[tausifs]

Hi,

I have a US model Canon HV20 and want to archive and edit the footage to Blu Ray.

The Panasonic freesat BD recorder doesn't seem like it would be any use as it supports AVCHD.

I presume I will need a computer with a large hard drive, firewire and video editing software as well as a BD burner.

Some people with a HDV camcorder must gone this route already. Just want some advice and if there is anything else I will need.

Are there any laptops that have all the requirements ? Or would a desktop be cheaper and more practical ? Any PC recommendations ?

[JH4]

Hi again, I was the one replying to your query on the Panny BD recorder thread. What you could do is upload your HDV footage to a PC via Firewire and - with such software as Corel's/ULead's "VideoStudio", convert this to an AVCHD format. This can then be burned to a normal DVD blank ( not BD), which will play in the original HD quality on a BD or Sony PS3 player. This saves the need to buy a BD burner. (You are right in that the Panny will only accept AVCHD footage.) Hope this helps.

[tausifs]

Thanks, sorry didn't see your post in that thread.

I thought AVCHD would result in a little loss of definition which I want to avoid. I want a pixel by pixel transfer ideally.

EDIT: sorry again, so AVCHD can be as good as original. So what are the minimum PC requirements for video editing and firewire eg. RAM

And is that software free ?

Thanks.

[JH4]

Originally Posted by tausifs

Thanks, sorry didn't see your post in that thread.

I thought AVCHD would result in a little loss of definition which I want to avoid. I want a pixel by pixel transfer ideally.

EDIT: sorry again, so AVCHD can be as good as original. So what are the minimum PC requirements for video editing and firewire eg. RAM

And is that software free ?

Thanks.

I have used an elderly P4 computer running Win XP with Corel's "VideoStudio 11.5" and 1G of RAM. That will work, but is a bit slow sometimes. More RAM is the key, and a faster processor. There is a very good deal on the latest version of Corel's VideoStudio X2 on Amazon at the mo, but it's not Windows 7 certified, as yet.. It Ok for XP and Vista though. That will do all you want it to, I believe. Check out the reviews as well, on that site. There is a free trial version on Corel's site but it will have limited functionality.
Best of luck !

[senu]

You can produce BD or AVCHD discs from HDV without converting first to AVCHD though.

[senu]

Originally Posted by tausifs

I thought AVCHD would result in a little loss of definition which I want to avoid. I want a pixel by pixel transfer ideally.

It might

EDIT: sorry again, so AVCHD can be as good as original. So what are the minimum PC requirements for video editing and firewire eg. RAM

HDV is fare easier to edit than AVCHD so I would really not convert unlesss you had to and even then leave that to the Disc arthoring software

And is that software free ?
Thanks.

Nope
But they are not that costly

I have known folk convert AVCHD to HDV with little or no loss in definition . I guess the same applies to HDv to AVCHD but it should not be nessesary to do this to produce a BD or AVCHD disc

[chrishull3]

BD burners are cheap now, for me one is a must.

[tausifs]

Originally Posted by senu

You can produce BD or AVCHD discs from HDV without converting first to AVCHD though.

How do you do this, please ?

BTW, my PC would need more RAM , more hard drive and also a firewire, its a 4.5 yrs old Dell ! Seems I would be better off buying a new higher spec PC rather than trying to bolt things on to it. Hewlett Packard PCs seem to be quite highly spec'd- does anyone have one of these ? Any HP's come with a BD burner and full HD display ?

[senu]

Originally Posted by tausifs

How do you do this, please ?

Most software which can produce AVCHD disc or BD will take HDV as input
Ulead MF6+, Roxio 2010 pro Are one or 2 Ive got

BTW, my PC would need more RAM , more hard drive and also a firewire, its a 4.5 yrs old Dell ! Seems I would be better off buying a new higher spec PC rather than trying to bolt things on to it. Hewlett Packard PCs seem to be quite highly spec'd- does anyone have one of these ? Any HP's come with a BD burner and full HD display ?

Yes Ive even seen some HP laptops with it although I would steer you towards a Quadcore/17 desktop for the extra grunt they are likely to have for less money than a high end Laptop

[senu]

Originally Posted by chrishull3

BD burners are cheap now, for me one is a must.

Is it worth getting an internal one and then getting an e-sata case?; I have my sights on the LG or Pioneer203
Cases are £ 20 and drives Around £140 in a shop in my area

[tausifs]

My BD player doesn't seem to say if it will play AVCHD. Is there anything I can download from somewhere onto a DVD just to see if it will play in it ? Guys thanks for all your help so far

So it seem I only need a higher spec PC , not necessarily a BD recorder in it ?

Before I pull the trigger on a high spec PC, are there any AVCHD enabled HDD/DVD recorders out there that would do the job ?

[senu]

Originally Posted by tausifs

My BD player doesn't seem to say if it will play AVCHD.

Which is it?

Is there anything I can download from somewhere onto a DVD just to see if it will play in it ?

Even if you got AVCHD material, just burning to DVD as a data dic does not make it an AVCHD disc..you would have to author one with software

So it seem I only need a higher spec PC , not necessarily a BD recorder in it ?

Yes but a BD burner would be a plus if it didn't add to cost. bare drives cost about £150+

Before I pull the trigger on a high spec PC, are there any AVCHD enabled HDD/DVD recorders out there that would do the job ?

Yes but they are far from cheap ATM Panasonic make a few
A new PC would be better VFM

[tausifs]

My BD player is the Denon 3800BD, one of their first efforts.

[tausifs]

Senu,

so I have some suggested specs from looking at the HP Pavillion range, would these be sufficient ?

-RAM standard memory 4 GB

-dedicated video RAM 512MB

-NVIDIA graphics card Geoforce 9100

-internal drive 500GB

-IEEE 1394 FireWire® Interface

-Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner with LightScribe Technology

The HP Pavillion p6115 has all these. Processor type AMD Phenom™ II X4 810 . What do you think ?

Would Windows 7 be better than Windows Vista ?

[senu]

Looks Good
Windows 7 does use resources more efficiently than Vista but I have had no issues with either

[tausifs]

Thanks Senu, v reassuring,

[tausifs]

BTW, sorry if this is obvious but do all Blu Ray player DVD writers allow you to burn Blu Ray discs ?

EDIT- just called HP and none of their PCs with BD drives allow you to write BDs on them. Is this something that only standalone drives can do currently ?

[chrishull3]

Originally Posted by tausifs

BTW, sorry if this is obvious but do all Blu Ray player DVD writers allow you to burn Blu Ray discs ?

EDIT- just called HP and none of their PCs with BD drives allow you to write BDs on them. Is this something that only standalone drives can do currently ?

Hp current must only only have bd rom drives at present not writers.lg separates are good bd burners.

[chrishull3]

Originally Posted by senu

Is it worth getting an internal one and then getting an e-sata case?; I have my sights on the LG or Pioneer203
Cases are £ 20 and drives Around £140 in a shop in my area

pesonal i prefer inside but they both work as well as each other.

[senu]

Originally Posted by chrishull3

pesonal i prefer inside but they both work as well as each other.

Which do you have, LG or Pioneer ? Im getting one 2morow

[senu]

Originally Posted by tausifs

My BD player is the Denon 3800BD, one of their first efforts.

look

Blu-Ray players that play AVC-HD movies. - Club MyCE

[tausifs]

Originally Posted by chrishull3

Hp current must only only have bd rom drives at present not writers.lg separates are good bd burners.

Do any current PCs come with BD writers ? I haven't been able to find any.

Think I may upgrade to a HP PC without a BD player, then add on the LG or Pioneer BD writer when I feel the need, go AVCHD in the meantime- thanks again Senu, I saw that but was the only reference I could find and wasn't sure if it was confirmed or not, as they didn't officially spec my Denon BD player for it. But it seems AVCHD is very close to BD format.

EDIT- with HP it doesn't seem to save much money omitting the BD player, but with the same high level spec.

[senu]

Originally Posted by tausifs

Do any current PCs come with BD writers ? I haven't been able to find any.

Yes
However if they dont, the unit are easy to fit. My PC cam without one and I got a BD rom reader/ DVD burner (LG) for £65 ..

The burners are still double that though .. and I reckoned I would simply burn AVCHD discs , especially as BD media r

Think I may upgrade to a HP PC without a BD player, then add on the LG or Pioneer BD writer when I feel the need, go AVCHD in the meantime-

Good plan but Im not sure AVCHD discs can be played via a DVD drive ( I may be wrong)

thanks again Senu, I saw that but was the only reference I could find and wasn't sure if it was confirmed or not, as they didn't officially spec my Denon BD player for it.

No worries

But it seems AVCHD is very close to BD format.

It is
AVCHD disc is merely a subset of BD on smaller capacity media: structure is the same

[JH4]

Yeh, AVCHD files on a normal DVD disc (-R for example) will only play on a BD player or a Sony PS3.
Ditto for AVCHD files on a BD disc.
There are several PC makers that supply BD burners, but they are usually spec'd as an option rather than as standard.
AVCHD files burned to normal DVD blanks are obviously a much cheaper way of doing it, whilst still preserving the original HD quality.
That's what I normally do for camcorder footage - works a treat !

[senu]

Originally Posted by JH4

Yeh, AVCHD files on a normal DVD disc (-R for example) will only play on a BD player or a Sony PS3.
Ditto for AVCHD files on a BD disc.
There are several PC makers that supply BD burners, but they are usually spec'd as an option rather than as standard.
AVCHD files burned to normal DVD blanks are obviously a much cheaper way of doing it, whilst still preserving the original HD quality.
That's what I normally do for camcorder footage - works a treat !

Im not sure that AVCHD files burnt to a Disc as Data will work on a BD player although they do on the PS3, which can play then as a media player, not BD player
I suspect an AVCHD disc will need to be arthored for a standalone Bd player to work
Some can play off sd cards ( The Panasonic BD 35 I have does but the size is a limitation)
I just use the WDTV media player though rather than bother with discs as i dont have a PS3. for £70 it is a life saver

[tausifs]

Originally Posted by senu

Most software which can produce AVCHD disc or BD will take HDV as input
Ulead MF6+, Roxio 2010 pro Are one or 2 Ive got

Are either of these Windows 7 certified ?

Sorry to get a bit esoteric now, but will either of these 2 softwares allow you to convert camcorder-captured 1080i60 (3 :2 pulldown of 1080p frames captured at 24/second) and deinterlace it back to 1080p24 ?

And I am slightly tempted to go for a high spec laptop although these have slower processors. Would 1.6 Gz be acceptable ?

[chrishull3]

Originally Posted by senu

Which do you have, LG or Pioneer ? Im getting one 2morow

mines an lg and has been great but pioneer make good stuff my main tvs pioneer.

[chrishull3]

Originally Posted by tausifs

Do any current PCs come with BD writers ? I haven't been able to find any.

Think I may upgrade to a HP PC without a BD player, then add on the LG or Pioneer BD writer when I feel the need, go AVCHD in the meantime- thanks again Senu, I saw that but was the only reference I could find and wasn't sure if it was confirmed or not, as they didn't officially spec my Denon BD player for it. But it seems AVCHD is very close to BD format.

EDIT- with HP it doesn't seem to save much money omitting the BD player, but with the same high level spec.

The higher range vaio laptops have BD drive built in not sure of any PC but you would think they would be part of the package now.

[senu]

Originally Posted by tausifs

Are either of these Windows 7 certified ?

Roxio 2010 is but Im yet to try any software with W7 which doesnt work, at least with the RTM version Ive been using for the last 3/4 months

Sorry to get a bit esoteric now, but will either of these 2 softwares allow you to convert camcorder-captured 1080i60 (3 :2 pulldown of 1080p frames captured at 24/second) and deinterlace it back to 1080p24 ?

Couldnt tell you but that sort of thing is best done in editing software like Vegas before AVCHD disc arthoring.

And I am slightly tempted to go for a high spec laptop although these have slower processors. Would 1.6 Gz be acceptable ?

1.6.. Core2 duo?
More is better .I suspect For HDV it will do but for AVCHD it will struggle given that you only get smooth performence on higher Quad core or i7 systems

[tausifs]

Originally Posted by senu

Roxio 2010 is but Im yet to try any software with W7 which doesnt work, at least with the RTM version Ive been using for the last 3/4 months


Couldnt tell you but that sort of thing is best done in editing software like Vegas before AVCHD disc arthoring.


1.6.. Core2 duo?
More is better .I suspect For HDV it will do but for AVCHD it will struggle given that you only get smooth performence on higher Quad core or i7 systems

Can you use Sony Vegas on any PC or on only Sony Vaio's ?

The notebook I have seen is HP Pavilion dv7-3000 Entertainment Notebook PC and it seems to spec i7:

Intel® Core™ processor i7-720QM: 1.60 GHz
4096 MB
640 GB (2 x 320 GB)
Lightscribe Blu-Ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD±R/RW Double Layer
I guess 1.6GHz may be skimping a bit ?

I have just stumbled across this shortcut too:

VRD-MC6 (VRDMC6) : Overview : Accessories and headphones : Sony
But looks like it will only convert HDV to standard definition.