Burning AVCHD to DVD

[Elevatorguy]

Hi,
I searched this forum but couldn't come up with an answer. I have a Canon HF10 and have some footage that I want to burn to DVD in AVCHD format so that I can both use it as a backup and watch it on my Sony Blu-Ray player. I am confused as to what exactly I need to burn to the disc. I have .dmg "links" that open up a disc image of my clips. When I open the disc image, I get an AVCHD file. If I open that up, I get AVCHDTN, BDMV, and CANON files. I tried burning the .dmg file to a DVD and the AVCHD file to a DVD and neither worked. Which file do I need to burn to a DVD to be able to play the disc in HD in my Blu-Ray player? By the way, it is a Sony BDP-301 Blu-Ray player and the manual says that it will play AVCHD encoded material. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[tcgjeukens]

Elevator Guy,

This is the "fun" part of AVCHD you never hear marketing people tout about

AVCHD is a very efficient format to store captured video (on solid state media). Due to its extreme compression, the format is not easy for native editing. Most software does not even have the possibility to do native editing and if it does, you will need a very very fast CPU.

AVCHD is also not a distrubution format for your final product. Your camera is capable of displaying the HD content on a HD TV using a HDMI cable: your camera knows how to interpret the directory structure on the HDD/ Storage card, which file to use and how to convert that compressed file into the HD signal.

What you describe is twofold:
1. You need an archiving solution
2. You need a distribution solution

Ad 1.
For AVCHD archiving you need to copy the entire camera disk/media structure to your archive desitination. You can create a dmg but a folder structure will do as well. Both dmg and folder structure can be copied to a DVD, backup HDD or tape providing the destination space is big enough.
Note: in this form it serves as arvhive only, not suitable for editing or displaying.

Ad 2.
For AVCHD distribution you will have to wait for a proper HD Blu-ray DVD authoring solution.
If you "dump" the AVCHD folder structure to a regular SD DVD, it will be a data-DVD. Any DVD player will not recognize it as a video-DVD.
To become a video-DVD your source material must a) be formatted in a way a DVD-player will recognize and b) burned to disk as video-DVD.
In your case: your Blu-Ray player will recognize AVCHD as format but it does not recognize the disk as being a BD-DVD-Video.
Since you insert as SD-DVD your player is even more confused as it does not associate HD-AVCHD content with a SD-disc.

In case you want to use the AVCHD viewing capabilities of your blu-ray player you will need to:
i. Have a blu-ray burner (any)
ii. Have blu-ray discs (any)
iii. Have blu-ray authoring software (CS Encore)
Do search for blu-ray workflow on this forum. You will see the workflow is not (yet) -friendly.

I guess they did not tell you the above when you chose your HD camera?

Coen

 

[lharvest]

Actually, Toast 9 with the HD plugin can take the .mts files and burn them onto a standard DVD that can then be played in high def on a blu-ray player. Minor editing (in and out point of a clip) is allowed, but it does allow you to put the 'raw' video on DVD media for both archival and viewing purposes.

 

[CMD is me]

Actually, Toast 9 with the HD plugin can take the .mts files and burn them onto a standard DVD that can then be played in high def on a blu-ray player. Minor editing (in and out point of a clip) is allowed, but it does allow you to put the 'raw' video on DVD media for both archival and viewing purposes.

When you say "in and out point of a clip" do you mean you can cut clips?

I have a HF100 and after watching the RAW video vs edited, the RAW looks MUCH better and smoother. I don't plan to do much editing for now (as I did with my miniDV). It would be nice to at least split clips and delete parts, but keep everything in its original 1080-60i AVCHD format.

 

[lharvest]

That's the theory - though I've never actually tried it. Toast touts this as a capability in the manual. The editing is very basic and it is certainly not at the frame level - more of the 'general area' level.

I can attest that it will burn HD to a normal DVD (or dual layer). Obviously, there is less space on those disks so the amount able to be burned is less. FCE will also import clips from these disks.

I'll fool around with the basic editing and let you know what I find. Please give me a couple of days to experiment.

 

[CMD is me]

I'll fool around with the basic editing and let you know what I find. Please give me a couple of days to experiment.

I'd love to find out. Shooting linear tape, watching RAW footage can be dreadfully boring. With AVCHD you can just delete or FWD, but there is always footage inside a good clip you wish you could delete. Take for example the "look it's a dolphin!" shots... you know the dolphin is going to pop up any second. But the second becomes 10, 20 seconds of still water. I'd be nice to cut out all but 2 and keep the clip. I'd also be nice to do so without having to do a full edit and lose the smooth 1080-60i video. Looking forward to your findings!

 

[lharvest]

First, I apologize for taking so long to reply.

Try as I might, I have been unable to successfully edit a clip and have it burn properly to a DVD. The program appears to accept the editing (markers in place and length of clip reduced according to the indicator), but when I burn the disc, the entire unedited clip plays. I went through half a dozen discs experimenting and searched the Toast forums and the web for insights. Seems like no one has actually been able to get this to work.

So, while I can't recommend it for the editing, the burning blu-ray compatible discs on regular DVD media is a good thing.

Sorry I don't have better news.

 

[CMD is me]

Thanks for trying. Hopefully its just a bug that will be worked out? So you are able to burn the original unedited SDHC content onto a standard DVD? I love making our trips into hour long mini movies (titles, nice intros, music, scene transitions, etc), BUT from all the tests I've tried, the original footage has a much higher quality. If I can just transfer a 8GB SDHC to DVD-DL as-is, I may stick with that....

plan B is to wait until some of the sub $10 8GB card deals from black Friday come back and use them in place of a DVD -- I might even glue a SD card holder inside a DVD case for storage in my media cabinet!

 

[clyparkr]

wow this is exactly the info i was looking for.

I just got a new samsung bd-p2550 blu-ray player and I've had a Canon HF100 camcorder for about 6 months now and have a ton of video I've shot and uploaded to Vimeo.

However there are a lot of videos I want to be able to watch on DVD without splurging for a bluray burner.

My question for you guys is... How much video loss am I looking at if I take a video I created in imovie and export at its highest video settings and attempt to burn that to DVD?

It really sucks that there isnt anything you can use to edit the video and save it back to .mts / AVCHD format.

 

[Courtaj]

How much video loss am I looking at if I take a video I created in imovie and export at its highest video settings and attempt to burn that to DVD?

DVD uses standard definition mpeg-2. So there's going to be a resoution loss. But if you do it right it'll still look nice and sharp when played on a TV. What are you going to do, crouch in front of the screen and count pixels?

Just do it. Format inertia is a killer.

 

[bp1000]

Nothing like reviving an old thread

I'm also looking for the exact same solution as the op.

Is there any way to transfer cam footage in mts avhcd format straight to dvd for viewing on a blue ray player?

All this transcoding and encoding in iMovie takes ages.