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I've just tried Bogart V3.5 with AVCHD on DVD. There are problems.

1. Several pauses of the video are sometimes needed to achieve smooth play, its as if it does not know which frame to play first.

2. There are four short videos to music on the DVD each separated by a fade to black. At the start of each track the music breaks up.

3. There seems to be a slight hazy rhythmic pulsation to some steady plain backgrounds, perhaps about 1sec intervals.

4. Panning is often jerky as are some busy scenes. On the plus side I can see no motion artifacts in the detail.

5. When paused sometimes the shot flickers between frames at other times it is steady.

The data rate runs at around 15 to 17 mbps it occasionally rises to around 20 mbps. The problems do not seem to be associated with the higher data rate. I experienced the same problems with earlier versions of V3.

These are the equipment and setting details.
Panasonic HDC TM-700 AVCHD camera. (This is a superb camera)
S4000pro
Bogart V3.5
AVCHD to DVD in best quality. (12 min of video took 4 hours to render.)
Verbatim disc.
Sony BDP S 760 player.

Is anyone else having these problems or is it just me?

Alan, in a damp cold UK.

Just to make sure I am not misunderstood I'm not producing a DVD its an AVCHD file on DVD. I've noticed that HD to DV conversion and DVD creation is much improved.

Alan

Hi Alan,
which Arabesk Version is installed?

Hi Alan,

I think your described problems have to do with your Sony player.
You may check this by playing your AVCHD-DVD using the MediaManager.
Do you see here same problems playing with MediaManager?

Hi Hans,

Thanks for your reply. I'm using Arabesk 4.13 is there a later one?

The video plays in Media Manager without problems. However there is still the hazy pulsation I described in my comment 3. My Sony player is almost new and it is specified to play AVCHD files. Looks as if its another player MS need to include in its list of to do jobs on Arabesk. As is the hazy pulsation effect.

My solution to the problem is to back up the story board to the external hard drive. Then connect this to my PC. Then import the file to VegasVideo and produce the disc as a BD file on DVD. The results are excellent.

Alan

Hi Alan,
you are correct A 4.13 is the latest version.
If I understand correctly, when you do the described workaround
and you play from your Sony BR player the problems are gone?

Hi Alan,
I bought a Sony AVCHD specific Blu-Ray player that would not play AVCHD Arabesk DVDs. A firmware update was recommended. Since Sony and others do not provide Mac versions of their download, I waited for a CD firmware update from Sony. After installing the update, guess what, it still would not play my AVCHD DVDs. Solution: Go to consumer outlet store and try different Blu-Ray players until I found one that would work. turned out to be a Panasonic.

My Sony Playstation shows similar problems when playing back an AVCHD file from a DVD. And I think it has become even worse with the latest firmware updates provided by Sony.
Now on longer AVCHD clips (longer than 60 minutes) the audio starts to stutter and it also disappears completely during playback.

I think this might have something to do with ACVDH and "interlaced video". One should try to render the whole project into progressive video before adding and burning it with Arabesk HD. I did not have the time yet for this kind of test. And, it is just an idea.

For the work round I purchased Sony Vegas 9 Studio Pro pack, at the time it cost me about £90. I works perfectly. I've been doing this for the last year. Its also a good way of getting a good quality SD DVD from HD material. The only issue is the FAT32 file length problem. Long files need to be joined together before bringing into Vegas. This is done from the command prompt available in windows XP. (my son does this for me).

The other way would be to split the project into about 9min chunks with a few seconds of black each end. Then load to Vegas and trim the black off. The reason for doing this is that when long files are saved in Cassi they are split and do not join without a few frames missing. Even though the frames and audio are there. This is the same problem when playing long files in the Playstation.

My Playstation died on me some time ago, I think the main processor has failed connections to the mother board, I'm not prepared to pay for a repair to a design that may be fundamentally flawed.

Most of my videos are less that 10min long so the work round is quick and easy.

Thanks for all your comments

Alan

Hi Alan,
an Ext3-formatted harddrive will take any film duration without interruption.
Now in Bogart 4.0 you may even use NTFS-formatted drives with same results.