Sony AVCHD to DVD

[mdnestor]

Hello all,

I am not sure in which forum to post this question, because it is multi-topic (ripping, converting, burning) and I do not want to cross-post, so I apologize in advance if it is in the wrong place. First a little background. I would say that I am fairly skilled with computers, operating systems and programming languages, but until two weeks ago knew nothing about video capturing, editing, converting, etc. I always do my best to research any topic, in this case the programs that I will be using, and the amount of information seems to be overwhelming (considering my lack of knowledge in this field).

I purchased a Sony HRD-UX1 consumer camcorder and in short would like to convert MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 (AVCHD) video to DVD video playable in normal DVD players. I do not want to use Sony's software that came with the camcorder, since based on other people's experiences it is quite unstable, gives poor quality results and is very, very slow. The camcorder records HDV on DVDs in AVCHD format and this is where my problems start:

1. I need to transfer data from DVDs to my computer. Sony wanted to make these DVDs playable on Blu-Ray players even though they are not real Blu-Ray disks, so they comply to UDF 2.5 standard. Since Windows XP does not natively support this file system I need a workaround for this. The two programs that seem to be able to read UDF 2.5 and transfer the data to hard drive are IsoBuster and AnyDVD. These will be my home made DVDs so there should be no copy protection on them. Would you also recommend these programs or you have better suggestions and why?

2. Once I have the data on my hard drive I need to convert it to regular DVD format (MPEG-2). Here I would like a good balance of quality and ease of use. It does not need to be a one-click probram. However, the two one-click programs like ConvertXtoDVD and FAVC seem interesting. How would you compare them based on quality of the final output? Again do you have any better recommendations and why? Also do the latest versions of these two programs support AVCHD or will I need a decoder like CoreAVC or something similar/better? I see that at this moment you cannot purchase CoreAVC.

3. In the end I plan to burn the DVDs with ImgBurn.

So any input is greatly appreciated. In summary, I first need to get the data to the hard drive, then to convert between the two formats and finally to burn to DVD.

Thank you a lot for taking your time to read my post and hopefully give me some good advice.

Best regards,
Nestor

[Soopafresh]

Hi Nestor -

AVCHD is an odd beast. Not the easiest thing to work with, but the number of supporting apps are increasing.

Your choices are the following:

Elecard AVCHD Converter Studio

http://www.elecard.com/products/products-pc/consumer/converter-studio/

TmpgencXpress v4

http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/te4xp.html

Sony Vegas v7

CoreAVC with Avisynth --> Feed to your favorite Encoder. Both ConvertXtoDVD and FAVC are really good. ConvertX has better DVD menuing, FAVC has a better encoder and is free


Also, regarding UDF 2.5, are you certain XP can't just read them natively ? I thought only older O/Ses had problems with UDF. And I believe IMGBurn can read that format, as it certainly can write to it.

[Baldrick]

Way too many choices!

edit: ignore this...Soopafresh edited his post....

[Soopafresh]

Hee Hee Baldrick, either you're too fast or I'm too slow.

[edDV]

I think there is a short term business opportunity for AVCHD to DVD + HD DVD-9 (3x) services.

The type of people who buy AVCHD will probably never figure this out for themselves. Plus they have shown a willingness to spend hard money

[Soopafresh]

ed, I like how you think

[mdnestor]

Thanks Soopafresh. Not that I am complaining (much), but I am still nowhere closer to making up my mind. Regarding the options that you mentioned (Elecard, TmpgencXpress, Sony Vegas, CoreAVC with favorite encoder, which I don't have), how would you rate them based on the quality of final output? What about additional benefits?

For example if I understood correctly from some other threads, I could use CoreAVC in other ways as well. I could use it to play AVCHD video in my favorite player. Can I use other programs for something like this? Actually codecs that come with them.

Do you believe that programs like Nero, Pinnacle, etc., which are now claiming to be able to work with AVCHD video, are inferior to your recommendations? I would guess so, but just to check. Also, I believe that Nero made AVCHD support with Ateme and based on doom9.org they have the best decoder for AVCHD, so it might not be that bad after all.

See, this is exactly what I do not want to happen. My real hobby is photography and there I want to know everything. The reason for video is that we recently had a baby and my wife would like to shoot some video for the grandparents. However, I am getting more and more into this. For example, since we are in the digital era, if you asked me how to post process a photograph and make it 95% perfect, this could be done very easily. You could do this in 10 minutes. However, if you wanted to make it 100% perfect it could take you days, but most people would not notice the difference or would not care to. Noise problems, no problem. Use one of TWO filters, although Photoshop can do a very good job as well. Now back to video. Choice of AVCHD codecs, there seem to be infinite choices (doom9.org has 30 or so for AVCHD).

Now, to answer your question. XP cannot read UDF 2.5. Emphasis is on 2.5.

Since I didn't investigate ImgBurn yet (which I certainly will), I thought that it can only rip unprotected DVDs to iso format, but not in file format like DVD Decrypter used to be able to do.

Once again thanks for your help.

Best regards,
Nestor

[Soopafresh]

For example, since we are in the digital era, if you asked me how to post process a photograph and make it 95% perfect, this could be done very easily. You could do this in 10 minutes. However, if you wanted to make it 100% perfect it could take you days, but most people would not notice the difference or would not care to.

Same goes for video processing.

I know what you're asking, but the answer isn't as simple as "this is the best", as you know. For example, there's a scripting application called Avisynth which provides some of the highest quality filters and deinterlacers in the video world - free or commercial. But, there's a learning curve that isn't worth the time for many. In your case, you'd benefit greatly, as you like getting really good at this kind of stuff. In addition to basic visual quality, there's also audio quality, and presentation related things such as DVD menus, and basic DVD compatibility. Then there is the fancy schmancy things like scene transitions, wipes, etc. And there really isn't 1 single app that'll do it all. How's that for convoluting the issue ? :P

That said, while you're learning this stuff, it would still be nice to have an app that'll immediately give you something that you can send off to the parents and grandparents. I'd go with a combination of CoreAVC and ConvertXtoDVD. It'll set you back less than $60, plus you'll be able to feed it Avisynth scripts as your level of understanding increases.

Converting HD res material to DVD is very processor intensive, so don't expect more than around 10fps conversion speed with your 2.8Ghz proc. That's without any high quality filtering.

There is an advantage to using the coreAVC Pro codec for playback and conversion - performance is currently unrivaled. There used to be an older version bundled with the Quicktime Alternative package, but you'd have to check. In that case, you'd also need to install the Haali splitter package as well, then feed your file into ConvertXtoDVD or FAVC.

The Mpeg2 encoder in Nero isn't the greatest, unfortunately. I don't know about the Pinnacle Studio app quality or performance. It is almost impossible to visually see the difference between mpeg2 encoders past the 7mb bitrate.

If you'd like to test some material out, start with a clip such as this one:

https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/rtknapp/00003.MTS

Check out the test script I threw together in this thread - the Apr 29th post. Install Avisynth 2.57 or later to try it out. It's almost all automated. It doesn't need coreAVC or any DirectX based codec, but it does need a lot of disk space for temporary files. This isn't a production solution, but you'll get an idea of what the material can look like when converted to DVD quality MPEG2. The conversion from AVCHD to YUV is painfully slow, so the speed in this case would not be an accurate example of real world performance. This is, however, a pretty close quality comparison to what you'd see with FAVC.

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic327850.html

Also, right you are about UDF 2.5. I noticed there's a driver available - give me a few minutes to find some more info.

Edit - Google "thdudf.inf" . Do a registry backup before you install it.


Edit2: Here's 1 second of footage encoded from AVCHD to Mpeg2 with ConvertxtoDVD



test.mpg

[bdmv2]

There is a script that will set up a blu-ray compatible disc from an AVCHD camcorder at:
http://saas-ppm.blogspot.com/2008/11/playing-avcdh-content-on-blu-ray.html

[posdnya]

http://elecard.com/products/products-pc/consumer/avchd-editor/
Beta release of Elecard AVCHD Editor for dummies. Very simple and fast, no re-encoding.
Beta testers are welcome. Need your support to find bugs, to test with different camcorders and of course for feature requests.