I just purchased a Canon HG20. I am an old hand at consumer electronics, but totally new to camcorders. I'm looking for the easiest ways to watch my HD videos on my home theater.

Right now, I can hook my camera to my theater via HDMI and watch HD videos on my camera's hard drive. Is it also true that I could copy HD videos from my computer to an SDHC card, insert the card in the camera, hook the camera up via HDMI and watch the videos that way as well?

I assume the answer has to be yes, but wanted to make sure before I buy a couple of SDHC cards to act as my re-writeable video disks.

Thanks.

Is it also true that I could copy HD videos from my computer to an SDHC card, insert the card in the camera, hook the camera up via HDMI and watch the videos that way as well?


Yes, IF you export to AVCHD directory structure, otherwise the camcorder may not find the video files...so you cannot just copy .mts or .m2ts files to the root of the SDHC card...

Yes, IF you export to AVCHD directory structure, otherwise the camcorder may not find the video files...so you cannot just copy .mts or .m2ts files to the root of the SDHC card...

Sorry to be so ignorant, but how do I "export to AVCHD directory structure"? When I download from my camera to my ext. drive, I just get .m2ts files in a folder. How do I copy those to a card in a way that will work?

The best way in my opinion is to install an internal SDHC card reader in your PC's 3.5" bay and not deal with ever having to hook up the camcorder. Use a media server such as Tversity to stream your HD content to a PS3 (PC and PS3 will both need to have a wired connection to the hub to have enough bandwith). With this setup I play 1920x1080i 24mbps .mts videos perfectly, and can copy to the PS3's internal HD very quickly if I desire. PS3 is only $299 now just in case you were unaware and don't have one.

I have a PS3, but don't have a wired connection to it, and can't easily get one with enough bandwidth. I tried to use a powerline network adapter, but I still had lots of stutter in my MXP videos.

What I'd like to do is get a 32 GB SDHC card and just use that as my "floppy" to play videos on my PS3 or from my camcorder. My question is, is there any special directory structure I need to use to make that work?

Bump.

Move right up to 2009:

1 - Buy a new laptop with HDMI out and a built in card reader.

There is no step 2.