HD output problems after editing

[pszilard]

I've recently got a Sony XR520V camcorder. I am shooting HD Fine quality (which is camera's highest). When I connect the camcorder to a Sony Bravia TV using HDMI the quality is stunning. But I cannot find any editing program that doesn't drop the quality to really poor.

I copy the files to my PC, string them together and then output the result to a DVD, which I play on a Sony Blue ray player.

Cyberlink PowerDirector 8: quality is like a webcam. Uncomfortable to watch
Sony Vegas 9 Platinum: considerably better but still poor
Pinnacle Studio 14: best of the three, but nowhere near the original

In all cases, I specified the highest possible quality DVD output. I am using an i7 CPU pc with 6GB ram and Vista 64. Video is ATI 4850 with the very latest (December's) driver and all accelerator s/w installed.

All s/w is evaluation, as I am trying to find something to buy, but at the moment I am very disappointed.

Any suggestions?

[yoda313]

Are you authoring as a dvd at dvd resolution? If that is that the case than you are losing quality and can not be avoided (720x576 for pal for dvd resolution). If you are shooting at 1280x720 or 1980x1080 you are losing quality by authoring to a dvd format that is not high definition.

You can author to avchd that can be burned on a dvd disc and retain hd resolution. You will have to play with bitrates and length to get it to fit and most likely will have to use dual layer discs to get a good result. There is also the question of compatibility with avchd. Sony bluray players should play avchd (my playstation 3 does) but it varies from player to player and with what program you use to author it.

Your only other disc based option is to upgrade to a bluray burner and author a real bluray disc with your original hd content left unaltered (aside from editing of course).

But those are your only options for disc media. Of course you can use media players like the popcorn hour or wdtv media player and can play them as files from harddrives without burning to discs. THose will play high def files without too many restrictions. Than you can retain your high def quality.

[Soopafresh]

I second using the WD TV Live media player. It is inexpensive and will play files at 1920x1080p resolution. You can have your software editing app render out at full HD and the resulting files will look much, much better on your TV.

[pszilard]

Part I - Environment, Personal Requirements and Eval Software

Yesterday, I had the privilege that a friend of mine came over to assist. This friend, called Martin, works in broadcast video industry and in video delivery on mobile phones and is one of the countries experts in the field. As I watched him for over 5 hrs of testing, Martin went over all aspects of the three programs that I was considering, checking the settings and creating test movies and burning test DVD disks. The conclusions in my case were conclusive, but other people's requirements, setup, etc. will vary, so I can only speak for mine.

My environment:
Location is Australia, so video standard is PAL not NTSC.

PC is fairly grunty:

• i7 CPU, which is quad core each being multi threaded, giving the effect of 8 cores
• 6GB triple channel DDRAM3
• ATI 4850 graphics card with 2GB video memory, and the very latest ATI drivers including AVIVO installed
• Dual LED Samsung XL20 panels, 1600x1200 resolution each
• 1.6TB disks: 4x 400GB SATA drives, two of which are in RAID 0, which is what I use for video
• Vista Ultimate 64bit OS all patches up to date
• Antivirus is PREVIX, which is very low overhead, as well as very good IMHO

I describe the rig, so that when I mention code reliability, or speed, you will have an idea of what is used.

My evaluation software was:

• Sony Vegas 9 Platinum Pro Studio
• Pinnacle Studio 14 Ultimate
• Cyberlink PowerDirector 8

Video gear as follows:

• Sony XR520VE full HD hard disk camcorder
• Sony Bravia 40" TV
• Sony Blueray player

All interconnection via HDMI. I have a DVD burner but no Blueray burner, which is fine as I don't wish to give away BR disks as none of my friends/clients have them.

My intended usage:

• Home and family documentation
• Possible commercial event video (e.g. conference talks, exhibitions, or prosumer advertising)
• YouTube web output for web sites

As evident from the above I don't currently need final output in HD, except perhaps for the occasional home video, which would be played on a media player off my NAS server.

I should also mention, that I have over 25yrs of IT and stills photography background, but am fairly new to video.

My initial expectation, based on having read a lot of reviews of the software, was that Vegas will be the best/most reliable, Pinnacle will be the easiest to use, but unstable, and Cyberlink will be the fastest with good use of hardware acceleration.

Our findings - under my friend's expertise had been completely different. I will detail these in Part II and conclude in Part III.

[pszilard]

Part II
Place holder. Content to be added soon.

[pszilard]

Part III
Place holder. Content to be added soon.