uses the same providing you have it set for 25fps AVCHD recording.

Upps –recalculated…
I may be a little over the top with my 40 minutes, try 30 minutes at 16800kbps should fit to disc with a little to spare for menus.

For saving to USB stick there is no limit, except for the size of the usb memory?

[Ken Berry]

Upps –recalculated…
I may be a little over the top with my 40 minutes, try 30 minutes at 16800kbps should fit to disc with a little to spare for menus.

As with standard definition video and DVDs, the bitrate determines the size of the file. In the "old" days, when the maximum bitrate for AVCHD was 18 Mbps, I could squeeze about 23 or 24 minutes onto a single layer hybrid DVD, including a menu using the 18 Mbps bitrate. You can of course experiment with lowering the bitrate, and you will still get pretty good quality going as low as 12 Mbps and fitting a lot more on a single layer DVD.

And of course, if you down-convert the AVCHD to standard def mpeg-2, you can always burn a standard def DVD at pretty good quality (for standard def, of course) using a bitrate of 8000 kbps. But of course the quality will not be anywhere as good as the high def original.

[Terfyn]

I am recording on to a SD card from a 1920x1080/50p vid using "first frame" setting. The recorded file has the .m2t extension and runs fine on my Panasonic Blu-Ray player.

[lata]

Hi

I have tested out the 50P recording options but as it is not compatible for Bluray discs I record most of the time using 25fps.
But yes the 50P files should play via usb stick option but will be converted if burning a disc.

I did some recordings of humming birds with the intension of converting to 25fps to slow the video, using Image Sequencing to retain all frames.
However I really think a high speed camera is required

Your post has prompted me to locate those 50P recordings.

[Ken Berry]

But yes the 50P files should play via usb stick option but will be converted if burning a disc.

Unless the video is 1280 x 720p which is the only format which uses 50/60 fps which can be burned to Blu-Ray disc under the international standard. Silly and now very much out of date, but there we are...

[lata]

It does seem a little strange that my player will play 1920 x 1080 50P MTS files, yet we are unable to burn those to disc or AVCHD/Bluray folders.

Maybe discs are on the way out and we will end up using memory to play our movies.

I have not tried the 1280 x 720 option, not sure which will produce the best quality 1920 x 1080 x 25 or 1280 x 720 x 50

because of industries standards I am using 25 fps for most of my work.

[Ken Berry]

720p can give very good quality... As I have said in other posts, it was for a long time the preferred format for HD TV broadcasts -- and indeed still is in some parts of the world.

[Ken Veal]

Bearing in mind:-
1 The jnfo in this post (and others)
2 The experience of users with AVCHD progressive recording (mine is 0%)
3 I will using a Panasonic HC-X920 camcorder recording to a SDHC card
4 Editing with VS X5
5 I will not have more than an hour of video to view on the TV from a standard DVD or USB stick
I am still not really sure on what project properties , preferences, capture options , settings and workflow to employ
When I used DV tape, I could refer to a detailed workflow list that I had put together with the help of this forum.
What I am begging for now is a recommended work flow that I can use to get the results I am aiming for.(That is, a project that, when viewed will be of better quality than with DV tape)
I await a reply in grateful anticipation
Ken

[Terfyn]

Ken
It may be worth upgrading to X7. I am not experienced in the fine detail of the formats. I record in 1920x1080/50P and let the programme take the strain. I set the programme to "same as first clip" and record on to an AVCHD file. From there I copy on to a SD card for my Panasonic Blu-Ray player - and it works fine. I have also recorded on to a USB memory stick but in normal DVD format (SD) as the Blu-ray player instructions say that (with USB) it will only play from standard SD format.

[BrianCee]

you do not need to set any parameters at all anywhere to "capture" your video - in fact with AVCHD capture is the wrong word - what you do is transfer (or better still - copy) the videos from your camera card to your hard drive.

There are a number of ways you can do that - you can connect your camcorder to your PC by a USB cable (USB2 will work fine) and open "my computer" where the camcorder will then appear as an external drive - you search down through the folders on the camcorder SD card until you find the "Stream" folder - in there are your videos. Now "copy and paste" or "drag and drop" all the video files from the SD card into a new folder which you have created on your hard drive. The videos do not transfer in real time like DV tape did but very quickly as computer files.

OR you can take the SD card out of the camera and either put it in a USB card reader into a USB port - OR like me put the SD card straight into the SD card reader slot on my PC - then open "My computer" and you will again see the SD card as an external drive - proceed as above to copy the videos to your hard drive.

Unplug your camcorder - or remove SD card from computer.

NOW - open VideoStudio and create a new library pane with the name of your project - in the top left corner of each library pane is an icon which looks like a folder opening - click on it and browse to your new videos - select them and OK and the thumbnails will populate your library just as your tape ones did.

In VideoStudio go to "Settings >> Preferences" and under the 'Performance' tab make sure 'Enable Smart Proxy' is ticked also under "Settings" click to put a tick next to "Enable 60p/50p editing.

Now start dragging your videos from the library pane down into the timeline and start editing - can you get that far now ?

You will need more help when it comes to rendering your finished product.

[Ken Veal]

I have put together a workflow and would be grateful for corrections etc
workflow
1 in vs, create sub folder with project name in working folder.

2 in vs, open new project with same name as above and then add a new folder in the library with the same name.
3 in vs, under settings-preferences-in performance tab tick “enable smart proxy”
4 under settings tick “enable 60p/50p editing”
5 copy the videos from your camera card to your hard drive.
either
connect camcorder to pc via a usb cable, open my computer which will show the cam as an external drive then scroll through the card’s folders to find the” stream” folder.copy and paste or drag and drop the files into the appropriately named sub folder on the hard drive.
or
insert the card into a card reader and proceed as above.
6 in the project library pane-click on “insert media files” browse to folder, select appropriate files and click open.files then populate sub library.
7 drag files to timeline as required.

Might be a while before I can put this into practice as I have not even charged the cams battery yet but I am going to as soon as I can and get going