Archive Avchd Vid Direct To Dvd/blu-Ray

[user1991]

Hi,

 

I have a camcorder and the files are avchd format. I also have a blu-ray burner and player, as well as a dvd burner and player. I would like to know how long it would take to archive avchd (for example, a total of 25gb) directly onto dvds or a blu-ray disc from my camcorder using roxio 2011.

 

If it takes long, what is the fastest way to get them backed up onto discs for playback on either blu-ray or dvd players... taking into consideration that i want to preserve the hd quality.

 

Thank You

[Jim_Hardin]

Roxio can work with most of your video shot in MXP Mode!

 

Sometimes it has trouble with a file in that mode so I do all of my shooting in FXP.

 

In the age of HD camcorders I cannot see any use for shooting in any mode under MXP or FXP…

 

As you noticed, movies shot using the XP, SP & LP modes are not seen by the Roxio Archive program.

 

But they are in your camcorder and can be dealt with manually:

 

In this screen cap you can see that the file list goes to 00090.MTS. (also note a blank 50 GB BD-RE is in the drive ready to write to):

 

 

In this pic of Windows Explorer, you can see that 2 more files exist in the camcorder’s internal memory:

 

 

(also note that in my Canon, I use an SD Card to store my still pics on and it shows separately in Explorer)

 

To make use of ALL of these files, you Must do it manually!

 

Since you have stated that your goal is Playback, the way I would do it is to Copy ALL of the Files onto your HDD with Explorer.

 

Then use Edit Video-Advanced (VideoWave), New Widescreen Project, and load your files into the project - here I have added the last 4 (2, AVCHD & 2, LP):

 

 

I will then do any edits or add effects, like transitions and save the VW Project files (dmsm) I have added dissolve transitions between clips to eliminate that rough switch and included a black panel at the end so it fades to black.

 

Now I am ready to burn an HQ disc that is not only Playable, but Pleasant to watch…

 

Close VW and open Create DVDs (MyDVD). There I will pick my type of Project (DVD, AVCHD or BD) the Menu Theme and add my VW Project file (dmsm).

 

 

From there it is a matter of Burn & Smile

 

And as a Bonus of doing it this way, in MyDVD you can switch the same project to a DVD, AVCHD on DVD or a BD as needed…

 

[Jim_Hardin]

Time it and Tell Us!!!

 

Never used it, probably never will

 

I use HDD's for backups as file size has exceed the practical limitations for optical storage, in my opinion

[sknis]

Sorry for butting in Jim. I read the question and was confused what the original poster wanted to do.

 

User1991 --Backing up and playing back are two completely separate operations and would use to different applications ! Each would take the required time based on your computer capabilities. (Which you did not post)

 

You can back up files for future use but you cannot play those back-ups.

 

You can author (burn) blu-ray discs but because they are authored there are the extras put onto the disc so it will play in the blu-ray player. Because of this, you lose space on the disc. Normally you would not want to author a disc and try to retrieve the files for further editing.

 

Do what Jim suggested. Get an external hard drive to back up those files; blu-ray discs are too expensive to do that in comparison.

 

Use the blu-ray discs when you are ready to author blu-ray movies to watch.

[Jim_Hardin]

No problem Steve, it never hurts to get a complete picture instead of working from a limited question

[user1991]

Thank you very much. I did that and it worked, so i really appreciate your help. The only downside is that it was a very long process. I got it to work by another method and it was really fast. This is what I did:

 

I had over 500 scenes so I used Tsmuxer's "m2ts muxer" and joined all the .mts files into 2 big .m2ts file (took 10 mins).

 

I then used multiAVCHD and added the two .m2ts files and created an avchd project for playback on blu-ray players (took 25 mins).

 

Lastly, I burned the project onto a blu-ray disc (approx 20 mins) and popped it into the blu-ray player, and it worked perfectly

[Jim_Hardin]

That is good to hear that you found a solution!

 

Although I would question what it would look like, putting 500 “scenes” together without using transitions etc.???

 

But if all you want to do is archive the files, why not

[user1991]

Sorry for confusing you. Now that I know what the difference between backing up and playing back is, my goal is playback.

 

I created an avchd 4.5gb dvd in roxio 2011 and it took almost 8 hrs (i included a menu in it), and it played back on the blu-ray player perfectly.... 40 mins filled up the disc

 

However, I then tried the "archive avchd video" in roxio, and burned more avchd videos directly from my camcorder onto another 4.5gb dvd, and it took only 15mins, and played back on the blu-ray player as well... (there was no option to add a menu so the archived dvd didn't have a menu...105mins of video filled the disc)

 

Now my question is, will a blu-ray player playback an archived avchd blu-ray disc instead of an archived dvd disc? because from the "archive avchd video" option in roxio, you can burn the archived avchd video onto either a blu-ray or dvd disc.

[Jim_Hardin]

Now we are getting something

 

FIRST! In video, file size is meaningless…

 

We work in TIME!

 

105 min on a 4.7 GB disc tells me it encoded using EP (1280 X 720)…

 

The only way to control Quality is through Authoring the disc and not letting some program decide and give you no choice…

 

The Time it takes to Author depends on your PC!

 

Your PC can do this while you sleep or are away from the house, so are we really concerned with time it takes or quality???

 

VideoWave is your Editor whereas you Author your VW projects using MyDVD.

 

To give you some idea of what quality/time will fit on various media:

 

DVD AVCHD Capacity:

AVCHD on a 4.7 DVD (thanks to ggrussell)

• HQ – 00:40:24 @ 1920 X 1080P = 40 min
  
• SP – 00:50:16 @ 1920 X 1080I
  
• LP – 1:00:00 @ 1440 X 1080I
  
• EP – 1:24:31 1280 X 720P

 

AVCHD on 8.5 DVD

• HQ – 1:13
  
• SP – 1:24
  
• LP – 1:39
  
• EP – 2:15

 

Blu-ray 25 GB Capacity:

• HQ— 3:29
  
• SP— 4:00
  
• LP— 4:43
  
• EP— 6:24

Blu-ray 50 GB Capacity:

• HQ— 6:59
  
• SP— 8:02
  
• LP— 9:27
  
• EP— 12:50

[user1991]

okay, so that means the archived dvd (105mins) had a reduction in the quality? and the one that took 8hrs was the better quality one?

[sknis]

okay, so that means the archived dvd (105mins) had a reduction in the quality? and the one that took 8hrs was the better quality one?

 

It sounds like you are making AVCHD discs rather than bu-ray disc. using MyDVD (Create DVD) At least that is what the times indicate. If you have an older computer and you don't set up the quality correctly, then it could take 8 hours.

 

If your blu-ray player plays the AVCHD archievet, then you are lucky that the player will do that.

[user1991]

yes i am making avchd discs. I am new to this so i may be confusing at times. I just need to preserve the original quality of my camcorder's avchd videos and put them onto either dvds or blu-rays for playback.

 

what are my best options for retaining the original quality? these r my options so far.

-setting the quality to the highest resolution and creating a dvd/blu-ray disc

-creating an avchd disc

[Jim_Hardin]

Curious... Make & model of camcorder?

 

How does it store them, what file extension?

 

What Quality setting do you record with? (My Canon offers MXP or FXP settings)

 

If you COPY the files from your camcorder to another disc or disk then quality is preserved...

 

If you Author a disc, then you have to set HQ or Same as Original for the quality setting to avoid reductions.

 

MyDVD has a default setting of "Fit to Disc" which is not what you ever want to use!

[user1991]

It's a Canon HD Vixia Hg 20 camcorder, and the file format is .mts.

 

It has MXP, FXP, XP+, SP, and LP modes. However I had recorded some videos in MXP and some in SP mode (I only got to archive the vids in SP mode on DVDs so far; i didn't figure out how to do the ones in MXP mode). I didn't realize this until couple days ago, but the files that were shot in MXP cannot be burnt to dvds, because it had said the bitrate is not supported by DVDs. That's y I wanted to know if I can archive the videos onto a blu-ray for playback rather than DVDs, because I was told that blu-ray players can playback files with that bitrate.