[Luke_Y]

Panasonic HMC40 AVCHD direct to Blu Ray questions?


OK; Windows XP platform, Panasonic HMC40 AVCHD camcorder. No current software. Want to be able to provide Blu Ray discs that will play on any new BD player.


For this application no editing will be needed or desired. Quick, simple turnaround is the goal. Should be able to accomplish this with no trans-coding correct?


Can someone suggest a simple workflow, software, and burner requirements?


Also, the ability to do AVCHD on DVD simply without editing or trans-coding would be nice for shorter projects, but do realize that they may not necessarily play in all BD players.


Thanks for the help.



ETA someone told me that I wouldn't actually need ANY software beyond Nero of such BD burning software... Just pull the files from the card, rearrange the folder structure, possibly change some file extensions, and burn to BD with Nero or similar... Anyone shed some light on this?

 

[bsprague]

For the last couple of months I have been trying to solve this same puzzle. There are lots of answers at the complicated level but few with "simple work flow".


All the editing software I've looked at and read about is complicated by the need to handle legacy formats and are loaded with editing tricks. Then the output, that may be playable on a Blu-Ray player, is "rendered" into something always bigger than the original. And, it can be very player dependent.


I have a much lower priced Panasonic. It came with "HD Writer 2.6" which is a Panasonic software product. It has some editing features like trimming and joining clips. It will add a title screen and transitions. It does not pretend to do "creative editing".


It's best feature for me is that it produces a "AVCHD disc" format on ordinary DVDs without "rendering" or "transcoding". I can play those on an old Panasonic BD-30 Blu-Ray player or a new Sony S-570 Blu-Ray player without any fussing around. They will not play on standard, old DVD players because they don't do AVCHD. For that, HD Writer has a function to make standard DVDs.


Another nice feature is that I don't need to wire the camera to the computer. Instead, I move the SD card from the camera to the computer. In other words, "simple work flow'.


It appears a standard DVD can easily hold 20 minutes or a little more. HD Writer also has a function to write to a Blu-Ray disc, but I don't have a burner. And, I don't need one until I think I want videos longer that 20 minutes. When I do, there appear to be several good choices on Amazon.


At the bottom of the Panasonic website for your camera ( http://pro-av.panasonic.net/en/sales.../ag-hmc40.html ) it talks about software you can get for free for that camera that might work as well. Or, maybe, your camera comes with some version of HD Writer.


Good luck! I'M glad you asked the question. I'm looking forward to answers from others here!


Bill

 

[Ungermann]

This is what I do: http://www.avchduser.com/articles/avchd_to_bluray.jsp Works for me just fine. Instead of DVD media simply use BD media, and it should work for you too.

 

[Pepster returns]

Easiest way to a non-menu BD:


author the BD directory structure using TSMUXER (free)


then


burn this structure to AVCHD on DVDR (

 

[Ungermann]

AFAIK, tsMuxer bundles all clips into one file. This does not work for me. If tsMuxer preserved the original clips as is, I would advise it too.

 

[Pepster returns]

Easiest way to a non-menu BD:


author the BD directory structure using TSMUXER (free)


then


burn this structure to AVCHD on DVDR (

 

[Pepster returns]

I bunrt a few dozen of these discs before giving up optical discs completely.


I only burn a optical disc for my 80year old mother-in-law as she only has a DVD player. Even my mum has a media player - I just load up her portable USB HDD when I see her.


16GB are 5bucks now,
http://cgi.ebay.com/SanDisk-Standard...item45fc56d60a

this xmas, buy in bulk,put your movies on cards, and mail them. You can even author your SD card to play directly on Panny & Sony TVs.


Soon, burning a optical disc could become as rare as making a VHS tape now.

 

[Ungermann]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Pepster returns /forum/post/20805469


Easiest way to a non-menu BD:


author the BD directory structure using TSMUXER (free)


then


burn this structure to AVCHD on DVDR (

 

[jfcarbel]

Will all these methods work for the high bitrate 1080p 60fps? I have the SD800


I tried the multiAVCHD route and while the it did have a playable DVD AVCHD UDF 2.5 disc, the video was choppy and audio kept dropping out when played on my Panny BD-80


To add, my WD TV Live plays the clips just fine.

 

[Ungermann]



Quote:
Originally Posted by jfcarbel /forum/post/20807712


Will all these methods work for the high bitrate 1080p 60fps? I have the SD800


I tried the multiAVCHD route and while the it did have a playable DVD AVCHD UDF 2.5 disc, the video was choppy and audio kept dropping out when played on my Panny BD-80

I have the BD80. It cannot push 28 Mbit/s from DVD. Use either BD media or SD cards.

 

[jfcarbel]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Ungermann /forum/post/20808551


I have the BD80. It cannot push 28 Mbit/s from DVD. Use either BD media or SD cards.

Was not aware of that. I tried SD card after multiAVCHD and that did not work either, it did not show menu for video.


It sucks that Panasonic only gave one progressive mode. 28 Mbit/s is overkill, 17 Mbit/s would have been fine for home videos. I have even heard rumor that these manf. pad the stream to get ti to higher bitrates just for the marketing purpose of having highest rate. Heck, most movie Blurays don't go above 17-19 Mbit/s but are VBR. I think the Panasonic is CBR due to nature of live recording.


Don't want to waste a BD storage size on just one video so I will save them up and then author.


How do you get your video to the BD disc - that is, do you use multiAVCHD, a BD authoring program, tsMuxerGUI, or Panasonic's own software? Since I am putting multiple videos on one BD I would like to be able to control each clips title and drive each set of clips from menus. multiAVCHD seems to do a good job, but the software seems complex to use for authoring multiple clips and mine seems to die at the end with an error, but the DVD seemed to work even so just the audio dropouts and video stutter.


Would also like to find a freeware program that can just join the m2ts files so I can join the sets of my files into single file so multiAVCHD maybe knows to create a separate playlist and title stream fro each one when authoring. I see someone in this forum post mentioning a payware joiner.

 

[Ungermann]



Quote:
Originally Posted by jfcarbel /forum/post/20808821


Was not aware of that. I tried SD card after multiAVCHD and that did not work either, it did not show menu for video.

Menus are not supported for SD cards. Not sure is this AVCHD spec limitation or MultiAVCHD limitation.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jfcarbel /forum/post/20808821


Heck, most movie Blurays don't go above 17-19 Mbit/s but are VBR.

Movies are 24p, here you have 60p.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jfcarbel /forum/post/20808821


I think the Panasonic is CBR due to nature of live recording.

AFAIK, only 13 Mbit/s mode was CBR.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jfcarbel /forum/post/20808821


How do you get your video to the BD disc - that is, do you use multiAVCHD, a BD authoring program, tsMuxerGUI, or Panasonic's own software?

I used MultiAVCHD for a disc that contained 24 clips, not exactly shot by me. As for dumping my own clips onto BD, MultiAVCHD has a nasty non-feature: it limits you to 254 clips. Somewhere in the program Dean used byte instead of int, now I cannot fill a BD fully with short clips. Sony's DVD Architect seems to not have this limitation, but adding all the clips to the project is huge pain. So, currently I don't burn any BD backups, too much hassle. I still prefer using DVDs Also, some BD players play 1080p60 28 Mbit/s from DVD media just fine. I want to sell my BD80 and buy... crikey! - a Sony player.