Camcorder Clips (AVCHD) to regular DVD

[pgarg2000]

Hello All

I am looking to buy a decent camcorder.

first let me tell the usage: I have a Hi-Def(720p/1080i) TV and Hi-Def(not blu-ray, regular 1080p) DVD Player.

I want to burn DVDs after taking videos from my camcorder. I do not have a hi-def dvd recorder/writer. Just the regular dvd writer which comes with Laptop (--> Dell e1405/Vista Home Prem).

I am planning to buy Cannon HF-100.
The DVDs this laptop will produce: will they be Hi-Def dvd if I shoot from a Hi-def camcorder? Or better than the dvds from a non-High def camcorder ?

If I am planning to use these DVDs for storage & viewing, is there any advantage of buying Hi-Def camcorder ?

How can I burn dvds from the AVCHD output of these camcorders using my laptops dvd writer? Is the software (I think Pixela) included with the camcorder sufficient to burn DVDs or is my Laptops dvd writing software sufficient ?

I am NOT planning to edit the videos before I burn them to dvds so I do not want to spend too much on extra software for editing videos.

For this scenario is there any other recommended camcorder ?

Thanks

[poisondeathray]

There is no such thing as a Hi-Def DVD player unless you mean upscaling.

NTSC DVD is 720x480.

If you want to view true hi-def (as in 720p, or 1080p) you can't use a DVD player, because you are losing 2-4x the number of pixels.

The only advantage of buying a Hi-Def camcorder is to upgrade later, when you get a blu-ray player, or PS3, HTPC, or media player capable of at least 720p (such as a Tivx). If these are for important moments, like the kid's graduation, weddings, etc... you might want to keep a high quality master.

If you plan to burn AVCHD output and have it playable in a DVD player you need to downscale it to 720x480, and re-encode it in a "language" that DVD players understand (i.e. MPEG2). Several programs can easily do this, such as convertxtodvd, or you can do it manually using free tools, but again you lose 2-4x the number of pixels, and are using old crappy MPEG2 compression. Quality will suffer immensely.

Conversely, you can keep 1920x1080 quality on DVD media, while using great modern x264 compression, if you had a blu-ray player/PS3/etc.. by using blu-ray structure (m2ts). Programs like ripbot264 can do this conversion for you easily.

[moondogger]

I just bought the Canon HF-100. The videos it takes look great as long as there is decent lighting. The Pixela software it comes with does allow you to make regular DVD's from the hi-def videos but it will need to re-encode every file in order to do it. This would get very time consuming if you had to do it for every video you take. The software also lets you make AVCHD discs that are playable in any Blu-Ray disc player. It will playback in 1080i and you could fit about an hour of video on a standard dual layer DVD in the highest quality setting. Especially with the price of Blu-Ray players starting to come down, there's really no point in buying a high-def camera to convert the videos to standard DVD.

[pgarg2000]

how much better will be this AVCHD disc on blu-ray player vs a regular dvd on a upconverter dvd player when viewed on 32/37 LCD?

Can these AVCHD discs be played on a regular upconverter dvd player ? Can these AVCHD discs be burned using pixela & my laptops dvd writer only. Is my system config strong enough for such operations (regular dvd & avchd dvd) [vista, 1.66 Ghz, 1GB, 80 GB]

Which will be a better mini DV camcorder for standard definition. Has anyone had experience with panasonic pv-gs320 ? How do we convert DV format to DVD.

thnx

[guns1inger]

how much better will be this AVCHD disc on blu-ray player vs a regular dvd on a upconverter dvd player when viewed on 32/37 LCD?

Chalk and cheese, especially if the TV is a cheaper model with a low end upscaler.

Can these AVCHD discs be played on a regular upconverter dvd player ?

No. They are BluRay discs, and need a compatible BluRay player (note : not all BluRay players will play back burned discs). You DVD players is just that - a DVD player. It plays DVDs.

Can these AVCHD discs be burned using pixela & my laptops dvd writer only

Maybe. Some of these programs will let you burn to a regular DVD DL disc. Again, let me reinforce, you cannot play these on a DVD player. If you need to burn to a real BluRay disc, you need a BluRay burner.

How do we convert DV format to DVD

By following any of the dozens of guides that explain hoew to do it. Start with the How To section to your left, and the User Guides forum.

[pgarg2000]

Has anyone faced issues with panasonic pv-gs200 and vista ? I want to buy this camcorder and I have vista. Did lot of research, some people say it does not work, some say it does. any thoughts, advice, experience ?