Laurence, keep us posted on your observations using Ulead for BD and AVCHD. Sounds like I need to look at Ulead HD as a functional app to have. I was hoping DVD-LAB PRO would make a quick entry into the HD make.

> when I try to import the M2TS to Vegas 8, DD5.1 audio imports but no video

What camcorder footage is that. Because, in the meantime, Vegas 8 supports some non-Sony AVCHDs too (even if that is not mentioned really, but for some Panasonic camcorders the import works - even if there are still some playback issues at the moment).

And for sure, Vega 8 can writte AVCHD images too, that can be burned to DVD too. Works well with both AVC and mepg2-HD codec. However, without any menus.

[b]"What camcorder footage is that. Because, in the meantime, Vegas 8 supports some non-Sony AVCHDs too (even if that is not mentioned really, but for some Panasonic camcorders the import works - even if there are still some playback issues at the moment)."[b]

It's from the Sony HC3 (which is not AVCHD) The footage was captured by Pinnacle as a normal m2t (actually m2v, which is what pinnacle captures as) and then RENDERED to file as avchd. (I'm not sure about ulead but pinnacle can render to avchd from any of the normally used formats... even sd footage). If I re-import the newly generated m2ts to pinnacle it plays fine. But if I import it to Vegas... the audio imports but not the video....This is why I am curious to know if Vegas will take a ULEAD m2ts... because it does not seem to take a pinnacle m2ts.

It doesn't really matter what format the original footage is in. To make a Blu-ray compatible AVCHD disc, you just do a final render in AVCHD and author with MF+. I wouldn't try to smart-render the AVCHD or anything like that. My projects will be mostly HDV source material with a shot or two of AVCHD at the most.

The point is that now I can give a person with a Blu-ray player a disc with menus that will play beautiful looking HD video. My total extra investment to be able to do this is less than a hundred dollars and the per disc cost is the same as SD DVD.

Laurence...

Do you know what players this will work in? I'm not sure I want a PS3... I was thinking about it before, but I would rather have a player. Word has it that the PS3 output quality is not QUITE as good as the BD players. If it works in a few of the BD players then I may just pick one up and take advantage of both formats.

Unlike real BD-R, the AVCHD format discs should work on all Blu-ray players. This is because the AVCHD format is a part of the Blu-ray specification that is designed specifically to play home recorded video from AVCHD camcorders.

Remember that all the roadblocks that people trying to produce Blu-ray discs have run into so far have been purposely put there to discourage piracy.

Anyway, don't let the fact that this is a home video mode discourage you. It looks great and allows you to do professional looking menus.

Someone shooting and editing XD-Cam may find the output quality options limited, but they are a good match for the current batch of HDV cameras that most of us use. You won't be able to do full 1920 x 1080 x 60p video this way, but footage from a project shot with an HDV camera is going to give you output that matches the source footage nicely and will look very close to the same quality.

The real kicker is that if you do need to do a project that is longer than an hour, Movie Factory will let you author full Blu-ray or HD DVD projects as well. This is just too cool!

Another feature (this time on the HD DVD side) is that with the HD Power Pack plugin installed, Movie Factory Plus HD can now author the new style of pop up menues that you typically see in store bought HD DVD and Blu-ray discs. This mode is called "HD DVD advanced mode".

Unlike real BD-R, the AVCHD format discs should work on all Blu-ray players. This is because the AVCHD format is a part of the Blu-ray specification that is designed specifically to play home recorded video from AVCHD camcorders.Toshiba Blu-Ray Disc Players = None I tried, no play, only Sony & Pioneer (panasonic should work, none available at the time).

Toshiba Blu-ray players... you're joking right?

Oopps, Samsung players didn't work..
Sorry about that.
I remember a salesman tried a Toshiba unit the store which didn't work, don't recall the Tosh unit.

I do remember 2 units that would not play a AVCHD disk, they must have been the Samsung units then. I know they were blu-ray players because I had to take the disks out.

Apparently, AVCHD compatability was turned off in Samsung Blu-ray players during the last firmware update. Hopefully this was a mistake and they will turn it on again.

OK, well that's good news. The feature is there then.
The units did read the disks & displayed them as data disks.
Couldn't find any way of playing the data disk in file mode.

Looks like Toshiba can cause more confusion, seems we have Mpeg-4 AVC & the AVCHD format.
This article is dated Sept 27, 2007: HighDef Toshiba Camcorder: I'm guessing it's AVC in a mp4 wrapper, compared to the avchd which uses mpeg2 transport stream as a wrapper. Of couse must be other differences.
http://www.everythingusb.com/toshiba_gigashot_a100f_13429.html

"It doesn't really matter what format the original footage is in. To make a Blu-ray compatible AVCHD disc, you just do a final render in AVCHD and author with MF+. I wouldn't try to smart-render the AVCHD or anything like that. My projects will be mostly HDV source material with a shot or two of AVCHD at the most."

Well, there is NO applikation that is able to perform smart-rendering for AVCHD at the moment - so that is no choice at all. But we do not talk about smarrendering here at all! From a pure authoring tool, I do not expect any rendering - since you loose quality without any benefit.

So, if you render to AVCHD with Vegas 8, and import that material in Uleads Moviefactory, is the material encoded new or not?

The alternative is, to generate an image with Vegas 8, and burn the image to an DVD. You do not loose quality - ok, you have no menus.

And yes, AVCHD-DVDs seems to be more compatible then BD-R are.

Well, there is NO applikation that is able to perform smart-rendering for AVCHD at the momentI found a program that can smart-render avchd files. Only trims or cuts, still have to test & see how valid these smart-rendered files play. Basically it's a file copy with restamping. I think the term smart-rendering versus not re-sampling a video needs better clarification.So, if you render to AVCHD with Vegas 8, and import that material in Uleads Moviefactory, is the material encoded new or not?No it isn't re-encoded IF the program sees the video as being AVCHD Compliant. You can force a re-encode though, you should ask these questions on their website. You know the program may/may not install on all computersQuestion: How are your AVC encodes coming out from Vegas. On occassions I'm getting a purple bloch here & there, it's happening independant on the bit-rate, 4-15 doesn't make any difference. I use to get the same bloching using VMS and exporting to Cineformhd, then converting the cine to hd-divx. I can see the purpleish blochs on the computer & the PS3 so it doesn't appear to be a fault in the playback hardware.

Are you talking about patch 2 released 8-30-07? Or am I missing something?

While I like Ulead MF+ and use it because it is the only game in town, it has a long way to go.

Even the simple things like using a m2t instead of a m2p are not yet integrated.

There is no 720P support, no bitrate adjustment, no layer break setting, among many, many other things.

Are there more recent updates available?

I will add that I have been able to produce incredible 1080i HD-DVDs with this inexpensive program.

Yeah you are missing something. There is a $20 upgrade patch which adds the following:

HD DVD with the pop-up menues.
BDMV authoring onto BD-R media.
Bluray compatible AVCHD authoring on DVD-R media.

You can find it http://www.ulead.com/dmf/plugin.htmhere.[/link]

'Well, there is NO applikation that is able to perform smart-rendering for AVCHD at the moment'

This may be the only real stumbling block to overcome. Not so much for me I guess... I'm rendering m2t files over to m2ts so smart render would not apply to me anyway. But I have noticed that although I can get more on the disk with avchd (63 minutes@17000 as compared to HD DVD's 40 minutes @25000), rendering over to m2ts takes a LONG time... 4hours for a 60 minute timeline, and the quality is not QUITE as good as with a smart rendered m2t on to a HD DVD.

So it's a real double edge sword either way for me... a top notch quality disk at a shorter length... or a longer disk at a slightly lesser quality.... which one is better???

Yes I do agree with you that there is a tradeoff between an 3x DVD with it's 20 minutes of pristine HD mpeg 2 video or AVCHD with it's 30 minutes of almost as good HD AVCHD video.

On the other hand, either one blows away SD DVDs. If you master a project in three formats: SD DVD, HD DVD compatible 3x DVD with mpeg2 and Blu-ray compatible AVCHD disc, then compare them, the SD DVD is a much lower level of quality whereas the HD images of the 3x DVD and AVCHD discs look very close.

The way I see it, most people with HD TVs receiving HD broadcasts over cable or satellite are going to be used to seeing an image with much worse compression than what you get with AVCHD.

The good thing is that now I can deliver HD video to people with either format player. I really am pretty thrilled about this!

the SD DVD is a much lower level of quality whereas the HD images of the 3x DVD and AVCHD discs look very close.

Oh yes!!! DRASTIC difference between SD and HD!! That's why I have been chomping at the bit to get this HD burning stuff off the ground! Either way.... we now have some real HD options.... which is all I care about in the end.

Laurence:

Thanks for the link. I never saw that on their web-site, and I look for updates at least weekly.

When I called Ulead just now, the CSR asked ME for the link so they could see what I was talking about.

My question, which they could not answer but will get back to me is, does MF6+ w/HD Power Pack support 720P?

Do you know?

"The way I see it, most people with HD TVs receiving HD broadcasts over cable or satellite are going to be used to seeing an image with much worse compression than what you get with AVCHD."
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You would not believe cable compression tactics. Using a Cox Cable HD set top box (STB) you can use the active firewire port to capture the raw mpg2 ts from the source.

I used a JVC DVHS recorder off the STB to capture and route to the HDTV. As the JVC was outputting the raw source material, the HDTV would constantly change formats (between different shows, commercials, etc.) and the HDTV would constanly show the change in format screen. It was not watchable that way.

Your STB is putting out whatever you told it to, ie; 1080i, which is actually a good idea it seems. What you are getting is mostly 720P and some 1080i at bit rates as low as 8,000 total stream.

Im not kidding, it is a joke. Some is good though. They are obviously somehow able to lower the bitrates greatly and still maintain PQ.

Bottom line to this ramble, you will never ever see 25K bit on cable or satelite.

Actually the top data transfer rate for 3x DVD speed is 30.24 Mbps. There is more than enough room for the 25 Mbps transfer rate of HDV mpeg2 as it is recorded to tape.