Help with burning stuff from a High def camcorder

[Disneyfn420]

I just purchased a Sony HDR-CX7 that was ridiculously below regular price. I have 30 days to test it out to see if I like it. I do not have a blu ray or PS3 player. Should I record in standard mode then? If I record in high def how do I convert so I can watch it in a regular DVD player. I was hoping to maybe record in high def, save a version and then burn a DVD in SD. Can this be done, if so how and what programs di I need?

 

[seashoreCM]

Find out if the camcorder will record in hi-def and play back in your choice of hi-def or 480i standard-def. Playing back in 480i lets you copy it to a regular DVD recorder and play on a regular DVD player. Note that 480i comes in different flavors from the point of view of the DVD recorder. Yellow jack is composite and is of limited quality, slightly better than old fashioned broadcasts at best. S-video is somewhat better. Component video has a set of red, green, and blue video cables and a little better than that. (The preceding also use separate red/white audio cables) HDMI is digital and yet a little better. I mention all this because the camcorder and the DVD recorder need to have some set of jacks that match.

Hi-def (via Blu-Ray) recording requires component video or HDMI jacks.

480p is also standard def and will play directly into most HDTV sets but will not record directly as standard DVD's. It requires component video or HDMI jacks.

I suppose there are programs that let you download hi-def video to a computer, convert it to standard def, and burn a regular DVD from there but I do not know of any.