[Smokeyone]

I have just purchased a canon hf200 (hope I have made the right choice) and am away on a trip tomorrow to try it out. I am hoping someone could confirm to me so that I understand correctly -
If I edit the film then to play it back I need to either transfer the movie back to the camera card and play back throught my hd tele or buy a hd burner, copy to a disc and then buy a hd player to playback on my hd tele. Have I missed any options - assume I can purchase an external hd burner for my pc !
Also is there a better (read easier) option than usuing the canon pixella software supplied - for instance the sony software.
I am new to digi movies so please bear with me.
Thanks very much

PS Just a thought - is there an hd burner & player available that I can connect to my pc and also the television !!

[mmace]

just a quick reply, someone can go into more detail with your other questions.
If you're wanting to just playback for yourself, get a USB hard drive (v cheap these days) and something like the WD HD player, just plug the HDD into it and play it on your HDTV via HDMI

[Smokeyone]

Thanks very much for the tip. Funny thing is I purchased a WD My passport hard drive a few weeks ago as a back up for my pc so that would go nicely with your suggested WD HD Player. - playback is mostly for myself however it would be handy to make the odd disc - can you copy HD movies to a standard disc via the normal pc dvd/re write and just have standard playback not HD...

[rogs]

Another recommendation for the WDTV player here - so much easier than doing the whole 'disc' thing all over again with Blu-ray, just so you can watch your footage in HD!

I sometimes just take the SDHC card straight from my Panasonic camera, plug it into a card reader, and plug that reader into the WDTV player to play the original files directly, without having to connect the camera to the TV.
I'm guessing you can do the same thing with the Canon.

Or you can download to your HDD, as suggested above.

When it comes to editing, you have a lot more options doing things this way, because there are lots of different formats that the WD player can cope with, so you're not limited to the Blu-ray disc format for output.
I do most of my editng using free software, and still get good HD results!

You can convert the AVCHD files to standard MPEG2, for burning onto a standard DVD. In the case of my Pansonic, you do that with the supplied software. I'm guessing the Canon software is similar?
Perhaps someone can confirm that?

[Smokeyone]

I know it would cost more but I take it a cheapo laptop would not be upto the job of playing hd movies via the tele - just trying to play around with ideas - but also thinking of the cost and my wife saying we have enough boxes already.
Would not mind buying a dvd hd player/pity there's not one that is like the WD player already....just so's I can get a few hd dvd movies and see the ones I already have upscaled - one box doing two jobs....

[rogs]

Cheapo lap top will almost certainly not play HD video well. I had to go all the way to a Quad core 2.83 GHz, to play AVCHD video files as well as the WDTV player.

Most HD video formats, particulary AVCHD, require a lot of computer 'grunt'. The chipsets in the media players are designed just for that task, so make light of the amount of processing going on when decoding HD video.

I can understand your problem ..I too have a wife who just doesn't understand why so many boxes are essential!

The WD player isn't very big though -only about 2" x 4" x 5".

If you do decide to buy a Blu-ray player, remember that it is possbile to make 'AVCHD' DVDs, that will play back, in HD, from standard DVD blanks. Obviously less room than a Blu ray disc, but the blanks are cheaper!
Again, the bundled Panasonic camera software allows you to make and burn such discs, using a standard DVD PC burner - again no need for the cost of a Blu ray burner.
Whether your Canon software allows you to do this??

[tg3euser]

Hi Rogs, what free editing software do you recommend to edit your HD files.
Regards tg3euser.

[rogs]

One option I use is the one I described here: hd video compression.

[Smokeyone]

Just returned from my trip away and catching up on the forum suggestions.
It seems the easiest best way to play the hd movies from my Canon is to buy the WD player and a seperate Blu ray player for HD purchased movies and the odd home made disc. Hope I have it correct so far....AVCHD discs can be made from ord blank DVD discs on the standard pc rw drive but only short ones.
Have I got it right so far...
Thanks

[chrishull3]

Originally Posted by Smokeyone

Just returned from my trip away and catching up on the forum suggestions.
It seems the easiest best way to play the hd movies from my Canon is to buy the WD player and a seperate Blu ray player for HD purchased movies and the odd home made disc. Hope I have it correct so far....AVCHD discs can be made from ord blank DVD discs on the standard pc rw drive but only short ones.
Have I got it right so far...
Thanks

Avchd discs can be made on ordinary dvd drives and can be 63 mins long with dual layer blank discs, pinnacle rendered.

[Smokeyone]

Thanks very much for the reply. So Pinnacle studio 11 can transfer/edit my canon hd movies to a ord dual layer blank disc....so I can purchase the software and a nice hd player and get cracking on my Cecil B Demille project - brilliant. Also for the time being providing I keep to under 63 minutes I can make do without the WD player.
Am I correct in thinking that the HD disc cannot be played on an ord DVD player - just thinking about copies for friends - can Pinnacle also make ord DVD's from the Canon.....