KCmike,
I bought the Canon SX20IS partly because of it's ability to record video in HD. When I play my movies back with the connection between the camera & the TV I love the quality of the picture! I am very disappointed when I burn a DVD. (I used Windows Movie Maker) Not the same quality picture at all! Looks like if it's something I really want to keep I'll have to keep it on the memory cards and continue to view it thru the camera/TV connection.
What I want to know is if there's anyone that can take your memory card and record a DVD in HD from it?
TC
Aboslutely. It's called burning AVCHD/PS3 format to a DVD. It's just like a Bluray just a lot less data and thus, smaller size. It does, however; retain HD format because AVCHD is an HD format. Way too much to go into here but suffice it to say that this will do what you want and will play as HD on any modern Bluray player or PS3 to your HDTV.
Any of the major video editing packages (COMMERCIAL) will do this. I always just buy the bundle upgrade of the current Adobe Photoshop/Premier Elements when it comes out. Premier is the video "editing" piece and it will create the media I mentioned. It's available seperately from Photoshop Elements too, of course. The bundle is just cheaper if you're going to be using both anyway.
If you buy a major camcorder (not one of the pocket ones, typically), they almost always come with software to do this as well. They are rudamentary editors most of the time, but they will mostly all create AVCHD discs to regular DVD/DVD-DL. I always use the double-layers so I can get twice as much on.
Blank Blurays are also finally geting "affordable" too and with the price of BR burners approaching $125 or so, they are becoming a viable option too. I do this sometimes, too. You can actually create a full/"true" Bluray with menus and everything.
I also use a product called Acrsoft Media Extreme 2 that you may want to take a look at.
Just be aware that the programs are called "non-linear editors" and they are not Microsoft Excel. They are very compute and memory intensive. They also take a lot of disk space to do what it is they do. In other words, you don't want to start using one of these programs on a 3YO PC, generally speaking. Let me know if you want some formal specs. All the manufacturers list specs. The answer is "all ya got and then you'll still want more", unfortunately. No program you will likely ever buy will demand more of your PC than an HD NLE.
I'll stop babbling because I could go on for days. Let me know if you have any questions.
-bob
