Player that can play files burned directly from HD camcorder?

[mccake]

I recently received a Canon HFR200 HD camcorder as a gift. I will be using it primarily for recording home movies. So all I want to be able to do is take the videos off the camcorder, burn them to blu ray without editing, and play them on a blu ray player.

Are there any players under $200 that you would recommend that can do this?

Thanks

[aedipuss]

playing data blu-ray discs isn't likely with most players. they mostly expect a blu-ray disc to have been authored as a blu-ray movie. it might be easier to set up a nas to copy the cam files to and use a dlna blu-ray player over a network.

[mccake]

Appreciate the reply. How much of a process is it to author a blu ray? I am new to all this. I would imagine when I get a burner, it will come with the necessary software to author. I am not really concerned with editing, just saving to disc so I can watch on a tv.

Thanks

[aedipuss]

there are programs like multiavchd, and avchdcoder

[aedipuss]

what you might try is to put some of your HD cam videos on a usb stick and take them to your local electronics store to try in various blu-ray players. you might not even have to burn them to disc. if they play off a stick they might also play off an external hard drive you could pick up.

[edDV]

There are Blu-Ray players that will play your 000n.MTS files directly off a USB stick or DVDR or BD disk. My Sony BVP-BX-37 (BVP-S370) will play AVCHD MTS files directly from USB/DVDR/BDR root or folders.

But:

- most USB sticks aren't fast enough for sustained 17-24 Mbps rate so you may get frame drops or freezes. You can buy fast USB sticks* but expect to pay up. Or try a SDHC to USB2 card reader.
http://www.sandisk.com/products/usb-flash-drives/sandisk-ultra-usb-flash-drive

- To read your AVCHD SDHC card as data, the player needs to play from the BDMV/Stream folder. You need to dig down into the folder structure.

- most Blu-Ray players have limitations on how fast they can spin DVDR media to produce 17-24 Mbps. My BX37 chokes above 25 Mbps from DVDR media. BD media can produce higher sustained transfer rates.

You need to test players for sustained playback. Take a SDHC to USB2 card reader with your camcorder disc inserted to the store and and see if the player can handle it.

Alt is a media player like WDTV Live. That needs testing too.


* Note that USB2 flash sticks are rated for transfer speed only for the first 20MB of data. After that they slow down especially for 4GB AVCHD files. If the flash data gets fragmented, they slow down even more. Also, the player needs to have enough memory to handle large files.

[mccake]

Thank you all for the wealth of info. Apparently I have a lot more homework to do than I originally thought

[mccake]

Ed, is there a particular model of the WDTV you'd recommend? I've seen mixed reviews, and I think you had said in another thread that the newer models that stream are not reliable.

If I were to go the blu ray route, does anyone know if external blu ray burners work well?

Thanks

[edDV]

Ed, is there a particular model of the WDTV you'd recommend? I've seen mixed reviews, and I think you had said in another thread that the newer models that stream are not reliable.

If I were to go the blu ray route, does anyone know if external blu ray burners work well?

Thanks

No, I haven't directly evaluated any of the WDTV models and only two Blu-Ray players. I've picked those apart in some detail.

I have an internal BD writer but haven't challenged it yet as a player.