Burn Standard Definition to Blu-Ray? -4 archive

[markqc]

've been burning my eyes out for a few weeks now trying to find the answer to this question (clearly, unable to find it in search here or anywhere else).

For a year now I have a sony Sony HDR-XR500V 120GB High Definition Handycam which came with Sony PMB (Picture Motion Browser) Software which is enabled and works fine with my blu-ray burner. I also have Sony DVD Architect Studio 4.5 - but this does not burn blu-ray apparently.

I have oh, probably 300 hours of standard definition video starting back from the late '80's. So sure, some beta, VHS, HI8, miniDV.

Now I DON'T want to burn all this onto regular DVD's as this would be a bunch of them, and I want a better disc for important family archive material like this anyway - even if it is only at regular resolution.

I have already started capturing it all to a hard drive. I used windows movie maker and captured it at 720x480. Now I incorrectly assumed that I could import/convert this into the Sony Picture Motion Browser software to burn to Blu-Ray but noooooo, and as mentioned the Architect 4.5 doesn't do blu either...

So how to take any saved media files (WMV/whatever) convert them to something that can be imported (still as a standard definition, even 4x3) into some kind of blu-ray authoring software so one can save 12 hours or so of standard definition video on a single blu-ray disk?


ANY ideas that are simple for a bone head like me would be deeeeeply appreciated

[multiAVCHD]

If your recordings are in mpeg2 or avc (preferably with ac3 audio) you can use multiAVCHD.

[edDV]

So when you imported into Windows Movie Maker, did you export as DV-AVI or WMV?

There could be two purposes for your Blu-Ray disc.

1. Archive at highest quality for the future.
For this purpose you would save the original format files for DV and AVCHD as data. Analog SD formats (beta, VHS, HI8) would be digitized to DV or an alternate digital format.

2. Convert for playback in a Blu-Ray player.
For this purpose you have two basic options.

2a. Author a Blu-Ray format disc.
This requires you follow all the rules for encoding and authoring to Blu-Ray.
See "What is Blu-Ray?" https://www.videohelp.com/hd

2b. Convert to a file format that your Blu-Ray player can play without full authoring. Problem is, this differs by model of Blu-Ray player. Many will play AVCHD in 1440x1080i mode intended for camcorder files. Others have ability to play a wider range of resolutions and codecs.