Cameras & Camcorders

[Lisa79]

Hello.  I have a HD Camcorder that records on a SD card.  I have put the videos on my computer but I would like to put them on a DVD to play on my DVD player.  Do I have to buy a special DVD for this?  Will I be able to play it on my regular DVD player, or do I need to buy a blue ray player to see it in HD?  Also, if I plug my camcorder directly to my TV, (I have a DVD recorder) can I record it like that also?  And do I still need special DVDs or can I used regular ones?  Thanks for all your help.

[Allan-BBY Community Connector]

Hi Lisa79,

You are going to have to first convert your High Definition (HD) footage to Standard Definition (SD) resolution, and there are multiple programs that should be able to do this for you. Once your footage is in SD you would need to use a program like Roxio Creator or Pinnacle Studio to burn them to a DVD that can play in your DVD player. If you want to view your footage in HD you will need to get a Blu-ray burner drive for your computer, and a Blu-ray player. You of course will also need an HDTV to be able to view your footage in HD. If you have an HDTV you might be able to connect your camcorder directly to your TV and view your footage this way, but your camcorder would need to have outputs that allow for this (i.e. HDMI). I hope this helps out!

Thanks for posting,

Allan

Community Connector

Best Buy® Corporate

[Lisa79]

Yes, that does answer my questions. If I do buy the blu ray player, can that replace the DVD burner that is currenly on my laptop?  And also, can I play the DVD on the burner to view in HD?  Which on is a good one to buy? Any recomemdations?  I'm not looking to spend a whole lot of money on it.  I do not have a blue ray player yet, but that is something I will buy in the future, I'm just waiting for the prices to go down.  Thanks for your help. 

[Entropy]

The blu-ray player would not replace the DVD burner already in your laptop.

One thing that can be done (but was not mentioned previously) is that if you burn a Blu-Ray file structure to a DVD, a Blu-Ray player will play it as if it were a Blu-Ray disc.  The problem here is that a DVD can store at most 4.7 GB on a single layer disc and around 9ish on a DL disc, while Blu-Ray stores 25 on a single layer disc and 50 on a dual layer disc, so a high def Blu-Ray file structure on a DVD will be significantly limited as far as play time.  (probably 20-30 minutes?)

To burn a full-size Blu-Ray, you would need a BD-R or BD-RE drive for your laptop, either to replace its existing one (this will be difficult to find and expensive), or an external one.

If you're not willing to do all of those upgrades now, you can just capture in high def, and then convert to standard definition DVD video for when you want to view on a DVD player.  Once Blu-Ray burners, players, and media come down in price, you can then take your existing video and put it on BR discs instead.  (This is what I am doing.  I have an HD camcorder but so far no BD-R drive or Blu-Ray player.  The drives are now within my price range but blank discs are still quite expensive.

[Lisa79]

Hi Entropy. Once I convert it to SD DVD it cannot be converted back right?  If I burn it to a regular DVD like you stated (I just won't be able to fit much on there) will the BR player read it at all?  If so, will it be HD or regular? I guess my best bet would be to burn on regular DVD but keep the file on my computer for when I get a BR player then I can burn to BD disk and play on BR player.  I think I got it now.  Sorry this is a little confusing. Thank you for your help.

[Entropy · Accepted solution]

Here's what I do:

1)  Keep a backup of the original files from the camera.

2)  Export stuff to a standard (standard definition) DVD with standard DVD video files for viewing on DVD players.  You are correct, this is a one-way trip which is why you want to keep the originals around, and possibly the project files from whatever video editor you used.  (Since you can just re-export to a different format later without redoing all of your editing).  These can be played back on any DVD player and Blu-Ray player (as all Blu-Ray players can play back DVDs)

3)  If you have a Blu-Ray player but only a DVD-R drive, you can burn the Blu-Ray file structure to a DVD and effectively create short Blu-Ray discs.  Only Blu-Ray players (or fast PCs capable of Blu-Ray playback but not necessarilly with a Blu-Ray drive) can play these.

4)  If you have both a BR player and a BR recorder for your PC, you can burn full length Blu-Ray high definition discs

I'm currently at step 2.