1st. Question.
The GoPro h.264 1080p/60 should be editable in PD20 with no issue. If not you can enable shadow files at the lower resolution.

2nd. Question.
You can use the Profile Analyzer in production to create your videos using svrt which is the original resolution and highest quality.

In the Create Disc/ 2D/ BD, you will find that 1080/60p available with a warning that not all low priced BD players can play them. Be sure your standalone BD player can play them by reading the player specifications. This is also known as the avchd 2.0 specifications in which higher end players are capable. You can have about 1.9 hours of video on the disc. You can have less than about 3 hours of video on the disc if you choose 1080/60i 17 mbps instead in PD20.

You may want to run the produced video through a video converter like handbrake to reduce the bitrate even further before placing them on a portable dive that you mentioned.

Wow, lots of good info there and now I am re-thinking a few things as a result.

The total length of the videos waiting to be processed range from 15 minutes to 59 minutes. For example, the first three (from 2020) are 25, 15, and 33 mins as the sums of the individual clips, so it would be handy to put those finished videos on a single blu-ray. The next two chronologically are 50 mins and 39 mins, so those two on another..and so on. I suspect that most would end up with two videos per blu-ray which would be fine.

As for the blu-ray player itself, it's a Panasonic that is either a 2011 or 2012 model. In the specs under 'Playable Media' list, it shows (for BD-R) simply "Video, MKV". Obviously, it plays commercial blu-ray movies just fine.

For DVD-R the list shows "Video, AVCHD, MKV, JPEG, MPO, FLAC, MP3, WAV". For SD/SDHC/SDXC Memory Card, the supported contents are AVCHD, AVCHD 3D, MP4, MPEG2,JPEG, MPO. And for USB devices up to 2TB, it will play MP4, MPEG, MKV, JPEG, MPO, FLAC, MP3 and WAV. (My portable hard drive is a 2TB Samsung SSD; the MP4 ability explains why I can watch the GoPro footage from either the camera's miniSD card or from the Samsung.)

I did discover that the MKV support on this machine is only for interlaced files, not progressive, though.

Sounds like AVCHD 2.0 is not supported on my player because that version probably emerged after 2011/2012. Although the machine is a decade old, it has worked fine and I don't see any need to replace it with something new, especially since I don't need/want streaming and the tv itself isn't 4K capable, so no point really.

I actually bought a new camera about a month ago (Canon Vixia G60) because the GoPro doesn't really suit me on several levels. Have only shot once with it so far, and did so at 60 fps but have decided that going forward I am going to shoot at 30 in order to give myself a greater range of encoding options. So those will be shot, edited, and produced at the same frame rate.

As for my two years of 60 fps GoPro footage, I will try dropping the 60 fps clips into a 30 timeline and production format and see what happens. If there's a bit of slo-mo as a result, it shouldn't be much out of sync with the realtime narration that was recorded. If it is, then worst case scenario would be that I'll have to dump all the original audio and overdub it in post-production. Would be a time-consuming nuisance but do-able.

Going to do a test of that first (15 minute) GoPro footage at 60 fps throughout, burn it to a blu-ray at 1080p/60 and see if it works in my player. If not, will run it through PD again but in a 30 fps timeline and see which blu-ray encoding option will play on it.

Thanks again!

I spent several hours today testing various encoding and burning formats, and am now more frustrated than ever, LOL. Here's what I tried in Create Disc, and the results:

Using 2D DISC/BLU RAY, there is only one format available ("Movie format BDMV with menu"). Chose H.264 and 1920 x 1080/60p which is what the footage was recorded in, and was edited in. Result = Current blu-ray player produced only audio, no video.

Burned another blu-ray disc but chose MPEG-2 this time. The "best" available option that way is 1920 x 1080/60i (26 mbps). Result = Disc did play, but badly. Many areas constantly flickered, and entire areas of pixels formed and shifted out of sync every time the camera did any panning or shifting of any kind. Unwatchable.

Then tried 2D DISC/AVCHD, in H.264 and highest available setting which is 1920 x 1080/60i (17 mbps). Result = Surprisingly, this did play in my decade-old machine and in fact turned out to be the best quality of any of the tests that I did. All panning and walking motions were smooth, no flickering and no pixelation/shifting. I have to say though that in any fine-detail areas such as gravel paths, conifer foliage seen as the camera moved (walking, etc) produced a sort of glittering effect on all of the edges. Don't know what that is called, to be honest. I thought maybe this is a result of having to encode as interlaced rather than progessive, so next I tried"

The exact same procedure but instead using 1920 x 1080/24P (17 mbps) setting. Result: = Not good. All frames containing any motion or panning were jerky. No outnight breaking up into pixelation like in the MPEG-2/blu-ray disc but definitely jumpy. Not smooth at all. Really annoying, especially after seeing the silky smooth movement/pans in the AVC-HD test.

Next try was as 2D DISC/DVD. Only option there is MPEG-2, 720x480/60i (9.5 mbps). Result = The entire video had a slight 'strobe' effect, like a faint flashing ligher/darker. Major motion blur, basically everything looked slightly out of focus. Sound worse also, a bit. Murky.

I then used the Produce function to create a file to save to my removeable Samsung drive, to play on the computer: From Produce, went to STANDARD 2D, format H.264 AVC, MPEG-4 1920x1080/60p (40 Mbps). Then tried an experiment:

Instead of burning a standard DVD disc from within PD20, I did it from a small freeware program called DVD Flick. It doesn't have much customization, so I used Normal settings for everything. Used same machine (LG M-Disc Blu ray/dvd burner) that I'd burned all the other test discs on. Even though the settings are (I assume) the same as PD's DVD-burn specs, the resulting disc looked better. Not as good as the AVCHD DVDs, but definitely better than PD's output of the same 'product'. Seems odd because the content itself is the same in both of the software tests, right? The only difference being that PD burned from a .pds file and DVD Flick was starting with an .mp4 file.

So it looks like I am down to two choices for all this footage. Either buy a new, fancier blu-ray player (and it seems that only the 4K Sony ones specify that they will read AVCHD 2.0, but lots of complaints about them also); or burn everything as AVCHD on DVDs for myself, and downgrading to an MPEG-2 lower resolution DVD to send to people who want a copy. Of course I have a stack of blank blu-ray discs... :-/

The problem with using DVDs is, of course, available space. Even though AVC-HD obviously compresses the output, I don't think the longest videos are going to compress enough to fit onto a 4.7 GB DVD

Is there any way to burn AVC-HD format video to a blu-ray disc (and keep it as AVC-HD format)? At least on a blu-ray disc I'd have enough space for the longest videos. I have read online that AVC-HD is "compatible" with blu-ray; does that mean there's a way to get them onto a blu-ray disc instead of onto a DVD? If so, how? (google results only point to using Roxio Toast but I have a PC, not a Mac)

Thanks for your patience!!

Quote Instead of burning a standard DVD disc from within PD20, I did it from a small freeware program called DVD Flick. It doesn't have much customization, so I used Normal settings for everything. Used same machine (LG M-Disc Blu ray/dvd burner) that I'd burned all the other test discs on. Even though the settings are (I assume) the same as PD's DVD-burn specs, the resulting disc looked better. Not as good as the AVCHD DVDs, but definitely better than PD's output of the same 'product'. Seems odd because the content itself is the same in both of the software tests, right? The only difference being that PD burned from a .pds file and DVD Flick was starting with an .mp4 file.

So it looks like I am down to two choices for all this footage. Either buy a new, fancier blu-ray player (and it seems that only the 4K Sony ones specify that they will read AVCHD 2.0, but lots of complaints about them also); or burn everything as AVCHD on DVDs for myself, and downgrading to an MPEG-2 lower resolution DVD to send to people who want a copy. Of course I have a stack of blank blu-ray discs... :-/

The problem with using DVDs is, of course, available space. Even though AVC-HD obviously compresses the output, I don't think the longest videos are going to compress enough to fit onto a 4.7 GB DVD

Is there any way to burn AVC-HD format video to a blu-ray disc (and keep it as AVC-HD format)? At least on a blu-ray disc I'd have enough space for the longest videos. I have read online that AVC-HD is "compatible" with blu-ray; does that mean there's a way to get them onto a blu-ray disc instead of onto a DVD? If so, how? (google results only point to using Roxio Toast but I have a PC, not a Mac)

Thanks for your patience!!

It looks like you have done good research on BD players but may have missed a few items. The current Sony mid range offerings all play avchd 2.0 discs whether they are on BD/BD-RE, or DVD+R./RW or on a DL DVD disc. See the cheapest BDP-S1700 (about $70) manual on page 35 at the bottom: https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/res/manuals/4579/f2b13b14d596d6574a73a689b5d4b0dc/45796631M.pdf . Avchd 2.0 is supported. You find the same information for the higher up Sony non 4k BD players too.

1080/60p video is available for both BD and AVCHD Discs if you look at the settings.
720/60p video is also available for both in the settings. I use both.

You can put in about 20 minutes of 1080/60p video on a dvd avchd disc or about 40 minutes on a dvd+r dl avchd disc but have to burn the folder to a removable disc first like an external ssd. Burn that folder to disc using any burner software. You can burn 720/60p directly to the dvd as an avchd disc if desired.

I have also used other software like those you mentioned for dvd. Use whatever you like. There are too many out there. Cyberlink Power2Go is free and works similar to the others in that you add any format video files in which each is a new chapter and then burn to a dvd. They are easier to use for some users.

Quote

Cyberlink Power2Go is free and works similar to the others in that you add any format video files in which each is a new chapter and then burn to a dvd. They are easier to use for some users.

Funny you should mention P2Go because a version (9?) came with this computer when I bought it several years ago. It worked fine for standard DVDs and CDs but it didn't support converting certain file types or burning to blu-ray; a pop-up told me that for those functionalities I'd need to upgrade to the paid P2Go13 (actually it nagged me incessantly to do that, lol). Eventually the nags got so annoying that I uninstalled it in a fit of pique, lol

At the time, Wondershare Uniconverter was on sale and so I bought that. It worked great for converting the files (at least, for what I wanted to do at that moment) and it has a burn function but....surprise surprise, blu-ray burning or file types are not supported. And their video editor (Filmora) doesn't burn anything, just saves to file. Actually Filmora is what I dumped in favor of PD20. One thing I did NOT know when I bought Filmora was that the program simply will not work offline. One of the many things that Wondershare doesn't mention up front, lol.

The free/trial version of Power2Go only allows the premium functions for 30 days; after that, the nagging to upgrade to P2Go13 begins. And burning blu-rays is still a premium function only. But there are several other functions that would be very handy not only to have but to have in a single program. So I'll go for the paid version.

Thanks for the heads-up on the blu-ray player, I was able to find the Sony in stock at my local Walmart and will pick it up tomorrow. I will pop in the BDMV test blu-ray disc that would only produce audio in my current machine and see if it flies. If so, my available-space-on-disc problem will be solved for my own use. However, for discs to go to other people (non-blu-ray) the DVD+R DL will still not be quite large enough for the longest videos at best quality, because....

It looks as if the formatting process shrinks the size of the total raw footage file size by about 60%. For example, for the test video the other day, the total footage folder size (four video clips + one JPG image) is 4.66 GB. The produced mp4 file that sits on my removeable drive is 4.15 GB. Yet, the movie that was burned to a single layer DVD yesterday at AVC-HD is only 1.78 GB .... about 39% of the size of the original raw-footage material before any editing, encoding, or burning.

My largest "need to produce" video footage file at the moment is 29.9 GB. Applying the same conversion rule (that the finished project on disc would be only 40% of that roughly 30GB) that's still a 12 GB video which is too big to fit on a DVD-R DL. I do have quite a few footage files that are in the low 20s GB and might squeak onto a DL DVD as AVCH but the largest videos (25GB-30GB before processing) will need a blu-ray disc or nothing if best quality video is what's wanted.

Detail is important because almost all of my videos are of arboretums, gardens, nature walks, etc. I bought the GoPro because I wanted those to be actual walk-through tours, and the GoPro's in-camera image stabilization options are pretty much the best you can get without having to use a gimbal. What I did not know is that the GoPro's zoom function is awful and the color profiles (only either UltraBlah or Burn-Your-Eyeballs Neon) are horrible for things like foliage and flower color. So I now have dozens of videos that were shot in Flat color profile and thus will need color corrections in PD20.

Pre-GoPro, I had been using either a Nikon J-1 or a Nikon D3300 for filming but of course ran up against any camera's overheats-after-20-minutes-of-filming issue. During the summer they would overheat in less than 15 minutes on a hot sunny day. Hence the recent purchase of the Canon Vixia which is heavy enough for me to need a tripod, but the color is great and no overheating worries. That said, I will still use the GoPro for anything filmed in the dead of winter rather than having to fuss with a tripod in snow or on ice.

The new Sony player played my test PD blu-ray disc just fine (after I returned the first machine which turned out to have been a re-sealed, previously-used open-box one that Walmart shipped to me instead of "new", and got a replacement at the store where I had to return the bad one, lol)

So now good to go; next up will be learning how to replace the existing audio in my next video's footage with a voiceover. But have already found some posts there with great info on that.

Thanks so much!

It sounds like you did well at Walmart for the $54 online find. That is known to happen at many stores where you see new unopened boxed merchandise on the shelf but they give you the scratch and dent if you order to pick at the store. Glad that you got a good one at the end!

You can find PowerDirector voice over tutorials on YouTube from PowerDirecor University and others. This may help.

Just a quick update with the results of my final experimentation with the best production and burning formats for GoPro footage that was shot at 1920 x 1080, 60p

Took three videos, all shot at that same resolution, through PD20 which resulted in a .PDS file for each one.

The total size of the three videos was a little over 7000 GB, and I wanted them all on a single disc. Thus, my choices were either a blu-ray or a DVD+R DL, given that a normal DVD-R did not have enough space.

Went into Create Disc in PD, selected a menu template and set the font, etc, for the Scenes page (no Root page needed/wanted), and brought the three PD projects into it. Then chose 2D Disc, AVC-HD in the best available format which is 1920 x 1080 60i. (No 60p available) Created that on a DVD+R DL.

Repeated the process again without changing anything at all except now selected Blu-ray as the 2D media, and format as 1920 x 1080 60p (which is a match for the original footage AND the editing.) Created that, and then watched both discs, blu-ray first.

The video quality was perfect (way better than how the .MP4 file of the same video looks on my computer, lol), and the audio reflected a tweak that I had done to one clip because of weather conditions that day. Hugely impressed and happy. Then watched the AVC-HD version.

Really did not expect the two differences between them but it was bigtime apparent. Not only did the audio sound muffled throughout (even the not-needing-tweaks footage was inferior to the blu-ray, and the tweaked audio didn't sound any better at all), but the footage itself was noticeably different. Colors were fine, but any shots that included any areas of fine detail (gravel pathways, mulch, even areas of soil where there were lots of scattered pebbles or rocks, chain link fencing, etc) appeared to 'shimmer' in a sort of 'glittery' effect -- the way a photo does if it is over-sharpened in an editor. I found this very distracting. Any shots where the camera was moving also had the same effect although at a lower level (I admit that I began looking for it, don't know if a casual viewer would notice or not) even when looking at areas that didn't have a ton of detailed edges. But anything with an edge, wow, those edges shimmered and glittered very noticeably.

None of that is in the blu-ray footage.

So my guess(?) is that when the AVC-HD production converts the 60(p) frame rate to 60(i), the conversion process shows up in the edge and/or contrast detail as a shimmer/glitter. Because using the same frame rate from start to finish did not result in this effect.

If that's what causes the shimmer/glitter effect, why doesn't the AVC-HD disk option include 60(p), like the Blu-ray option does? Is there something in the AVC format that prevents encoding in progressive rather than interlaced? Just curious.

Quote None of that is in the blu-ray footage.

So my guess(?) is that when the AVC-HD production converts the 60(p) frame rate to 60(i), the conversion process shows up in the edge and/or contrast detail as a shimmer/glitter. Because using the same frame rate from start to finish did not result in this effect.

If that's what causes the shimmer/glitter effect, why doesn't the AVC-HD disk option include 60(p), like the Blu-ray option does? Is there something in the AVC format that prevents encoding in progressive rather than interlaced? Just curious.

It is Cyberlik’s choice to do that in PD20. I already posted in the 5th thread that the 1080/60p is available for avchd discs and how to do it. Select that Removable disc option.

I don’t have those shimmering effects for 1080/60i videos on any of my TVs or on my pc as the players are deinterlacing properly on all my devices and players. It is usually in the settings. Does the disc play properly with your old Panasonic player?

The removable disc option in the avchd dropdown arrow selection allows me to place and rename multiple created avchd folders with menus on a removable ssd and/or flash drives and play any of them on my Sony Standalone player usb port without ever creating any disc at all. This again is another option.

Quote It is Cyberlik’s choice to do that in PD20. I already posted in the 5th thread that the 1080/60p is available for avchd discs and how to do it. Select that Removable disc option.

Not sure on that statement. The 2.0 AVCHD addendum which added 1920x1080/60p support did not extend to DVD media. DVD media is still only AVCHD 1.0 and only covered through 1280x720/60p support which current PD menu choice echo. The 2.0 Addendum did add support for 1920x1080/60p to removable devices as you note and hence the non-compliant workaround required to put this folder structure on DVD. I wouldn't expect large support across many players of this ad hoc approach, but surely some will play this DVD correctly. Your linked Sony docs does not state AVCHD 2.0 support on DVD specifically, it's just the device is AVCHD 2.0 compliant so should support options added in the 2.0 Addendum.
http://www.avchd-info.org/format/ "≦18Mbps for DVD"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD "8 cm optical media (DVD, AVCHD 1.0 formats only)"

I believe the above DVD exception was because older DVD players couldn't support error free playback up to the higher 28Mbps bitrate used for 2.0 Addendum removable devices option. So I'm guessing buying a AVCHD 2.0 compliant player gives one a better chance of DVD playback success.

PD offered the 1920x1080/60p AVCHD on DVD as shown in this prior menu but they ceased the menu option at PD15 when it appears they tried to address some compliant anomalies.

Jeff

This is all very interesting!

@tomasc, on my old Panasonic machine a DVD-R disk burned at AVC-HD 1920 x 1080 60i would play, but with the shimmering/glittering artifacts appearing in all fine-detail areas. A blu-ray disk of the same production file, burned at 1920 x 1080 60p, could not display video at all; only audio and a black screen.

The new Sony machine will play a three-video, blu-ray 1920 x 1080 60p disk beautifully, with no artifacts and improved audio. The same production on double layer DVD+R DL disk burned at 1920 x 1080 60i will play, but with the same shimmering/glittering effect as was seen in the old player and with audio that sounded slightly muffled/less clear. I noticed the difference in the audio as I watched one after the other and the blu-ray audio is definitely clearer.

@JL_JL, funny you should mention the 1280x720/60p option because as yet another test the other day, I burned one of the three videos that were included on the other two disks to a fresh DVD-R (single layer) as AVC-HD but this time choosing that resolution instead of 1920 x 1080 60i as before. And voila! No shimmering/glittering artifacts at all when played. Of course, I could only fit one of the three videos on the single layer disk but it was sufficient for a test of the two highest available AVC-HD resolutions in PowerDirector20 based on frame rate alone.

So the two 'best choices' for an AVC-HD disk appear to be 1280/720/60p (if I want the burn to match the shooting and editing frame rate, and have no shimmering effect in fine detail areas) or 1920/1080/60i (if I want the higher resolution but must accept that it will display 'shimmer/glitter' in fine detail areas, possibly because the frame rate was converted from progressive to interlaced.)

The appearance of the video at 1280 x 720 resolution AVC-HD is acceptable, and much better than the standard DVD 720x480 alternative, LOL. The non-blu-ray burn audio is inferior but would be most noticeable by someone who has viewed the blu-ray version first, as I did.

A shame that PowerDirector eliminated support for 1920 x 1080 60p for AVC-HD after PD15.

A question just to clarify: A DVD-R or DVD+R DL disk that is burned at 1280/720/60p will be AVC-HD 1.0, correct? and thus should play in anyone's player, even those that would not support an AVC-HD 2.0 blu-ray version of the same video?

If so, then I will stock up on DVD+R DL disks for people who either don't have a blu-ray player or who have one that was made more than five years ago and thus might not be 2.0 compliant. That should allow me to squeeze more than one video onto each disk, depending on file size. The videos were shot chronologically, so it is very helpful to be able to have more than one per disk.

Quote A question just to clarify: A DVD-R or DVD+R DL disk that is burned at 1280/720/60p will be AVC-HD 1.0, correct? and thus should play in anyone's player, even those that would not support an AVC-HD 2.0 blu-ray version of the same video?

AVCHD specifications were based on Blu-ray specifications so it has many similarities however some major differences and applies to DVD media and many external devices. BD media is different and requirements are covered by the Blu-ray specifications, that’s why PD isolates the two in different tabs and why you don’t see any BD media in the AVCHD tab or DVD media in the Blu-ray Disc tab. Can you manually move things and put on non standard media and get playback, certainly, some devices will tolerate, it's not a specification though.

The Blu-ray spec covers 1920x1080/60p requirements as well as many other proper resolutions for blu-ray media.

Yes, a AVCHD burn to DVD media with 1280x720/60p will be more compatible with many DVD players as it's at spec and the bitrate is lower than a 1920x1080/60p PD burn and can provide a significantly improved picture quality relative to the standard DVD 720x480 MPEG2 stream.

Jeff