File conversion question

[tobygunnee]

Hi,
I have borrowed the Roxio Creator 2009 from a friend in order to edit my video footage. I'm working in AVCHD as have the Sony SR11E. The software supports the input of AVCHD, but doesn't support the output of AVCHD. What format should I use as the output in order to maintain the quality of the video and HD? The formats the software supports are listed below.
Cheers, Toby
P.S. What is AVC (H.264)?

Supported Input Formats:

• Video: AVI, DV, HDV, DV-AVI, MPEG-1/2/4, MPEG2-HD, DVD-Video, IFO/VOB, DivX®, DivX HD, XviD, DVR-MS, TiVo, ASF, MOV, WMV, QuickTime™, 3GP, MPEG2 Transport Stream, AVC (H.264), AVCHD
• Audio: Audio CD, MP3, WAV, WMA, Dolby® Digital AC-3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, M4A, MP4, Playlists (WPL, ASX, M3U, PLS, XSPF)
• Image: JPG, PNG, TIFF, BMP, GIF

Supported Output Formats:

• Video: AVI, DV-AVI, HDV, MPEG-1/2/4, MPEG2-HD, DivX, DivX HD, WMV, WMV HD, AVC (H.264), MP4, 3GP
• Audio: MP3, WAV, WMA, Dolby Digital AC-3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MPEG-1/2, M4A, AAC, Playlists (M3U, PLS, XSPF, WPL)
• Image: JPG, PNG, TIFF, BMP, GIF
• Video disc formats: DVD, Video CD (VCD), Super Video CD (SVCD), Mini DVD

[Mr Lazy]

Originally Posted by tobygunnee

P.S. What is AVC (H.264)?

that's AVCHD

Or choosing HDV would preserve the quality when using a good convertor/editing software. Technically there will always be some quality loss during any conversion but some are noticeable to the eye, others not.

The answer depends on your chosen playback method ie. what the video will be used for (personal use, upload to website etc.) and how it will be played?

[tobygunnee]

Originally Posted by Mr Lazy

that's AVCHD

That's confusing, if AVC (h.264) is AVCHD why do they differentiate between the 2 and why list AVCHD in the input but not output?

Cheers Toby

[senu]

Originally Posted by tobygunnee

That's confusing, if AVC (h.264) is AVCHD why do they differentiate between the 2 and why list AVCHD in the input but not output?

Cheers Toby

AVCHD is AVC ( H.264). There is H.264 , which is non Hi def variety the AVC stands for Advanced Video Codec ( the HD Hi def)
Camcorders like Samsung MX20 soutput in that format and PSP and portablr video devices tend to have video in that format as it is smaller than mpeg2 ans is an alternative to divx ..all are mpeg4 codecs though
It may be that Roxio is advertised as being able to output the no Hi def variety of h.264 but not the Hi def AVCHD
I think that is not the case though the cover specs may not be inadvertently misleading as it should be possoble to output hi def AVC files ( AVCHD)
Incidentally mpeg2 Hi def ( 1080i) is also HDV and I notice it is listed twice on the input and output formats