I'm looking for the best way to edit and convert to master to DVD so that the rest of the DVD owning family can see the video. I've got to say that the quality of the original HD recording is remarkable using the HF100. The challenge I've had is that I'm using Pinnacle Ultimate 11 which doesn't really give you many options. I've converted to burn to DVD but even at best quality I'm getting "jittery" video, just like the kind you get when you record in 24p or 30p. Going side to side with the camera loses focus unlike the original and it takes a while until it sets itself straight to focus on the scene. The movement of my old DV cam is much better than this from a "smoothness" category although beaten senseless from a resolution standpoint. If you're on a tripod or steady, the quality even on DVD is fantastic. I just want to get rid of that jitter effect that seems to have been coded with the video somehow.

Sounds like a deinterlacing issue. I'm not an expert in Pinnacle but make sure the upper field is set first for the source input (and DV output is lower field). Also check the deinterlacing method. I assume you have all 60i material.

I just did a quick test with Vegas and appears to work fine. Motion was fluid. I used MPEG2 VBR. I also had good results always with tmpgenc xpress (both you can get a free 30 day trial). However I believe Pinnacle should be able to produce similar output. There's probably an input or output setting incorrect.

EDIT: actually you shouldn't need to deinterlace at all with DVD... Is the source material interlaced?

If you captured your video in 60i, you should select the "Widescreen Interlaced" on the DVD drop down in Pinnacle if you want to keep the temporal information. In this case, it will need to deinterlace the 1080i signal and re-interlace it in 480i, but it will do so using 60fps, so you will keep the temporal data, and it will be more fluid. Of course, 9Mbps MPEG2 720x480, even done right, will still look a little soft on fast pans when compared to 17Mbps H.264. But it shouldn't be jittery.

If you recorded your video clips in 30p, you most probably want to select "Widescreen Progressive" to keep the data progressive (30p).

Since I'm not aware of any 24p DVD output support in Pinnacle, you may be out of luck using 24p content and trying to burn a DVD using Pinnacle in this case. You probably want to use another software to author if you used 24p.

You hit the nail on the head eric - the source was mostly captured in 60i going to a 1080i set. I guess it is a deinterlacing issue. I recorded only a short bit in 30p but what you tell me makes me wonder if the problem I'm seeing of "jittery" video has to do with watching it on a 1080i set. This is all such a pain and hard to believe it's this difficult.

I decided to get a copy of Sony Vegas 8 for $130 given what many are saying as other limitations of the Pinnacle software but, from what you guys say, it's all there for the editing...

Thanks much guys

I'm wondering if it is just pinnacle but in converting the video to DVD my audio is at least a half to a full second behind the picture. The interface is simple but not very intuitive and I'm just not getting a great feeling about the Pinnacle product. I'm sure some of you are using it with good results but I'm having a challenging time.

I'm wondering if it is just pinnacle but in converting the video to DVD my audio is at least a half to a full second behind the picture. The interface is simple but not very intuitive and I'm just not getting a great feeling about the Pinnacle product. I'm sure some of you are using it with good results but I'm having a challenging time.

Hmm... I'm not experiencing this... and I've used Pinnacle for over a year now with both SR1 and SR11 content without seeing A/V sync issues. What is your content looking like? 30p? 24p? Or just 60i? Have you tried to toggle hardware optimization? How about the prerending option? What are your initial project settings? Does it playback without A/V sync issues in the preview control within Pinnacle?

My personal experience with Pinnacle is somewhat mixed too. It can be very powerful, but it's quite buggy too. I do save my projects often when I edit. But at that price point, it's hard to get features like PIP, blue-screen, VitaScene effects and MovingPicture pans in other products. Hopefully, v12 will be more stable.

The content is virtually all 60i and I realize that only some of the scenes are being rendered out of sync, not the whole DVD. The 30p stuff I recorded looks fine and synced fine. The playback in the scenes is perfectly in sync if you mean clickin on the scene in the timeline on the bottom and playing it. I'm going to choose "always re-render" as another option and hopefully that will fix some of the problem but I'm not sure why it should be. I'm glad I'm using my crappy old memorex dvd-r to test my burns instead of my quality Tayo Yudens. :)

I'm not sure if I'm regretting my decision to by Sony Vegas Pro but at $130 I was told it is a steal. I didn't get manuals which I do like to read but I can always read the PDF version and be fine. As a whole, Pinnacle is pretty powerful if you can figure out the interface and like it as many do and you point out to numerous special effects I didn't even know existed and realize now make it a rather incredible piece of software. I did get a cool green blanket for blue/green screen effects and other neat stuff that they have on there like predefined templates for just about anything, although I find most of it incredibly cheesy, lol. (f note, if anyone is looking for a copy of Pinnacle Studio Pro 11 + Ultimate edition I actually have an extra copy which I've been to lazy to put up on ebay and glad to sell to an enthusiast here.)

LOL

I agree.

It's weird because it's got those really pro-like effects/transitions, and they're side-by-side with really bad, crappy, cheesy ones. I guess the bundled 3rd party ones are the real gems, and the rest is more or less mediocre. But in the end, it's still an interesting package. :)

Hopefully, Vegas will give you a much better experience, so you don't miss anything in Pinnacle.

OK - here's the issue. The scene I'm burning to DVD is 10 minutes long. I think that when it's being encoded to MPEG it's becoming more out of sync as time moves along. You don't notice it until the 7 minute mark when there is a close up on the speakers and then you notice that the sync is off by a half second to a full second. I'm trying to compensate by pulling the scene into the video twice and cutting the visible portion in half so it renders 5 minutes for the first half and 5 for the second. Hopefully that will solve this sync problem.

Regarding Vegas, I have no idea what to expect but so many are swearing it's great for the little video editing I expect to do. Now that I've gotten more used to Pinnacle I guess it's not such a hassle but I still find it a bit clunky. And you're right - the built in stuff is excellent for transition and effects but I think some of the extra Hollywood effects are more like Bollywood!!

OK - here's the issue. The scene I'm burning to DVD is 10 minutes long. I think that when it's being encoded to MPEG it's becoming more out of sync as time moves along. You don't notice it until the 7 minute mark when there is a close up on the speakers and then you notice that the sync is off by a half second to a full second. I'm trying to compensate by pulling the scene into the video twice and cutting the visible portion in half so it renders 5 minutes for the first half and 5 for the second. Hopefully that will solve this sync problem.

Regarding Vegas, I have no idea what to expect but so many are swearing it's great for the little video editing I expect to do. Now that I've gotten more used to Pinnacle I guess it's not such a hassle but I still find it a bit clunky. And you're right - the built in stuff is excellent for transition and effects but I think some of the extra Hollywood effects are more like Bollywood!!

I just converted a WMVHD 10M (progressive) to DVD (VBR 2 pass)and results look great. So that's another option doing a 2-pass conversion. Sure you could get better quality from the original source but you lose anyway quite some resolution. It rendered also almost in real-time.

I just converted a WMVHD 10M (progressive) to DVD (VBR 2 pass)and results look great. So that's another option doing a 2-pass conversion. Sure you could get better quality from the original source but you lose anyway quite some resolution. It rendered also almost in real-time.
What tools were you using? I'm willing to give it a shot and hopefully the results are that good that it will make me forget about an almost very good one click conversion. ;)

What tools were you using? I'm willing to give it a shot and hopefully the results are that good that it will make me forget about an almost very good one click conversion. ;)

I used tmpgenc xpress and choose mpeg2 with AC3 encoding and VBR. Second I also choose elementary streams to get 2 seperate files (which helps with authoring tools and potential audio sync issues).

You could try the same in Pinnacle by opening the rendered progressive HD video and choose mpeg2 output (16:9 display and interlaced with top field). Again I know it's not great to re-render again but it's only DVD quality and it looks just fine to me (certainly for family).

OK - here's the issue. The scene I'm burning to DVD is 10 minutes long. I think that when it's being encoded to MPEG it's becoming more out of sync as time moves along. You don't notice it until the 7 minute mark when there is a close up on the speakers and then you notice that the sync is off by a half second to a full second. I'm trying to compensate by pulling the scene into the video twice and cutting the visible portion in half so it renders 5 minutes for the first half and 5 for the second. Hopefully that will solve this sync problem.


This is probably a mis-match of drop frame and non drop frame in the work flow. Be sure your timeline uses drop frame and the audio and video do also. If your source video is DV it is by default drop frame. When played back the audio tracka are started at the same time as the video but if you keep all time the same you should be able to do a long form program and have the sound stay in sync. I have done up to a 3.5 hour event and didn't have a problem. I have seen the time mismatch throw the audio out by 4 seconds at the end of a half hour program.

Don - thanks for the info. I was guessing a mismatch of some kind but couldn't put my finger on it. Now I understand why many are saying you need to obtain a quick degree in video editing in order to use these applications for mastering down to DVD. It was so very simple back in the days when I had my Sharp DV cam and simply downloaded the video to the DVR, edited and burned.

The next question is which video editors will allow me to do this with better results. I have Pinnacle Studio 11 and Sony Vegas Pro 8 and will take a look in the manual to see if there is mention of this. I find Studio's "easy" interface to be quite confusing in its simplicity and not at all intuitive. I haven't installed Vegas yet but figured it would be a better choice given how many rave about it.

Hi all...

I'm currently researching which camcorder to buy and this thread is very relevant to my search. I'm a novice and my fiance' and I will not likely do much editing. We have an Samsung LCD HDTV and BD-1400 Blu-Ray player. It seems that any of the AVCHD camcorders should produce a file that can burned to DVD/BD and played in our player...we are fine with that. But...we need to be able to share this video with others as the original poster mentioned.

What I am wondering is whether there is a dummy proof (no, we are not dummies...we just don't have the time to sit and edit / convert video) product that will just take what I shoot and burn it to plain old DVD? If there isn't something quick / dummy proof, I will likely have to go with an SD camcorder just to keep everything simple.

Any advice on how this can be accomplished would be appreciated (and any camcorder advice as well).

Thanks,
Evan

Hi all...

I'm currently researching which camcorder to buy and this thread is very relevant to my search. I'm a novice and my fiance' and I will not likely do much editing. We have an Samsung LCD HDTV and BD-1400 Blu-Ray player. It seems that any of the AVCHD camcorders should produce a file that can burned to DVD/BD and played in our player...we are fine with that. But...we need to be able to share this video with others as the original poster mentioned.

What I am wondering is whether there is a dummy proof (no, we are not dummies...we just don't have the time to sit and edit / convert video) product that will just take what I shoot and burn it to plain old DVD? If there isn't something quick / dummy proof, I will likely have to go with an SD camcorder just to keep everything simple.

Any advice on how this can be accomplished would be appreciated (and any camcorder advice as well).

Thanks,
Evan

The software that comes with the SR10/11/12 (Picture Motion Browser) is dead easy. You choose your clips, author simple menus and burn to DVD. It's free with the camcorder and it works. It's not necessarilly quick, but no piece of software will be able to do a real-time conversion of AVCHD content to DVD.

Also, note that the SR10/11/12 can shoot in SD mode, directly in MPEG2 that can be drag-dropped into multiple DVD editing applications without needing re-compression, which makes it the fastest DVD authoring workflow (other than DVD-based camcorders of course). But if I were you, I would record in HD and go through the DVD conversion even if it's slower, so I can use the content in HD quality in the future.

With the current options available, I would not be buying a "SD" camcorder, unless you're really tied up to a budget below $500.

Thanks very much..that is the info I m looking for. I like the Sony. The only drawback from my perspective is Memory Stick Duo...I have so many SD cards and no Sticks.

Wondering if there are any others that will do the same?

Thanks Again.

It was also a factor in my decision. Having the hard drive - which I found needless with flash ram - spiked the price and weight/size of the camera. I wanted to get the CX7 but that didn't have full resolution. What also was bothering me was, assuming I could get the CX7 and be happy (still higher than the HF100 by several hundred dollars), my inability to use large sticks with anything but that camera and, if I wanted to be safe shooting over a vacation, 2 8GB memory sticks (16GB is still unavailable) would come out to even more than two 16GB SDHC sticks at class 6! Sony cameras are super nice and the build quality is excellent as is the video. But at the price they are charging I just found that unless you use it frequently, are either a video professional or serious enthusiast, their higher price barriers and cost of sticks kept me away. Unfortunate but those were the facts for me.

Does anyone have similar feedback using software included with other camcorders, Canon, panny, etc?

Pixela bundled with the HF100/HF10 will also let you burn DVD as well as AVCHD discs.

I've used Nero version 8 ultra with pretty good success making DVDs. Nero will let you burn DVD video to a DVD+R or -r (the bundled software only lets you burn to -r disks). You can also burn AVCHD video to a DVD that will play in blu-ray or HD-DVD players or if you have the hardware, you can burn to a Blu-Ray disk.

Its a great option for anyone not looking to do too much editing of the footage but needs a vehicle to get the footage onto media. Nero also has a lot of cool templates you can download for your DVDs and Blu-Ray discs.

The option to burn only to DVD-R is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. I mean c'mon, being able to burn on +R and -R has been an industry standard for years. I hope they put out a patch to address this. :(

Flan