AVCHD to DVD preserving widescreen and as much quality as possible

[jstemper]

I would like to take AVCHD files from a HD digital camcorder and bring them down to a format that I can burn to a standard DVD.

I have a dual core machine running VISTA 64 or Win 7 64 with 8 gig of memory and a Nvidia 260 video card (has CUDA).

I need to maintain the aspect ratio 16x9, I understand I will loose some quality but that is ok.

I have tried Mediacoder but can't seem to figure out the right settings, I keep getting an error 14 and no file is created. Any suggested presets for this would be great.

I have also tried Pinnacle Studio 11.1, but it is very slow and doesn't seem to preserve the aspect ratio like I want.

My best combination so far is to use HDWriter (Came with the Panasonic Camcorder but wont run under Win 7) to convert to MPG2 and then use Nero to burn a SD DVD with the right aspect ratio.

I would really like to speed this process up by using the CUDA capabilities of my video card.

Any ideas or suggestions?

TIA
J

[turk690]

If you have to at all deal in any way with AVCHD files (specially those shot at the max. bitrate that camcorder can do, usually 17Mb/s or 24Mb/s depending on brand/model), I have for some time now been aware even having an all-singing, all-dancing Core i7 PC struggles to help. And this is just trying to scrub the file on a either Sony Vegas 8c or Premiere Pro CS4 timeline, let alone edit it. I didn't touch Pinnacle but it's probably safe to say it's scarcely the NLE's fault that very highly-compressed AVCHD files are so bloodily difficult to edit in their native state.
My research led me to cineform NeoScene, which takes these AVCHD files and balloons them to fully Windows-qualified *.avi with its codec. NLE is once more buttery smooth--and fast--with these *.AVIs, even on a 2.4 GHz Core2Duo machine. Although a 2GB 16minute AVCHD *.mts file became 9GB after conversion to *.avi, who cares when terrabyte drives are currently the norm?
By the time editing is finished and the lot is exported to an MPEG-2 file for burning to DVD, you will forget you once wanted to draw and quarter whoever cooked up AVCHD.

[creamyhorror]

If you don't want to spend on Cineform NeoScene, you can just export to a lossless codec like Huffyuv or Lagarith (which results in files even bigger than Cineform's). But they load fine in editors.

[johns0]

Edit with TSSniper and encode and author with DVD Flick.Also tmpgenc express can edit the files and encode with cuda .I have no problems at all editing avchd files,it just takes the right tools and learning.

[jstemper]

My current strategy is to convert the AVCHD files to Mpeg2 HD-DVD format with Nero 8 (I have the Blueray/HD plugin) and then importing the result into Pinnacle 11.1

This seems to be the fastest process so far. Pinnacle is still the slow piece but the editing is so much faster in MPEG2 format.

I was going to upgrade to Nero 9 but the Blueray/HD plugin is no longer available.

I am also going to experiment with Badaboom for converting AVCHD because it uses CUDA. But I'm not sure I'm gaining anything because the results are MP4. I will post my results...

I am also considering PowerDirector 8 because it too supports CUDA. Any thoughts on that? Anyone have any feedback on PowerDirector?

TIA

J

[Soopafresh]

If you don't want to edit, but rather just convert the MTS files to DVD vobs, ConvertXtoDVD will work

Otherwise, Neoscene and just about any editor will work. Vegas Movie Studio Platinum will let you edit and create DVDs.

[jstemper]

None of those suggested packages support CUDA from what I've read.

Thanks anyway.