I liken DVD Architect 5.0 to the cockpit of a jetliner, where all the swtiches are laid out in front of you with full manual control for beacons, flaps, landing gear, radio but with no established flow for when or what buttons to press.

MovieFactory and Nero Vision are organized more like a check list for takeoff.

So once you get used to having full time access to the switches, DVDA starts getting fun because of the manual control over features, like the individual buttons of the remote control for the DVD player. It also does a superb job of encoding high quality AVC, although slow.

That's a great analogy Tom. The learning curve for Vegas was also a bit more daunting for the same reason, but ultimately worth the time investment.

Larry

Nero 9 Burning Issues
 

Larry,

First, thanks for all the great tips in this thread. I’ve read them avidly and bought Nero Vision 9, which (for the most part) has worked great to create hi-def DVDs from my Vixia HF-100. Three (hopefully quick) questions, if you don’t mind.

1. Why do you use the .mts files straight from your STREAMS folder rather than using the m2ts files created by the Cannon software? Does Nero handle the MTS files better than the M2TS files? In my experience (I’ve been importing M2TS files into Nero), the M2TS files work fine, and from what I’ve read there isn’t a difference (other than the extra “2” in the file extension) between the two files anyway. The only reason I prefer the M2TS files is because they come with a date stamp that helps me keep track of my clips.

2. The only problem I’ve been having is adding subtitles (i.e. text effects) to my videos. For some reason Nero doesn’t process the text effects correctly when I try to burn them to a DVD. When I play back the effect in Nero everything looks great, but when I burn the content to a DVD the playback does not include the text effect, but instead “freezes” for the length of the text effect (i.e. if I had a five second subtitle, the playback freezes for five seconds and then resumes playback after the text effect was to conclude). Any insights? I’ve also noticed that if I add any text effects, the rendering time goes up dramatically. The “smart encoding” icon disappears from the burning process, and the rendering time goes from a few minutes to several hours. In this case, is NERO really recreating a true MTS or M2TS file, or converting it to some other format? Am I losing quality by adding these text effects?

3. Somewhat unrelated, but is there a way to read the M2TS (or MTS) files off of a DVD you’ve created using Nero Vision? I’d like to also use the DVDs as a long term storage medium for my M2TS files, but my computer won’t read the DVD even though it plays back smoothly in a Blu-Ray player.

Many thanks for your help!

Hi Erick and welcome to this forum and group. I am glad to try and help and can answer some but not all of your questions. I'll use your numbering to reply:

1. I use the .MTS files direct from the camcorder for 2 reasons. The first and most important reason is that I want the file content to have as little unnecesary processing as required before it gets to be played. The other reason is that it is a shorter and faster route, since the SD card content can be transferred to my hard disk very quickly leaving me with both a hard disk backup of the original, unmodified content, as well as a file directly importable into the NLE software. This hard disk copy is then, each evening, backed up by my scheduled disk imaging software. The bottom line is that I get a perfect backup in case things go bad with the card as well as an unmodified .mts file exactly like the camcorder recorded for editing. In my case, I almost always use a collection of files taken at the same date over an hour or two, so the timestamping does not gain me much, and I would rather label my clips with names of what they show rather than a date / time (both of which already show up in the file Properties anyway).

2. I can't offer any solution for the subtitles problem. It would seem to be simply a bug in the software based on what you are experiencing. I do not use subtitles on any of my creations, but I presume others who have tried have the same issue as you do. You could try the official Nero support forum at:

Official Nero Forum -> Nero User Forum - English

There are also other communities discussing Nero on the web, and you can find them with Google.

As to the adverse effect on image quality when you add titles or other changes, the answer is generally yes. I use the word "generally" since re-rendering of the video demands uncompressing it, adding the effect, and then recompressing it. Since the recompression steps are lossy, and some detail in the original will no longer be in the recompressed output, and the addition of new, undesired artifacts also is likely, I personally strive to avoid recompression if possible. There are also some exceptions, where the change in the video is beneficial to a greater extent than the compromise from recompression. If a scene is very dark, for example, and you can bring up the brightness, contrast, or both and make the scene look better, or change the color to more faithful balance, then the trade-off is well worth it. In all fairness, the better software re-renders very nicely and you have to be looking for the "before" versus "after" comparison to notice the difference easily.

3. Absolutely!! The newly created AVCHD disk will have the exact same directory and file structure as your SD card, and you can go to the very same STREAM folder on your authored disk and grab .MTS files containing content as well as menus. These can be brought back into Nero directly as if they were coming from your original camcorder.

Your computer SHOULD play these finished disks including all the menu navigation just the same as your BluRay player. Have you tried opening them with Nero Show Time?? It is an excellent AVCHD player.

Larry

Larry,

Many thanks for the feedback! Looks like I need to visit the Nero forums for my second question, but regarding my first and third questions, I had a few thoughts based on your input:

1. Are you sure the MTS to M2TS conversion involves any processing? Based on my admittedly rudimentary research, I'm not sure any processing at all occurs. My primary reason for thinking this is that the MTS file in the STREAM folder is EXACTLY the same size (down to the byte) as the M2TS file created after downloading through the Canon software. I would think that any rendering/processing would be highly likely to change the amount of data in the file at least to some degree.

3. I must be doing something wrong, because I can't play my AVCHD discs with Nero Showtime, nor can I "see" the MTS/M2TS on the DVD through Windows Explorer (I have Windows XP). I have made "hidden" folders visible, but the disc still reads as blank, even though it has AVCHD content on the disc and the disc plays beautifully in my Blu-Ray player. So, just to clarify, you're able to view a STREAM folder with your MTS/M2TS files on the DVDs you create with Nero Vision?

Thanks for all your help.

Erick,

I do not know the detailed file differences between .mts as it comes directly from my camcorder and .m2ts as it is converted by Pixella. It is most likely that they differ only in their container / packet structure, and thus no re-compression is needed to go from one to the other.

However........I still see no reason whatsoever to add another processing step to convert my camera's .m2t files. The NLEs accept the .m2t file format directlty, and adding another step and another program serves no beneficial purpose and can only add time, complexity, and possibly corruption. I thus reject the use of an intermediary program to do "a capture".

I am guessing that your AVCHD disk access and playback problem is due to Windows XP not supporting the newer UDF formats / partitions on AVCHD and (BluRay and HD DVD) disks. For Windows XP and older users, you will find that by installing the optional program from your Nero installer called "InCD" and then re-booting that you will be able to open, read, and play AVCHD disks.

Vista has built-in support and thus these disks play without issues in Vista with Nero ShowTime as well as open for all normal Windows Explorer use.

Larry