Hi, I just bought a Canon HG21 and started filming around; then, as for the moment I still have a SD television, I tried to burn on a normal DVD some footage but the risult I got was strange: the images are nice, and so the sound, but the motion has "skips", it doesen't flow continuously like one woulod expect.
Plugging the camera directly to the TV and watching the videos from there they look perfect, but the same videos seen from the DVD look as if they lack some photograms.
I imagine the problem has to do with the software I used to edit and burn the videos: on my PC I have Nero 7, with NeroVision 4 which opens the files, edits them and lets me burn DVDs.
Is it possible that the software does this but isn't actually able to edit the footage correctly?
Or that program should work fine and there's a bug in my process?
Thanks a lot for any advice

did you shoot it at 24p?

do you know what framerate nero is encoding the mpeg2 dvd file at?

When you use Nero to edit, do you preview the edit before you burn? Is that video choppy as well? How robust is your PC?

Why not use the Pixela software that came with the camcorder. It will allow you to choose the clips you want, convert them to the MPEG-2 format required for standard DVD play and burn the disc. You might get a brief pause when going from one clip to the other but other than that you should not see any stuttering.

I've got a PAL camera, so the shot settings are a bit different then the NTSC: I shot at 50i (I think the equivalent for NTSC is 60i); the alternative setting is 25p (should be like the 24p in NSC cameras).
I think the framerate at which Nero encodes the DVDs is 25 fps.

Actually the videos seen on the PC look choppy both using Windows Media Player and using the preview in Nero.
I thought that this problems in playback was due to the low "robustness" of my PC (it's a Intel Core2 2,66 Ghz with 2Gb RAM), but I also thought that the only editing problem caused by the low power of my computer would be a long processing time.

I didn't install Pixela because reading around this and other forums it seemed It's not such a great software, and I had been using Nero for a couple years with my previous camera. If Nero can't handle properly my AVCHD files I'll try to switch to Pixela, but if I can go on with a software I already know...I'll stick with that!

nero should match the framerate it was shot at, but you'll want to verify that, by comparing the source framerate with the encoded mpeg2 framerate.

nero showtime on the core2duo should play back raw avchd at the full framerate.

editing it could be an issue, tho, because you'll want the latest version of nero, for the best compatibility.

you could trying installing pixela, and testing it out.

Ok, I'll try to find out where to control the encoded mpeg2 framerate in Nero, and try using Nero Showtime instead of Windows Media Player to see if it plays back raw avchd correctly, then I'll post again.
Can it be a problem, in playing back avchd, that I've got Nero 7 instead of the latest version?
Should be there any difference, from the "choppiness" point of view, in shooting 50i or 25p?
Thanks again.

Bad news: I can't find the Pixela software CD! I bought a used camcorder and in the box I only find a Canon Digital Video Solutions CD (I thought it was the correct one, but...it seems it wasn't!).
While I wait for the guy who sold me the camera to give me the other CD, I wonder if in the previous tests I used the right files: I copied on the PC hard disk the .mts files from the "streams" folder which is in the camcorder Hard Disk, and then edited them with NeroVision. Are these the correct ones or I should have made some intermediate steps before? I ask this because in another thread in this forum I read that the files to use are named m2ts instead of mts...I think I'm a bit confused!

Bad news: I can't find the Pixela software CD!

you can download it
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16429836#post16429836

Sorry, I tried to download the software but I can only find an updater for a previous version of ImageMixer.

editing the .mts is right, those are the video files... the nero showtime player will tell you what framerate the file is, if you tell the player to show the info.

frys has the sony vegas movie studio platinum 9 for free after rebates, you might be able to use your nero package to satisfy the competitive upgrade portion of the rebate(??):
http://shop3.frys.com/product/5700722

and then turn around later and use the vegas software to satisfy the nero competitive upgrade rebate at frys... nero comes up for sale for free on frys a couple of times a year.

frys has the sony vegas movie studio platinum 9 for free after rebates, you might be able to use your nero package to satisfy the competitive upgrade portion of the rebate(??):
http://shop3.frys.com/product/5700722

and then turn around later and use the vegas software to satisfy the nero competitive upgrade rebate at frys... nero comes up for sale for free on frys a couple of times a year.

Interesting!
Unluckily I live in Italy and the deadline for this rebate is too near to be able to use it: they require I send back, within wednesday the 13th, a paper form with a sticker taken from the box they send me with the software, but previous experience tells me that shippings from the US to Italy take at least a week...so I'll never get any sticker by the 13th!
I'll keep controlling frys.com for the next rebate.

I controlled with Nero Showtime the frame rates of the raw mts shots and of the mpeg2 DVD files: the raw mts seems to fluctuate between 19,6 and 22 fps (and between 24,5 and 28,9 Mbit/s), while the mpeg2 file from the DVD I made is at 25 fps (like it shoud be, as PAL television has that frame rate) and between 8 and 10 Mbit/s.
Is it possible that the shots I took with the camera have varying frame rates??
Thanks.
Paolo

I am not sure if my experience is applicable to your case but it looks very similar. I have a Sanyo HD2000 and when I burned to DVD using Nero Vision to PAL format, the videos skips when view on my PAL TV. However when I burned the DVD using the NTSC format, the playback was OK on the PAL TV. I do not know which format (PAL/NTSC) you used but you can try both and see if there is any difference when playing back the DVD. You may have to change some settings (e.g. TV system) in the DVD player depending on the brand.

I am not sure if my experience is applicable to your case but it looks very similar. I have a Sanyo HD2000 and when I burned to DVD using Nero Vision to PAL format, the videos skips when view on my PAL TV. However when I burned the DVD using the NTSC format, the playback was OK on the PAL TV. I do not know which format (PAL/NTSC) you used but you can try both and see if there is any difference when playing back the DVD. You may have to change some settings (e.g. TV system) in the DVD player depending on the brand.

I used PAL format, as here in Italy we use this TV system. I tried to make a NTSC mpeg2 file (but my camcorder can't switch between the two systems: what I can do is tell Nero Vision to export in NTSC mode instead of PAL), but the video still skips, even if somewhat differently.
Maybe this has something to do with te variable fps rate read by Nero Showtime on the original raw mts files?

I just downloaded a trial version of sony vegas movie studio platinum 9, to see if ti could produce something better then my Nero 7.
First of all, it detects the raw mts shots framerate correctly at 25 fps, instead of a fluctuating value as seemed to do my old version of Nero Showtime.
Then I made a quick DVD to see if also wit sony vegas 9 there are those "jumps", and instead it flows perfectly! Probably the Nero version I had was too old to handle correctly the AVCHD?
I'll make some more tests, but ... maybe I'll have to upgrade to Nero 9.

frys has the sony vegas movie studio platinum 9 for free after rebates, you might be able to use your nero package to satisfy the competitive upgrade portion of the rebate(??):
http://shop3.frys.com/product/5700722


After playing a bit with the trial version of vegas movie studio 9 I'm starting to think that I could switch to it, even if there are some things I haven't tested yet (like menus, DVD burning...). It seems to have many more controls than Nero, at least than the version I've got. I wish I could try the latest version of Nero, but the trial version of Nero 9 comes with the AVCHD editing features disabled!
It seems quite a stupid thing to do, but...that's what I read on the Nero site.