What About My HD Home Videos?

I like to think of myself as a fairly multimedia-friendly parent. After all, my wife and I are pretty good about sharing our digital photos via email, Facebook, and an assortment of other avenues for getting pics out to family and friends, you know?

...But then, what about all those digital videos we've recorded? We have one of those great "Flip"-style cameras that takes HD video, and even phones that take high-def video, so we have some great videos to share!

Unfortunately, the options sharing for HD video aren't as simple as for pictures. Video files can be huge, especially in HD, precluding email for all but the shortest clips. Social media sites like Facebook or YouTube have length and size restrictions, and the time it takes to upload/download can be daunting, even on higher-speed internet connections.

So, what can I do with my HD videos? Internet, email, and social-media sites are limited, so I've started looking into physical media, and burning videos to disc. DVD is fairly ubiquitous nowadays, but because it's an older standard-definition format, I would end up losing quite a bit of the high-definition detail in my videos. I've also thought about sending data-discs with my video files, but that won't work for people who don't have computers, and I won't know if they even have the right software installed to play the files. What's the next option? Well, most of my family and friends who have high-def TVs have Blu-ray players, but is there something out there that will let me put my HD videos on a *playable* Blu-ray to share with friends and family?

...Fortunately, the answer is yes! Earlier this year NCH Software released a new version of their Express Burn disc-authoring/burning software, and it now supports Blu-ray video playable in any Blu-ray player. It works fine with my Blu-ray burner drive, and it's very simple to use; I just pick my HD videos (Blu-ray dics hold hours of them), re-order them as desired, and hit "Burn Blu-ray Video". Express Burn does the rest - it handles all the conversion to Blu-ray format, and burns it all to the disc. Re-encoding those HD videos can take a little time, but I can go make dinner while it's running, and the result is a Blu-ray that even my Dad can just pop in the Blu-ray player and watch.