I'm sure Sony doesn't want to confuse the masses, so they have lumped uncommon formats such as BD-5 and BD-9 in with AVCHD, IMO.

"Incidentally, my wife's old laptop has XP SP3 and refuses to play any of these AVCHD disks."

If it does not have it already, make sure your wife's laptop has the UDF 2.5 driver loaded.

BD9 and BD5 were proposed and adopted by the BDA but never used commercially since real Blu-ray disk production was ramped up and prices came down. I guess we can thank this fluke in the evolution of the specs for being able to burn high definition on standard DVDs.

Reading further, apparently the .m2ts file format is a container that can hold mpeg-2, mpeg-4 (H.264/AVC) and SMTPE VC-1 codecs. All Blu-ray players a re supposed to support all three codecs. Why a few don't support AVCHD is unknown to me.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc]

My purpose for writing here is to spur further discussion and the contributions of the personal experiences of other people burning AVCHD disks. Please add any helpful information that might help.

-=Ken=-

make sure your wife's laptop has the UDF 2.5 driver loaded.

Excellent point! I don't remember checking for that since I wiped and re-applied XP. Thanks.

-=Ken=-

My Blu-Ray player is in an original PS3 and it treats DVDA5 Blu-Ray output burned to a DVD disk as a data disk, not as a playable video disk with menus etc.

DVDA5 does not have an option for creating an AVCHD disk (at least not that I am aware of.)

The data disk displays the menu but it is non-functional. The video files on the disk play fine as 1920x1080 video files.

The Ver. 3.4 PS3 update added support for 3D Blu-Ray disks but I don't have a 3D TV and I don't think there are any 3D Blu-Rays disks available yet. The latest PS3 update is 3.5 but I haven't installed it yet. There is no mention of support for AVCHD disks.

DVDA5 does not have an option for creating an AVCHD disk (at least not that I am aware of.)

And that begs the question, just what kind of disk are we really creating here? My Sony BD player identifies the disks as DVD-R AVCHD. The actual file(s) on the disk are .m2ts which defies the AVCHD "standard".

I was originally rooting for the HD-DVD standard during the format wars because only they thought about the home user burning HD on DVD media. The Blu-ray Disk Association seemed far more concerned about protecting their big-bucks studio clients intellectual property and gave no thought to home users burning requirements. For awhile there the costs involved in doing this at home with Blu-ray were way too high. I believe that is why the alternative media such as flash drives, TV media accessories and Internet distribution started to become popular. It looked like Sony, et al, were content to keep the format all to themselves and lock the amateur and low budget pro out of the market.

Hey Birk, Blu-ray players are pretty cheap now, why not get a separate player? It could be that your PS3 is just too old and Sony is changing the "standards" going forward.

Another thing to try - burn to a folder, change the name of the movie file from .m2ts to .mts. Probably a long shot though.

Re-reading the wikipedia pages the original spec for AVCHD file structure was AVCHD\BDMV although I thought I read somewhere it could be either and still called an AVCHD disk. Do you think Sony is "migrating" the AVCHD spec to conform to Blu-ray structure - in other words they are really putting Blu-ray structure on DVD disks and calling it AVCHD anyway? If that is so perhaps that is why some older equipment may not recognize these newer disks.

Kenj62:

I really don't want another device hooked up to my TV and besides, for roughly the same price of a BD player I can get a BD burner for my PC and some blank BD disks. It's pretty clear that's what Sony wants me to do anyway. But at least I'm going to get an LG burner.

From what I've been able to glean from various postings an AVCHD format disk is different from both a DVD format disk and from a Blu-Ray disk. Since Sony wants people to buy Blu-Ray disks they did not include AVCHD format as an option for DVDA5. Obviously they had to include both Blu-Ray and DVD formats.

Dontcha just love it when the marketing guys get to make the technical decisions?

Maybe it is politics. Sony seems to be migrating the AVCHD standard. I am pleased to be able to create HD home video disks on the cheap, which for a long time was unexpected. I hope that a year or two from now these disks will be widely playable and this issue will go away.

they did not include AVCHD format as an option for DVDA5.

All I know is that I can create a Blu-ray disk in the Platinum versions of VMS9, 10 and DVDAS5, select the AVC codec and these applications burn a conventional DVD that plays back high definition video on a Sony BD player which identifies it as DVD-R AVCHD. I am happy. :-)

Other readers please post your experience with this. (Would you prefer I start a new topic, Birk?)

It must be an issue with the PS3 software then.

If I set DVDA5 to specify Blu-Ray disk and select either MPEG-2 or AVC format and burn to DVD media the PS3 loads it as a Data Disk.

It's not clear if this is a function of the Blu-Ray drive in the PS3 or the PS3 software itself. I wonder if there is a table someplace that lists current Blu-Ray players and whether or not they can play an AVCHD disk.

I just installed the latest PS3 software so I'll try recreating Blu-Ray output with AVC format.

No change. The DVD loads as a data disk. But the 1920x1080 videos sure look great.

"All I know is that I can create a Blu-ray disk in the Platinum versions of VMS9, 10 and DVDAS5, select the AVC codec and these applications burn a conventional DVD that plays back high definition video on a Sony BD player which identifies it as DVD-R AVCHD. I am happy. :-)"

I concur with your happiness and this subject is repeated on many other threads ... Speaking only for DVDA5, I too consistently create BD5's ( full HD 1920x1080 with menus, etc on regular DVD's) which play on all Sony Blueray players so far. Upon loading, said players identify the disc as DVD-R AVCHD, DVD+R AVCHD , whichever, and play superb HD pictures on large screen HD TV, no upconvertion.

However, these discs will not play on most other brands of Blueray players.

A solution suggested in other forums is not to burn a disc in DVDA5 but to prepare instead a Folder with this program. Then, with multiAVCHD the image in the previous folder can be burned to a regular DVD and supposedly it will play on most, but not all, other blueray players. I tested it and it works.

The given explanation is that for unknown reasons, the header structure of Sony DVDA5 needs to be changed at the time of burning and then all is well.

It may help to note that DVDA5 needs to be loaded with .m2t files to work properly. It is an authoring and not an editing program.

A solution suggested in other forums is not to burn a disc in DVDA5 but to prepare instead a Folder with this program. Then, with multiAVCHD the image in the previous folder can be burned to a regular DVD and supposedly it will play on most, but not all, other blueray players. I tested it and it works.

I don't follow this method, as, so far as I know, DVDAS cannot prepare folders, only iso files. What I do is create m2ts files in VMS and use multiAVCHD to create the discs. I have had no success in creating discs with menus though.

To create AVCHD discs with menus I use Cyberlink PowerDirector. I would much rather use DVDAS because of much better menu design capability and general power and usability.

Mike

Hmm. My copy of DVD Architect Studio can also save the DVD/BluRay files to a folder on your hard drive, using Prepare.

What version are you using, Steve? I would check Blu-ray again. When you click Prepare, does it say "Prepare folder" or "Prepare Image?"

I updated the software to my new Sony Blu-ray player model BDP-S370 a couple days ago, and today I can no longer play back Blu-ray on DVD. None of the DVD discs created in DVDAS5 or DVDAP5 with the Blu-ray option are acceptable to the player. The software update to the blu-ray player has disabled that functionality. I can only play back the AVCHD discs created in PowerDirector 8.

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh!

A buddy on the muvipix.com forum said he recently updated his Sony Blu-ray player and it quit playing AVCHD also. This is bad news, and IMO, unacceptable. I would send some rather pointed feedback to Sony about this.

We need universal support of high definition content on conventional media. I don't really care if the standard is migrated so we create Blu-ray structure on DVDs. At least newer and updated Blu-ray equipment will be able to play them.

"A buddy on the muvipix.com forum said he recently updated his Sony Blu-ray player and it quite playing AVCHD also. This is bad news, and IMO, unacceptable. I would send some rather pointed feedback to Sony about this. "

This is indeed something to be concerned about because it goes against compatibility in playing HD material. I have recommended friends and family to get a Sony Blueray player when they migrate to HD because, until now, BD5's made in DVDA5 play great in them with menus and all.

Personally I have not, and will not, "upgrade" my Sony Blueray player's firmware for the reasons stated.

I find it rather curious that Blueray burners and Blueray discs have not yet made it, economically, into the mayor electronic stores. Something must be afoot.

There is a website which stores past versions of a lot of software. This has been useful when "new improved versions" crash. I wonder if they carry older firmware as well. If I find this website again I will check and report. I will not trade functionality for features.

and it works A-OK. In anticipation of the burner's delivery I rendered a complete Blu-Ray format ISO file. DVDA reported there was 16.7GB of data in the ISO file and it took about 4 1/2 hrs. to render on my i7-920/6GB system. The render had about 30 min. to go when the drive arrived.

I waited for the render to finish and then installed the drive as a replacement for a CD-R drive in my system. Replacing was simple - I used the same power & SATA cables and installation screws. The drive came up and worked fine when I restarted the system.

I'll summarize the ensuing gory details by simply saying DO NOT INSTALL ANY OF THE SOFTWARE THAT COMES WITH THE DRIVE. I thought I needed ISO image burning software but Win7 has this built in. Just right-click the ISO file and select Burn to disk and Win7 does the burning by itself.

The resulting disk played perfectly on my HDTV via my PS3. All the menus and links worked perfectly and as expected the resulting video is simply stunning.

Now, if only DVDAS5 supported 5.1 audio for Blu-ray...I was hoping this would be included in this version, but maybe next time?

Yes, that is major annoyance. DVDAS does support 5.1 on DVD so (again) my sense is it was just another mis-guided, narrow-minded, and dumb marketing decision to limit Blu-Ray to stereo only.

I use MultiAVCHD for all my Blu-ray authoring needs and don't look back at DVDA. I don't even use it for authoring DVDs anymore.

I use MultiAVCHD for all my Blu-ray authoring needs and don't look back at DVDA. I don't even use it for authoring DVDs anymore.

I also use multiAVCHD for authoring AVCHD on DVD, although I'm happy with DVDAS for DVDs. I create m2ts files in VMS and send to multiAVCHD, which processes them really quickly. One thing I have not been able to do this way is create a working AVCHD DVD with a menu. Have you had any luck with that?

Mike