I loved the way I could convert my recordings off of my Canon HV20 onto DVD in HD-DVD format. App 40 minute videos with menus on DVD-DL was about as long as anyone in my family can watch anyways. But since others in my family are getting BD players, and I'm the only one with an HD-DVD player, its time to make a switch.

I'm looking for reviews on software that can do this in BD format, and BD players guaranteed to play them. Can anyone point me to posts or sites that have this information? Thanks.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/

For the Mac you can use Toast 9 and pay $20 extra for HD/BD Plug-in that lets you burn AVCHD files to DVDs that play on most -- if not all Blu-ray players.

Update: Sorry, I thought that the HV20 was AVCHD based -- never mind if it isn't:-(

The problem with the HV20 is that it is MPEG2 based.... (not a problem for me... I think this avchd stuff is just NOT ready for prime time.... but that's another story)

BD players are nice to avchd disks on dvd5/9, but not so nice to mpeg2 disks. This is NOT an accident.... Sony wants to push its avchd as much as it can.

At any rate you can create a BDAV mpeg2 based disk on dvd media and kind of trick the players into thinking it playing avchd. But as far as mpeg2 with menus and such..... forget it. If you want menus then you're left with little choice but to transcode over to avchd. The other option of course is simply break down and get a bd burner so you can burn mpeg2 with menus.... which is what I did (I have the HV20, the HC3, and the HC7) Don't regret the BD burner one little bit!!

At any rate, the programs available for avchd disks and such are:

Pinnacle Studio
Power Director
Sony Vegas Platinum
Sony Vegas pro
All of the Ulead products.

(I use Vegas pro for editing and Ulead Movie Factory for burning both avchd disks and Blu Ray)

Players to get.... there's only one I would recommend and that's the PS3. The PS3 is by far the most versatile for playing different media types, and in fact it will play M2T files so you can capture your HV20 to the HDD as M2T and then straight COPY the file to a disk and the PS3 will play it

One thing to remember, only Panasonic and Sony BD players work well with AVCHD. I briefly owned the Magnavox player and it had numerous problems with AVCHD (menues were the worst), and I have read about Samsung owners too that could not play AVCHD.

While Sony is going to push AVCHD as the future, don't expect it work on every player.

btw, I own a Sony CX12 camcorder and use my PS3s to play my AVCHD discs.

btw, I own a Sony CX12 camcorder and use my PS3s to play my AVCHD discs.

Absolutely true.

If you're just into watching Hollywood movies then any player will work for you. But for home movies, pictures, avchd disks...etc, etc then NOTHING beats the PS3. Frankly, it just doesn't make sense to get anything other than the PS3 if you want the flexibility required in home video.

I have an HV20. I store all my .mt2 files on an external drive and stream them through ethernet with TVersity to my PS3. Works really good. Wireless streaming of HDV is unwatchable, though.

One thing to remember, only Panasonic and Sony BD players work well with AVCHD. I briefly owned the Magnavox player and it had numerous problems with AVCHD (menues were the worst), and I have read about Samsung owners too that could not play AVCHD.

Sammy 1400 and 1500 play AVCHD without problems. I have first-hand experience with the former, and the instruction manual for the latter talks about AVCHD specifically.

Playstation 3 has no problems with AVCHD, and I'm sure that MPEG2 poses no problem for the OMGCELL processor either. ;)

I have an HV20. I store all my .mt2 files on an external drive and stream them through ethernet with TVersity to my PS3. Works really good. Wireless streaming of HDV is unwatchable, though.

It is a pain renaming files from .mt2s to .mt2, but it does work well. This is exactly what I do also.

Playstation 3 has no problems with AVCHD, and I'm sure that MPEG2 poses no problem for the OMGCELL processor either. ;)

I had several home movie HD DVD discs I made last year. They contain mpeg2 files, and I found they work just fine on the PS3. I put them on my media server and stream them with TVersity too!

Lucky 60Hz users.

I have a 50Hz Canon HV20 (Mpeg 2 tape-based) and playback on my PAL PS3 results in 576p when AVCHD format is used. Not amused!!!:mad:
Of course XMB playback is 1080i but in 60Hz, so thats no better.

If I render the footage out at 1920x1080 square pixel, it plays back correctly, but of course this defeats the purpose of being able to have fast playback of the raw footage.

Have tested with 60Hz HDV footage and it plays correctly at 1080i.

I'm not sure where the blame lies for this. Either its Sony's firmware, or TSmuxer or AVCHD ME (the two apps I'm using to process my mpeg 2 footage into AVCHD file structure).

If anyone has some suggestions to alternative software, I'd love to test it.

If anyone has some suggestions to alternative software, I'd love to test it.

Test Vegas.

Test Vegas.

Would that involve rendering out to AVC?

The current method I use more or less 'dresses-up' Mpeg 2 to appear as if it is AVCHD (at least thats what the PS3 believes it to be). The file isn't re-rendered so you are dealing with the footage exactly as it is from the initial capture.

If Vegas can do this then its worth considering. Thanks.

Would that involve rendering out to AVC?

The current method I use more or less 'dresses-up' Mpeg 2 to appear as if it is AVCHD (at least thats what the PS3 believes it to be). The file isn't re-rendered so you are dealing with the footage exactly as it is from the initial capture.

If Vegas can do this then its worth considering. Thanks.

I only use the Pro version. but i dont have any real problem with 23,976P, 25P and 50i encoding and playback on PS3. It even has bluray authoring.

Since its a Sony software it has very good support for its own format and hardware devices. The problem is other stuff.

Test the demo.


www.sonycreativesoftware.com


EDIT
Why are you trying to dressup mpeg2 files to AVCHD? Better to play the orginal files as MTS direct on the PS3.

EDIT
Why are you trying to dressup mpeg2 files to AVCHD? Better to play the orginal files as MTS direct on the PS3.

bigbarney pretty much summed it up in his first post.
I have an HDV tape-based camera (Canon HV20). So I'm dealing with mpeg 2, not AVC (MTS).

And because the PS3 will not play 50Hz footage @ 50Hz unless it thinks it is playing it off an AVCHD disc/filestructure, I have to use a few known tricks to fool the PS3 into thinking its dealing with AVCHD.

This works flawlessly for 60Hz HDV footage, but for some reason, the PS3 thinks my PAL HDV footage (1440x1080i@50Hz) is 576@50Hz.

bigbarney pretty much summed it up in his first post.
I have an HDV tape-based camera (Canon HV20). So I'm dealing with mpeg 2not AVC (MTS).

And because the PS3 will not play 50Hz footage @ 50Hz unless it thinks it is playing it off an AVCHD disc/filestructure, I have to use a few known tricks to fool the PS3 into thinking its dealing with AVCHD.

This works flawlessly for 60Hz HDV footage, but for some reason, the PS3 thinks my PAL HDV (1440x1080i@50Hz) footage is 567@50Hz.

I see, have to test again and check what happend with it, I almost never watch the orginal stream since I always do so much postwork on it, I can render it to AVC, WMV etc anyway.

Update:
I neglected to state that I was using a USB (pen) drive. This also appears to be part of the problem.

AVCHD ME.exe is a great little app that allows you to run your compilation on the PS3 via a USB drive, which of course saves you burning a disc. It renames (signs?) the files so that the USB drive presents itself to the PS3 as an AVCHD disc.
Unfortunately there is a breakdown somewhere when it comes to 50Hz encodes and I don't know of any alternative software.

I had no issue burning AVCHD discs and getting correct 1080i@50Hz playback, but of course that means sacrificing the ease and speed of USB for DVD-/+RW. :(

Still, I can wholeheartedly recommend AVCHD ME for anyone using a PS3 for playback and working with 60Hz and 24p content.

You may just want to bite the bullet and go for a BD burner which is what I did.... and I don't regret it for a second. Mpeg2 is legal on BD and is not at all restricted as it is when creating hi def dvd's. The quality and quantity I'm getting on a BD you can't even dream of getting on a DVD.... plus you can burn with complete menus and chapters with no worries of size restriction. Not only do I do video but I also do a lot of slide shows with pretty large still pics and I burn at bitrates of 35m or so..... it looks just stunning!

It's not that expensive any more (relitively speaking anyway). You can pick up a burner at newegg.com for about $240 and you can also get 25 packs of 25gig inkjet printable disks for as low as $199 which works out to about $8 per disk. IMO.... it's well worth it. You go to all the time, trouble and money to squeeze all the quality you can onto the screen only to find in the end that you're getting squeezed by these avchd disks, and dvd.... it doesn't make sense.

Yes it is getting to a more tempting pricepoint now.
DVD DL discs just don't cut it these days.

I should also add that the BD burners are really kind of play-all, do-all burners. They can playback hd dvd, and can even burn lightScribe disks so when you consider the universality of the burner.... it really isn't that much to spend.

I own the Canon HV20 and I bought Pinnacle Studio 11 for 30 buck to convert to BD (on a DVD).

I use Studio 11 to edit my HD video and then there is a feature to create what they call a AVDHD disk (on DVD).

It's great - the PQ is awesome and you can fit about 40 min of video on a Single layer DVD or 80 min of video on a Dual layer DVD.

It plays on the PS3 fine and others have used it on other players.

You can read up on the HV20 forum (hv20.com) and also look at the pinnacle studio forums.

Good luck.

Of course XMB playback is 1080i but in 60Hz, so thats no better.

Boy how things can change in a week!

PS3 firmware 2.50 arrived out of nowhere yesterday and brought with it.....
50Hz support for the XMB for video playback!!!!

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y64/faranheit/PS350Hzmenusettting.jpg

No more dumping back to tape. No more mickey-mouse AVCHD burning.
Thank you Sony. I am one happy PAL user (for once). :D

I should also add that the BD burners are really kind of play-all, do-all burners. They can playback hd dvd, and can even burn lightScribe disks so when you consider the universality of the burner.... it really isn't that much to spend.


not all of them can play back HD DVD discs, some, but not all.


if you are interested in going straight from HDV video to blu-ray
then TSMUXER is a free app that you can do this with. You must
capture/demux the stream though as the mpeg audio is not BD compliant.
you can convert it to .ac3 then remux it with the video in TSMUXER and
burn a BD from there.

I think thats what your looking for.

For authoring, DVDITPRO-HD (version 6.4) has many features that other
low cost BD authoring apps don't have like Dual LAYER BD-50 support,
menu buttons that actually work the same across players etc....

authoring apps don't have like Dual LAYER BD-50 support,
menu buttons that actually work the same across players etc....

They pretty much all support that now. Sony's dvdArchitect (pro version), Ulead's Movie Factory, Ulead's Video studio.... etc.

Ulead's DVD movie factory even does motion menus and pop up menus. It costs a grand total of about $75