Go from SD to HD?

[towtruck]

Hello

I am losing my desktop with its associated firewire card (not an option w/my new laptop), & so I wonder if it is time to trade in my PV-GS320 mini-DV SD camcorder for an HD model.

For me there is not much point in recording video if I can't easily edit it & burn a 'movie' onto a disc (up to now DVD). So there is not point in upgrading if I can't edit HD video & author a Blu-Ray disc. I've been out of the loop for awhile, so pls forgive my ignorance. I did some quick checking, and came to the following conclusions:

• I can buy recordable BD discs & a BD burner for a 'reasonable' price.
• BD authoring software is either quite expensive or probably not very good. (I'm used to using freeware for DVD authoring/burning)
• There seem to be a number of AVCHD editors however I don't have much of a feel for how much I would have to pay for a simple-yet-decent one.

This leads me to believe that maybe it is a bit too early to switch. Finally, just today my company issued me a new laptop that appears to have an express-card slot (need to verify), so I may be able to use it with a firewire expressCard & 'stretch' my SD camera just a bit.

I would be very grateful for any quick insights that anyone can give me on this topic. I don't intend for anyone to tell me everything I need to know, but maybe hopefully get me pointed in the right direction.

Thanks all in advance!


Andy

[jman98]

Various comments...

Laptops have limitations (ie. no firewire). I find that most people really and truly don't have a pressing need for one, they just want one. Just keep in mind that you are painting yourself into a corner with a laptop, but you may truly need to do so.

If you don't need menus, tsmuxer is free and works fine for BD authoring. multiAVCHD works well for most players if you want menus, but the first time you use it you should burn to BD-RE just in case as some players do require you to create content with special settings to play what it produces. And in my opinion the existing docs for multiAVCHD are somewhat deficient and they may or may not be useful to you.

I use VideoReDo TVSuite H.264 to edit my high def videos. It's been worth what it costs to me.

[towtruck]

Thanks jman98!

Knowing I have some reasonable software options helps a lot. The price for VideoReDo is reasonable.

My little girl is growing up & needs her own room (my ex-office), hence the required downsize on the computing equipment. I just don't have room for a desktop anywhere else. An external BD burner will cost a bit more than an internal one, but I can deal with that.

Thanks Again!

[hello_hello]

I find it hard to believe people still actually author Bluray/DVD video discs. There seems to be little point when it's almost impossible to even find a Bluray player which can't play MKV/MP4 files these days.

[Selur]

@hello_hello: authoring Blu-ray/AVCHD/DVD/(S)VCD is the only 'decent' way to get menus. (mkv/mp4 menu support is hardly worth speaking of)

[hello_hello]

Would it be ironic then if one of my main motivations for using MKV/MP4 is to bypass the need for navigating through an array of annoying menus? I'd rather use individual, appropriately named MKV/MP4 files instead. Although of course when using MP4/MKV files you're not virtually restricted to only being able to play them after burning them to a video disc.

[Selur]

@hello_hello: Wouldn't be ironic, it would just show that there are people that to not have the same motivations you do.

[hello_hello]

Fair enough.... chances are, some people are still motivated to use video tape too.

[jman98]

Fair enough.... chances are, some people are still motivated to use video tape too.

You're seriously bitching because someone wants help to make a video in what is the current state of the art format? Unbelievable.

MAYBE you would have a point if the original poster said he had one video and he wanted to make a menu that had one option like "Press here to play movie". Maybe. Just give it a rest, man. The OP has legitimate questions and there are very good reasons for wanting to make a legitimate BluRay disc. If you don't understand that, then that is YOUR problem, not his. If I could help him more with his camcorder specific stuff I would, but I have no experience with camcorders or getting video off of them. And he even provided a decent reason for wanting a laptop, which was the biggest question I had. This guy deserves help, not somebody bitching from the sidelines over trivialities.

[_Al_]

People want Blu-Ray because they buy it or think it is right way to do, but I am with hello-hello on this, he might be told he doesn't need to buy BD burner etc., he deserves it also to be told that, towtruck has little kid, it is a good idea he edits his videos into clips , or just copy segmnts into clips, then to put it into month folder or year folder , possibly with name with year-month-name format and he will find whatever he needs in his video database, back it up easily as a whole thing, remember folder structure is basically big-ass MENU

I have a ton od DVD's , family videos from early DVD era in my shelves, some of them scratched, not sure what is what, I need DVD player to use it, it is good only to show it to other people, to distribute it, the same goes for BD, for me it makes no sense to make , burn optical disc just to show it to other people, it is just opinion, I understand this could be most important part for others. If I wanna show something to others I take my passport Hardisk and go , I might take even WDTV Live into the other pocket with me too. I have all videos I ever made with me, or I can use thumbdrive also which happens more often .

[towtruck]

Thanks for all the responses, & to jman98 for wanting to answer the original question. Some of the discussion has been lost on me because I am new to these formats. But maybe it would help if I provided a bit more background.

My original (2006 or whenever) desire to burn to DVD was because I wanted the highest resolution possible on a format that was easy to store, copy, transport & view w/out needing a computer. My In-laws live in Argentina, & I wanted to be able to share video of their grand kids growing up. They didn't have a computer, but they had an NTSC DVD player. Once I authored a DVD, I just put a copy in a mailer & a few days later they could enjoy it. I also had a copy for myself, & I don't need to go back to tape or keep large files on my hard drive. Also, A DVD could be played on a DVD player or a computer.

The motivation now is essentially the same. There is no sense in buying a HD camcorder if the final product has SD resolution, so I naturally assumed BD was the next logical step. My out-laws already have an HD TV, & adding a blu-ray player is not expensive. I understand there are a number of formats (codecs) that could be put on the disc, & kind of assumed AVCHD was a likely candidate as this was a common camcorder format, & thus there would be no need to re-process the data to a different format. Menu's would be nice, as I could break the video into chapters, but is not essential. (I genuinely appreciate all input, but I also suspect I just vindicated jman98).

Hope this background helps the discussion. I am learning a lot already. Thanks again to all!

Andy

[jman98]

towtruck - Sorry man, but clearly the dumbass brigade has spoken. I think your real problem is that you need camcorder help and your title makes it look like you're just trying to upscale from SD to HD and the power users who can help you are not interested in that topic. I don't know what the hell caused _AI_ to post what is essentially some kind of pointless rant, but I feel very firmly that this is a decent thread worthy of a better response than "just play MKV/MP4 on your BD player, dude". Your reasoning for what you want to do is completely sound and _AI_ and hello_hello are just being douchebags.

Since this thread is unlikely to get you the kind of help you need, wait until maybe Tuesday or Wednesday and post a new thread calling it something like "Should I get a new HD camcorder or stick with SD?" and you should get the help you need. You don't post a lot so do note that weekends/holidays are terrible times to post, so do it during the middle of the week.

[_Al_]

jman98 -take it easy man,.., ranting, wow, this is ranting thread ...
towtruck -Lots of choices nowadays.

What is your executive decision, what do you want to mail to relatives DVD or BD?

You cannot store your family video on BD or DVD only, after 10years you might not have it. You have to have some other back up. Hardisk storage. It is dirt cheap nowadays, consider this, family videos and photos is the only thing that is worthy to store, it is not replaceable like other stuff, movies.
You need to have some back up on hardisk not just optical discs. And I tried to recapture some 10 year old mini DV tape and had severe dropouts at the beginning of tape, so tapes are not 100% proof back up either.

[hello_hello]

You're seriously bitching because someone wants help to make a video in what is the current state of the art format? Unbelievable.

No, I'm not bitching, and no, I don't consider burning video to disc to be "state of the art format" even if it is on Bluray. Discs are like some relic from a bygone error. Didn't you watch this week's South Park?

MAYBE you would have a point if the original poster said he had one video and he wanted to make a menu that had one option like "Press here to play movie". Maybe. Just give it a rest, man. The OP has legitimate questions and there are very good reasons for wanting to make a legitimate BluRay disc. If you don't understand that, then that is YOUR problem, not his. If I could help him more with his camcorder specific stuff I would, but I have no experience with camcorders or getting video off of them. And he even provided a decent reason for wanting a laptop, which was the biggest question I had. This guy deserves help, not somebody bitching from the sidelines over trivialities.

Have you not had sex for a long while? You're generally not so aggressive.
Aside from wanting 100% compatibility with every Bluray player on the planet, and I'm not even sure AVCHD is a guarantee of that, I really don't see the point in confining yourself to a format which basically relies on discs. You might see reasons for doing so, but you've so far not mentioned what they might be.

towtruck - Sorry man, but clearly the dumbass brigade has spoken. I think your real problem is that you need camcorder help and your title makes it look like you're just trying to upscale from SD to HD and the power users who can help you are not interested in that topic. I don't know what the hell caused _AI_ to post what is essentially some kind of pointless rant, but I feel very firmly that this is a decent thread worthy of a better response than "just play MKV/MP4 on your BD player, dude". Your reasoning for what you want to do is completely sound and _AI_ and hello_hello are just being douchebags.

Well I don't know about you, but I read the original post, not just the title, and I'm perfectly aware towtruck is considering replacing his SD camcorder with a HD model and enquired about authoring Bluray discs as a result. I doubt that's what I'd be doing with my HD recordings, but that's just me.

[_Al_]

It is all about money at the end, we can talk for days,

-With HD you have to get a camcorder, what type 60p, 60i , thats another topic?
-He would need a new PC to handle that, that 2.4 GHz Celeron will not handle that remotely.
-new hardisks for back up is a must
-BD burner in case of BD burning and empty optical discs of course
-is he concerned too much about quality because making DVD from BD will introduce flickering of 60i footage and there is going to be another thread that old DVD from SD was looking better

Of course HD is better but how we can discus how much money OP can throw at this problem?

I still use compromise myself and use HV30 camcorder, which is HDV but even that will be too much for that computer (Celeron 2.4 GHz) and I'd rather blow some money in some waterpark with kids than to change computers in the house for nothing, it is personal how people approach this.

And again, he doesn't need to make BD if he has HD camcorder because it is not 2006 anymore. He can even send videos through web if it comes to it. But again we do not know how it is affordable and applicable to participants . Or DVD's even he'd got HD camcorder, I can assure you it doesn't matter at all to recipients.

[hello_hello]

The motivation now is essentially the same. There is no sense in buying a HD camcorder if the final product has SD resolution, so I naturally assumed BD was the next logical step. My out-laws already have an HD TV, & adding a blu-ray player is not expensive. I understand there are a number of formats (codecs) that could be put on the disc, & kind of assumed AVCHD was a likely candidate as this was a common camcorder format, & thus there would be no need to re-process the data to a different format. Menu's would be nice, as I could break the video into chapters, but is not essential. (I genuinely appreciate all input, but I also suspect I just vindicated jman98).

Personally I don't know much about HD camcorders or the AVCHD format, however my basic understanding is AVCHD is very similar to the standard Bluray format, however not all Bluray Players support it. As AVCHD was jointly developed by Sony and Panasonic, any of their Bluray players should play AVCHD video (I assume). There's more info here, including a list of players which support AVCHD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD
Unlike an authored Bluray disc however, I believe (and I'm sure someone will be able to correct me if I'm talking rubbish) the AVCHD format can be played from other medium such as DVD discs, USB sticks and memory cards, and if the player supports it, I believe the AVCHD menu system is used even when playing AVCHD video from non-disc medium. Well that's my understanding.

Keeping in mind I've not had any experience with camcorder created AVCHD video myself, I'd assume an AVCHD compatible Bluray player (if the in-laws were to buy one) might be the best compatibility option, possibly allowing you to bypass the re-authoring step unless you particularly want to edit the video, and allowing other options such as the ability to send the recordings on a USB stick, or even just uploading them for the in-laws to download, bandwidth permitting.

As AVCHD uses standard h264 compression, there should be no reason why you couldn't remux the m2ts AVCHD files as MKVs or MP4s without re-encoding, just as you would if you used the AVCHD m2ts files to author a Bluray compliant disc. MKVMergeGUI will do it for MKVs and there's no doubt programs (maybe YAMB) which will do the same for MP4. You should also be able to perform basic editing (splitting the video) in the process just to retain the sections of video you wish to keep. MKV and MP4 will also free you from being restricted to discs, although there's no reason why you couldn't burn them to disc anyway. Only the very basic model Bluray players don't support MKV and MP4 playback these days, and most will do so via USB as well as from disc.

Of course if you want 100% Bluray player compatibility then re-authoring the video as a Bluray compliant disc is probably the only guaranteed method, and you'll be able to use menus, but of course you'll no doubt be restricted to using discs.

So anyway.... the above gives you options to think about. Maybe buy your new camcorder, work out which format you prefer to use first, then when the in-laws buy a Bluray player to view your recordings, make sure they buy one which supports your chosen format. Buying a player first and being restricted to the formats it supports seems a little like doing it backwards to me, given unlike the DVD era, most Bluray players don't just play Bluray discs.

Personally I store all my video on hard drives. About the only time I use a disc is to get the video off it so I never have to use the disc again. For me, sticking a bunch of individually named MKV or MP4 files in a folder is far more convenient than messing around with navigating through menus. MKV/MP4 files can also contain chapters, although I'm not sure how widely they're supported by Bluray players, but MKV/MP4 files are certainly more widely supported than Bluray discs. You can't play a Bluray video disc on an ipad and the in-laws aren't going to be showing off your home videos to friends by plugging a disc into their smartphone, no matter how fancy the menu system is. And of course most TV's with built-in media players don't support disc playback.

But that's just me I guess...... each to their own. As long as jman98 doesn't mind.....

[sanlyn]

If you wanted to give a copy of some family videos to grandparents and godparents, etc., it would be child's play for them to hook up the videos on the externall HDD to their new super-power-user PC and string the cables to their TV or PC monitors. Right? Nothing to it.

Look, I know folks in their 40's who can't even use a mouse. But they do manage to throw a flat disc into a player and get it going. Until you can find a way to transform the average consumer into a video tech and power user, I don't think plain old flat discs are going away. The youngsters can play with electronic toys all day, but there are still people around who actually get a charge out of ancient activities (like, for example, talking face-to-face in person to their friends and relatives, using real words that you transmit by moving your lips and mouth, or -- the unthinkable! -- reading the kind of book where you hold a hard copy in your lap and actually have to turn the paper pages yourself with your own hands). So give nature and evolution a little more time to turn humans into the something more like the machines that are controlling their lives.

[hello_hello]

If you wanted to give a copy of some family videos to grandparents and godparents, etc., it would be child's play for them to hook up the videos on the externall HDD to their new super-power-user PC and string the cables to their TV or PC monitors. Right? Nothing to it.

When it comes to some technologically backward older people, it probably wouldn't matter if you swapped the DVD player for a Bluray player and stuck to playing discs, or used the Bluray player to play video via usb, or streamed the video over wifi, changing something is all it takes. It probably doesn't matter so much what's changed.

I remember when I donated my old DVD player to my father. He had no other type of media player at the time so I had to explain the need to change the TV channel to AV to use the DVD player, even though he'd always changed channels on the set top box and the TV had been on the same channel since the say he bought it so he couldn't see any reason why he couldn't just use the set top box remote to select the DVD input on the TV...... and then...... I had to introduce him to a third remote control...... How hard can it be to understand?? The DVD player remote is used to control the DVD player!!
The whole "adding a DVD player to the setup" process probably took a couple of hours and very nearly gave me a breakdown. And to this day I still don't think he's actually used the DVD player.....

[TreeTops]

hello_hello, I know it may be easy for you to use a certain remote but let me tell you it's hard for some. Here I have a remote for the BlueRay, another for the Dish box, another for the Panasonic TV. Let me tell you it takes all three to play a blue ray disk. The wife hasn't a clue as to which remote is which. Absolutely clueless and all of my guests here can't figure it out either. And to top it off, after a blue ray is finished the TV doesn't automatically switch back to regular TV. You have to find the right remote and then figure out which one of the 50 buttons to push to get your normal TV back. And one button doesn't do it, it takes a combination of at least two button pushes to get the TV back to normal.

That may be another reason why blue ray disks are not so popular with some people.

[hello_hello]

TreeTops
I'm not saying using a remote is easy for everyone.... the reason for my story was to make the point it isn't. I don't really understand why though, as using a remote seems fairly straightforward to me, but my father has major remote control issues and he's definitely not stupid.
At least my mother's on fire (my parents don't live together). When I bought a USB hard drive for her and explained she could either plug it into the USB port on the Bluray player, or the USB port on the TV, and she'd have to stop and start playing the video with a different remote according to which USB input she was using..... well I thought that'd probably be it. Amazingly though, I think she's only asked me to check what she's done wrong a couple of times in the last two or three months when she couldn't get video to play. Other than that she's a remote control expert these days.