Using Nero 7 to Burn HD

Nero is known for releasing multiple incremental updates to its software in between releases of full-fledged versions, and a newly added feature to Nero 7 (a free upgrade to owners of the suite via Nero’s website), should be of particular interest to HD video camera owners.

With the update, you can use Nero Vision 4—one of the suite’s video apps—to burn high-definition content to a standard DVD. This is welcome alternative if you want to author high-def home movies that don’t require the full 25GB of expensive Blu-ray media. I say Blu-ray media because the DVD you create with Vision is only playable in a Blu-ray player, including Sony’s PS3. Still, it’s a nifty trick.

The secret lies in AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec High Definition), which uses an MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) video codec, and which when combined with audio in an MPEG-4 Transport Stream can be played without modification in a Blu-ray player. I experimented by burning a 4GB MPEG-2 HDV file to a DVD, and the results were impressive. The 17 minute high-definition video played from the disc without any glitches in both a stand-alone Blu-ray drive and a PS3, as promised. And the quality looked just as good as with the original.

HD DVD loyalists aren’t necessarily out in the cold. Corel’s new media-creation suite will offer a similar feature for those folks. And Pinnacle and Ulead are also joining the HD-to-DVD party. So everyone wins.

Using Nero 7 to Burn HD

Nero is known for releasing multiple incremental updates to its software in between releases of full-fledged versions, and a newly added feature to Nero 7 (a free upgrade to owners of the suite via Nero’s website), should be of particular interest to HD video camera owners.

With the update, you can use Nero Vision 4—one of the suite’s video apps—to burn high-definition content to a standard DVD. This is welcome alternative if you want to author high-def home movies that don’t require the full 25GB of expensive Blu-ray media. I say Blu-ray media because the DVD you create with Vision is only playable in a Blu-ray player, including Sony’s PS3. Still, it’s a nifty trick.

The secret lies in AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec High Definition), which uses an MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) video codec, and which when combined with audio in an MPEG-4 Transport Stream can be played without modification in a Blu-ray player. I experimented by burning a 4GB MPEG-2 HDV file to a DVD, and the results were impressive. The 17 minute high-definition video played from the disc without any glitches in both a stand-alone Blu-ray drive and a PS3, as promised. And the quality looked just as good as with the original.

HD DVD loyalists aren’t necessarily out in the cold. Corel’s new media-creation suite will offer a similar feature for those folks. And Pinnacle and Ulead are also joining the HD-to-DVD party. So everyone wins.

Download of the Week: Windows Media Player Plus!

Unless you have some super-fancy configuration set up, odds are good that you--like most--default to Windows Media Player as your multimedia software of choice for playing just about anything that comes across your system. There's no shame in that. While a number of freeware tools support more codecs and/or file formats, and come bundled with other fun features and extensive customizations, it's alright to admit that you use Windows' built-in tool for the job.

In fact, you might very well have found yourself quite fond of your operating system's default media player. That's alright too. I'm not about to show or suggest third-party tools that might add confusion to your routine. Instead, you might want to check out a little chunk of software called Windows Media Player Plus! This app--really, a series of plugins--isn't a replacement for Windows Media Player. It simply builds free enhancements into Windows Media Player to give you even more options to tinker with and features to enjoy.