Here's another recommendation:

If you install Cyberlink PowerDVD 7 Ultra on your PC, when you put in one of the VRD-MC5 AVCHD discs, it will immediately start playing the video.

If you author to AVCHD format using Ulead MF 6+ with the HD plugin, you can render an edited project into the same AVCHD format (with menus if you want them) and these discs will also immediately start playing if you have PowerDVD Ultra.

The VRD-MC5 discs (or the Ulead MF6+ discs) will play in all the Sony Blu-ray players just like a real Blu-ray disc. They will not play in a Samsung BDP-1200 though unfortunately.

"If you install Cyberlink PowerDVD 7 Ultra on your PC, when you put in one of the VRD-MC5 AVCHD discs, it will immediately start playing the video."

Cyberlink Ultra is selling for $99 at Amazon. It sounds like a good player, but does it have any lower priced, capable competition on the market.

It was a couple of dollars cheaper to update from regular PowerDVD 6.

There probably is a similar entry from WinDVD.

Here's the way I see it:

1/ Blu-ray has won the war.
2/ BD-Rs are still too expensive for regular distribution of one-off discs.
3/ AVCHD discs play back perfectly in most Blu-ray players, have a little over an hour of playback time (on a dual layer), and look very close to as good for as little as 30 cents a disc (single layer with 30 minutes playback time).

Thus my HD distribution method of choice right now is AVCHD discs. PowerDVD Ultra 7 lets me play these discs back on my laptop. This is really cool and well worth the $100 it costs. PowerDVD Ultra 7 also lets you view discs from the VRD-MC5 on your PC. Great stuff IMHO.

I'm still experimenting with the MC5 and I've found another problem - I cannot output to SD DVD from my CX7 via USB.

Note: I've updated the firmware to 30R2 which is the current version.

The manual states (for HDD/Memory Stick): "When dubbing SD video press the RETURN button to display the Menu and select "Video->DVD" then select "USB" in the input selection screen".

This all works right up until you read the following on the MC5 screen:

"No valid video found in the camcorder"

The workaround is to output standard composite video/audio from the CX7 and just do an analog transfer to DVD. But I'm thinking that I can get better quality if the MC5 actually worked like it states in the manual. I've done the composite transfer and it does not stack up to a Vegas 8.0a to DVDA 4.5 to SD DVD quality-wise.

The manual seems clear so I think it's a bug.

Actually you can't do what you want to do. The reason the manual says it the way that it does is because if you record to SD on the CX-7, then you can burn to SD DVD. If you record HD, you can only go to HD AVCHD directly. As you have noticed, you can still do the downrez through the analog connections, but where's the joy in that?

By the way, the SD mode of the CX-7 isn't that great. I would just stick with HD resolutions and enjoy the extra clarity if I was you.

Laurence,
You said "Thus my HD distribution method of choice right now is AVCHD discs. PowerDVD Ultra 7 lets me play these discs back on my laptop. This is really cool and well worth the $100 it costs. PowerDVD Ultra 7 also lets you view discs from the VRD-MC5 on your PC. Great stuff IMHO."

I've been following much of the Blu-ray stuff from afar... do you mean that you play the AVCHD discs on your laptop as it has a Blu-ray player, or you can put that AVCHD disc into a regular DVD drive and it plays an HD AVCHD disc? Cause the main way I'm getting HD to clients right now it to render an HD wmv file, burn it onto a data disc, and forward that.

An AVCHD disc will not work with a regular standalone DVD player like you have in your living room.

An AVCHD disc will work and play high definition content on a regular computer DVD drive if you have PowerDVD Ultra 7 installed. Be aware that it takes a fair amount of CPU though. Older P4 computers won't keep up. Newer Core2Duo systems are fine.

An AVCHD disc will work and play high definition content on most Blu-ray players. The one exception I've found is the Samsung BDP-1200. The BDP-1200 used to work with AVCHD discs, but they removed this feature two firmware updates ago. Hopefully it will return in later updates.

An AVCHD disc is the format that Sony has designed for it's consumer level AVCHD camcorders. Actually it's not limited to DVD-Rs. You can put a CX-7 format card in a Blu-ray player with a ProDuo card slot and it will play back directly from that. If a Blu-ray player has a USB interface, you can play the video directly of the AVCHD camcorder hard drive or flash memory.

An AVCHD disc can do a DVD style menu but it can't do the new fancy pop-up style menus that you see on commercial Blu-ray and HD DVD discs.