You can vary the bitrate, but the top bitrate is 15 Mbps. Actually that is just the top bitrate that you are allowed to select from the Ulead menu. Perhaps you could cheat if you are rendering the AVCH clip in Vegas. I'll have to try that since that later.

I haven't used AVCH video/clips and don't know anything about them, but using the 1440X1080 60i option is giving me a bitrate of 18K using Ulead MF+, no HD pack yet.

My original video is 1440X1080X60i @ 25K bits.

Like I said before, it really looks good.

The Blu-ray equivalent of 3x DVD is BD-9, which is basically the same thing: using a regular red laser DVD at 3x speed for a minimum low end bitrate of 30.24 Mbps. To see what I'm talking about, check out the article in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#BD-9_.2F_Mini-Blu-ray_Dischere.[/link]

Notice in the article that it says that BD-9 can be authored "without AACs". I believe that is why some of us are having so much better luck with AVCHD on DVD-R than we did with BDMV on DVD-R or BD-R.

If you look at the table http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD#HD_DVD_.2F_Blu-ray_disc_comparisonhere,[/link] you'll se that the maximum bitrate for audio plus video transfer at 1x DVD speed is 10.08 Mbps. Thus 3x that speed would be 30.24. This also happens to be the same transfer rate that HD DVD achieves at 1x speed with it's higher density. These figures are where I got my 30.24 number.

Having said that, we all know that you can't go all the way up to that sort of number on a disc that isn't pressed since burned discs are more prone to data errors. Thus I believe that 25 Mbps is a pretty safe number to use for HD content burned onto a regular DVD+-R for 3x playback on either an HD DVD or Blu-ray player.

Neither my Playstation 3 nor my Toshiba HD DVD player seem to have any trouble playing back 25 Mbps video off a standard DVD-R and I don't think any other HD DVD or Blu-ray player would either. This would make sense since 25 Mbps is a good 5 Mbps below the published minimum spec for 3x DVD data transfer rates for both formats.

I regularly do 3x dvd at 25M. Both the burner program as well as the Tosh player have no problems with it.

@ 4eyes

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

Do you have a link to that programm?

When I said that there is no smart render function available for AVCHD at the moment, then I had the mainstream NLEs in mind - Vegas, Adobe (what cannot even import AVCHD), Edius or the small Pinnacle Studio 11+. These NLEs import AVCHD native - but they encoded new, if you render from AVCHD to AVCHD. Maybe we will see another evolution path for AVCHD - you know, NLEs learn to import the material, learn to cut it, learn to render the format out, and maybe learn to smartrender it. For sure, smartrendering of AVCHD will take some time.

Right, a lot of people will come today from HDV - and if the smartrenderfunction works fine, you will not loose another render generation. For AVCHD it are good news, that Uleads Moviefactory will not encode the material again, as we know that from Nero 7.9x.

The limitations in datarate are not such an issue, I think. The limited datarate during acquisition is the bottleneck anyway. The low datarate can be enough, as we see from Vegas - as long, as the encoder quality is fine.

I make all my 3xHD DVDs with 25 Mbps 1920x1080i video plus Dolby 5.1 audio. My burner will not make a satisfactory DVD+R, but DVD+RWs work fine, no recoding by MF+.

With Patch 2, MF+ will accept m2t 720P files but crashes with "unknown error" later. There is no option in MF+ to set the project format to 720P.

I know it's sad to have to do this, but at least you can uprez to 1080p (30fps) in Vegas 8 for the time being.

Wolfgang, Sorry for the delay.
@ 4eyesFast Smartrenders (splits/trims) Mpeg1/Mpeg2/HD-Mpeg2, avc/h264, dv (copies).
Interactive smart-renders Mpeg1/Mpeg2/HD-Mpeg2, avc/h264 editing & joining files provided your "Project Settings" match your source material.
Plus version only with update Patch#2 release 8/30/07 installed.
http://www.ulead.com/dmf/runme.htm