[shezza]

Hi all I have got some very fine detailed clips on HD video when I download them onto my pc all is well even when I render and save them (Cyberlink Power Director) they are perfect. But when I come to burning them to dvd they lose all the quality!
Whats the way forward is it blu-ray? any ideas.

[grahamlthompson]

Or assuming they are compatible burn them to DVD in AVCHD format. You still need a blu-ray player to show them though (or a pS3). At least you don't need a burner. You could also use a media player to play back the video.

[shezza]

I burn them to dvd in avchd and the quality is not good, are you saying I need a bu-ray player to view them.

[John Lewis]

How long in minutes is it ?
For best quality you only get 15 to 20 minutes on DVD and thereafter it will be compressed

[shezza]

30 second clip!

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by shezza

I burn them to dvd in avchd and the quality is not good, are you saying I need a bu-ray player to view them.

A DVD player will not play AVCHD HD material. If a DVD player plays it back it's not HD AVCHD. For a start they don't have HD output decoding (some may upscale SD to HD that's not the same thing). You get about 30 minutes of 1920 x 1080 17Mbps on a single layer DVD blank and about 40 minutes of 1440 x 1080 12Mbps content. It should be identical to the original within these limits. Recoding to a lower bitrate makes very little difference to quality especially if you use 2 pass vbr (takes a lot longer to code). Forget DVD storage for 1080p50, the bitrate is too high.

You can join individual clips into a longer movie without editing and create a folder you can burn to a DVD blank using free software like TSmuxergui and IMGburn.

You can't just copy a clip to a DVD blank and expect to play it back, like a DVD you need a specific file and folder structure.

[rogs]

Originally Posted by shezza

I burn them to dvd in avchd and the quality is not good, are you saying I need a bu-ray player to view them.

Yes - Although you can burn the AVCHD footage onto a standard DVD, as AVCHD, and retain the 'High Definition' quality, you can only play that disc on a Blu-ray player.

If you are able to play the disc on a standard DVD player, then the editing and burning process will have involved converting the footage to SD (Standard Definition) video, somewhere along the way.

That will of course be of a lower quality.

You can avoid using discs altogether, and pehaps look into getting a media player -like the WD Live for example - instead?
They will be able to play your footage in high Definition through your TV, using the media player instead of a Blu-ray player....

EDIT: posted before I saw Graham's post. They both say similar things, but I have added the media player option you might like to consider, as an alternative to buying a Blu ray player....

[shezza]

The full story is this....I make videos of wildlife and use a Panasonic HDV Camcorder (HDC 900 I think) which I download to my pc then arrange the clips in Cyberlink Power Director 10 to do all the editing.
I then produce (render) the finished film and when I view the finished item on my computer through Windows Media player the quality is perfect. The problem occurs when I want to burn to dvd to hand out it's then that the quality is very poor! worse than standard def.

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by shezza

The full story is this....I make videos of wildlife and use a Panasonic HDV Camcorder (HDC 900 I think) which I download to my pc then arrange the clips in Cyberlink Power Director 10 to do all the editing.
I then produce (render) the finished film and when I view the finished item on my computer through Windows Media player the quality is perfect. The problem occurs when I want to burn to dvd to hand out it's then that the quality is very poor! worse than standard def.

Can you download a copy of medianinfo ?

MediaInfo - Download

Use it to open the file output by PD10 and post the treeview analysis of the file to see exactly what the file you are starting with is. Never used a HDV camcorder but afaik format is normally HD 720p (1280 x 720).

Can you also say what software you are using to create a DVD ?

If you give someone a AVCHD disc then they will also need a bluray player to play it back.

[shezza]

Will do this when I get home from work. The software that I am using to create a DVD is within the PD10, you just click to burn to DVD?

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by shezza

Will do this when I get home from work. The software that I am using to create a DVD is within the PD10, you just click to burn to DVD?

If you elect to burn to DVD it will reduce the resolution to DVD compatible format 720 x 576 pixels I guess. ( not familiar with PD10 ). It may look OK on a small screen PC monitor but displayed on a large screen HD TV you are going to see the limitations. You need to find an export format that matches the original footage.

Can you also use medianinfo to post the original clip data from the camcorder ?

[12harry]

Earlier posts are spot -on, seems OP is not viewing AVCHD, without a BD player.
However, I wonder if there may yet be another issue - for whilst I like high Quality, I find DVD quality i noramll pretty good trough a blueray player (or decent DVD player) - but note this is NOT using a PC.

I wonder if OP is mistaking the quality they get on a PC screen when playing the original files - these require very little processing power and because it's a small scree will play as very good quality - - - BUT they are quite small.

The Pana 700-series (including the 900 OP say he has)...should record best at 1920x1080 x50p

but there may still be lagacy issues - only recently was 50p included in Specifications . . . . I wonder if OP's software has an older route for DVD's - - - - it's very complicated.

DVD Spec used to be 720 x 576 . . . can OP say what TV (screen size) he's viewing this "poor quality" on?

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by 12harry

Earlier posts are spot -on, seems OP is not viewing AVCHD, without a BD player.
However, I wonder if there may yet be another issue - for whilst I like high Quality, I find DVD quality i noramll pretty good trough a blueray player (or decent DVD player) - but note this is NOT using a PC.

I wonder if OP is mistaking the quality they get on a PC screen when playing the original files - these require very little processing power and because it's a small scree will play as very good quality - - - BUT they are quite small.

The Pana 700-series (including the 900 OP say he has)...should record best at 1920x1080 x50p

but there may still be lagacy issues - only recently was 50p included in Specifications . . . . I wonder if OP's software has an older route for DVD's - - - - it's very complicated.

DVD Spec used to be 720 x 576 . . . can OP say what TV (screen size) he's viewing this "poor quality" on?

I think I may have misinterpreted the OP. The post says a HDV camcorder. This is a high definition tape based system similar to SD DV. It would help in the OP says if he has a HDV or a AVCHD camera with solid state storage.

[shezza]

Hi all, my camcorder is a Panasonic HDC-SD900 Just in case people are getting mislead (probably my fault) the finished film is perfect when viewed on my PC through Windows Media Player its when I get to burning to DVD the quality drops to poor. If I view directly on a TV again the quality is perfect but when I connect the cable from PC to TV the picture on the screen and PC goes smaller.
But ideally I would prefer to burn to DVD son that I can hand them out.

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by shezza

Hi all, my camcorder is a Panasonic HDC-SD900 Just in case people are getting mislead (probably my fault) the finished film is perfect when viewed on my PC through Windows Media Player its when I get to burning to DVD the quality drops to poor. If I view directly on a TV again the quality is perfect but when I connect the cable from PC to TV the picture on the screen and PC goes smaller.
But ideally I would prefer to burn to DVD son that I can hand them out.

We need to step back a bit and analyse the various stages. First of all the actual video.

Can you install medianifo which identifies pretty well everything there is to know about a video file.

MediaInfo - Download

Open one of the clips from your camcorder using the above and select tree view and copy the info to a text file and open this in notepad. Edit select/all and edit copy. Paste the data into a post. Now we know the starting point.

Now tell us how you are editing the original footage and which software you are using to create a DVD and the output settings. If you are using a video editor and outputting a edited file use Medianinfo to post the file details, and which software you are using to author a DVD from this file. If you are burning directly to a DVD disc does the software offer to burn a DVD folder or DVD image instead ?

Now tell us how you are connecting your PC to a TV. Is it by a hdmi connection or a vga connection. Now look at your TV manual and see what signals it can accept by HDMI or VGA depending on which connection you are using.

Next right click on your PC desktop and choose properties, what is the pixel size of your PC display ?. Is the current size compatible with the TV. (Often changing the PC to 1280 x 720 will solve the display incompatibility)

Sorry to ask so many questions but your post really doesn't have enough information to find out what is going on.

[12harry]

Agree with all that grahamlthompson, more info will help.

-perhaps I could ask OP if he can give us details of the PC and the available output (sockets) from the graphics card - my own has three and VGA is somewhat blurry, as you'd expect.

[Bob++]

Originally Posted by shezza

Hi all I have got some very fine detailed clips on HD video when I download them onto my pc all is well even when I render and save them (Cyberlink Power Director) they are perfect. But when I come to burning them to dvd they lose all the quality!
Whats the way forward is it blu-ray? any ideas.

This is getting very complicated...

I think that the simple answer is yes - Blu-Ray is the way to go.