I'm very grateful for your time and thank you very much. What I'm trying to figure out is if Vegas Pro writes to ACVHD and Vegas Platinum does not, does that mean that Platinum cannot produce (export, create, render or whatever the correct term) the same quality outputted HD movie?

On the other hand, I'm also trying to figure out what is the benefit of ACVHD (that is what a Sony *.m2t file is, correct?). The m2t files don't seem to work in any application like avi, mpg, or mov's do. In fact, I can't even file an app that will let me keyword them.

>if Vegas Pro writes to ACVHD and Vegas Platinum does not

Pro will export back to your AVCHD camera, Platinum won't. Platinum will only do so for DV and HDV cameras.

>Platinum cannot produce (export, create, render or whatever the correct term) the same quality outputted HD movie?

Platinum IS able to produce a good quality HD movie, just not by using the same codec and format that AVCHD cameras expects it to. So if you want to export via WMV and play it on your Xbox or PS3, go ahead, it will look good. But that file won't play via any camera.

>ACVHD (that is what a Sony *.m2t file is, correct?

No. AVCHD is .mts and .m2ts. HDV is .m2t. Platinum is ABLE to write back .m2t for HDV cameras. But not for AVCHD cameras. AVCHD is mpeg4-AVC based, while HDV cameras are mpeg2-based.

>The m2t files don't seem to work in any application like avi, mpg, or mov's do.

You need the new versions of ffdshow and MPC to get these working on Windows. Get the links from my blog, do a search.

Eugenia, you've been immensely helpful and I can't thank you enough. If I understand you correctly, the only benefit for Pro to be able to write ACVHD would be if I wanted to put the ACVHD file back into the camera...and I'm not sure what the reason for that would be.

If you would be so kind, you've thrown me with the m2t and m2ts thingy. My Sony HDR-HC7 HD camera files are all .m2t. So, if I understand you, this camera doesn't even create/use ACVHD. Sheeshhhh, no wonder I flunked pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and had to do kindergarten twice...

Eugenia,
I've just purchased Sony HDR-SR5. Love it Love it.
It will be my High Definition player for awhile. I've just filmed my grandson's 1st basketball game and whould like to drop it on a DVD. I've got the VMS 8.0c update. I would like to funnel the movie through VMS. Before I upgrade to a better video card or VMS Pro should I step the video down to a another format?
A DVD carrier is the goal , quality can suffer a bit. The High definition is incredible to begin with.

Ekez, you could have made a new thread about this as it's a different topic.

Anyways, the way you do this, is you buy Vegas Platinum (no reason for Pro), you select the 1080/60i template in the Project Properties, you edit as usual, and then you export using the widescreen NTSC or PAL DVD template out of Main Concept mpeg2 file type in the "render as" screen. That's it. You don't downconvert anything during editing, you edit as HD. You simply export with a DVD video template and with AC3 for audio (DVD Architect expects the video and audio to not be together during DVD authoring).