Create an AVCHD disc (High Definition video on a standard DVD)

Learn how to quickly create an AVCHD compatible video using the new video presets in the Video for Web, Devices, and Computers publishing option in ProShow. In this article you will learn how to create the video, prepare the necessary files for an AVCHD disc and how to burn these files to disc that can be played on almost any Blu-ray player. 

Creating an AVCHD disc

In ProShow Gold and ProShow Producer version 7, several new presets have been added to the “Video for Web, Devices, and Computers” window. The “High Definition Disc Authoring” set of presets allow you to create either Blu-ray or AVCHD-formatted video files meant to be used in a 3rd party disc authoring program. This article will focus on using the AVCHD profiles to create an HD video that can be burned onto a standard blank DVD and played in a Blu-ray player. [NOTE: This *will not* be playable in a regular DVD player.]

1. Open a show in ProShow that you’d like to burn to disc.
2. Go to Publish > Video for Web, Devices and Computers.
   
3. On the category list on the side, navigate to Video File > High Definition Disc Authoring.
   Next choose one of the presets. If you’re in North America, you’ll want to use one of the NTSC variants (PAL is used in Europe, South America, and other areas). I would recommend choosing 1080i60, as this provides the best balance of image resolution and motion smoothness.
   
4. Lastly, click on the Profile drop-down and choose AVCHD High Quality. Click Create and choose where to save your video file.
   
5. Once your video is done, you can use the free program tsMuxer to make a simple AVCHD disc structure. Download it here, then unzip the folder.
6. Open tsMuxerGui.exe from the unzipped folder.  Drag the file you created in step 4 into the “Input Files” section of the program” (or use the ‘add’ button to locate the file).
   
7. Change the Output type to “AVCHD folder”, then choose a folder location. Click “Start Muxing”.
   
8. Now that you have an AVCHD folder, it’s time to burn it to a DVD disc. We’ll be using the free program ImgBurn to do this. You can download it here.
9. Open ImgBurn and choose the “Write files/folders to disc” option.
   
10. Drag the contents of the folder created in Step 7 into the “Source” area of ImgBurn (or use the + icon to locate the folders). Note that we’re specifically adding the BDMV and CERTIFICATE folders.
    
11. In the Options tab, we’re going to set the File System to UDF and the UDF Revision to 2.50.
    
12. Make sure your blank DVD is inserted in your drive and click the “Build” icon at the bottom left.
    

Once your disc is burned, it should be playable in almost any Blu-ray player.

TIPS:

• The same process above can be used to create a high-quality H.264 Blu-ray disc. In step 5 you’ll want to choose Blu-ray folder instead. Alternately, you can choose the “Blu-ray ISO” option and burn it with any ISO burning program installed on your system, including the one built into Windows 7 & 8.
• If you’d like to use a dedicated menu authoring program like Adobe Encore, you may first need to “demux” (i.e. separate the video and audio streams) in tsMuxer. Just choose the “Demux” option shown in the screenshot for step 7.
• Multiple video clips can be added to a single AVCHD or Blu-ray disc with a simple menu using the free program multiAVCHD.