AVCHD On High Definition Media?

[Jerry Jones]

Remember Wayne Cole's article in Government Video?

http://governmentvideo.com/articles/publish/article_982.shtml

Enter AVCHD camcorders with IEEE-1394 and USB 2 ports. With companies like Ulead, Adobe, Sonic, Nero, and InterVideo signed up to support AVCHD, it seems clear that the idea is to allow consumers to burn their own AVCHD videos direct to Blu-ray discs.

I understand that there will be a free update to my Pinnacle Studio 11 Ultimate software in the third quarter of this year that will allow for burning AVCHD -- without menus -- directly to "normal" DVD media -- and these will play in approved "Blu-ray Disc" players.

What isn't clear to me is whether there will be an opportunity down the road for AVCHD camcorder owners to burn their AVCHD video directly to "Blu-ray Disc" (BD-R, for example) or "HD DVD" (HD DVD-R, for example) -- with menus.

What also isn't clear to me is whether there will be an opportunity down the road for AVCHD camcorder owners to burn the AVCHD video directly to "normal" DVD media -- with menus -- for playback in approved "Blu-ray Disc" or "HD DVD" players.

There are some FAQs here:

http://www.emedialive.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=11392

http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc

Anybody know the answers?

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

Here's Pinnacle's reference link:

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Products/Consumer+Products/Home+Video/Studio+Family/Understanding+HD

Yes**

* Import, edit & burn native AVCHD video format, for optimal export speed and highest possible quality.
* Burn high-quality AVCHD on a standard DVD media, using a standard DVD burner.

** this will be available with Studio 11.1 (free patch for download)

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

Well, I've been reading the Pinnacle user forum posts and it appears that this forthcoming update to Pinnacle won't do smart AVCHD rendering, which would suggest every frame will have to be re-encoded.

So -- bottom line -- all we AVCHD types have going now is the ability to convert AVCHD to HDV MPEG-2... edit... then burn to discs.

Unfortunately, I've never liked the way MPEG-2 handles motion.

And when I transcode AVCHD to HD MPEG-2, I see *more* motion artifacting than I see when I simply play the original AVCHD clips using Sony's "Picture Motion Browser" software.

Consumer high definition isn't "there" yet.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net