Do I really have to buy software to convert 1080 home movies to blu ray?

I want to be able to watch these 1080 videos on my TV.  I bought a blu ray burner, but all I can put on it (as far as I can tell) are the files I loaded from my camera to my computer.  Also, as far as I can tell, my blu ray player won't play them off the disk I burned.  

I downloaded trial software to create blu ray movies and it works, but I have to pay $ to remove the watermark (centered in the picture) from the movies.

Thanks.

Can you really upconvert home movies to 1080p?  Unless you are really recording in HD with your recorder I don't honk it's worh the extra money to put them on Blu-Ray.  I could be wrong.

Not old tech home movies.

I want to make blu rays from 720 and 1080 HD.  

How big are the files you're putting on dual layer DVD?

Also, I'm thinking about archiving on blu ray; putting the WMV etc on them works fine with the burner I have.  

Oh, okay.



The dual layered DVD's will hold 8.5gb.



I've archived alot of different stuff on DVD and Blu-Ray.  The single layered BR are going for $2.00 each and the dual layer is still about $15.00 each for the Sony brand.






 

I think you can get Sony Vega for like 20 buck at Target. Vega should allow you to export videos to AVC or MP4 which most bluray players will support. When you burn them to either a bluray or DVD since you will be just creating a data disc. If you want to make a 'hollywood' style bluray with menu's etc, that requires a DVD/BD authoring program like Adobe Encore. It has to do with purchasing the licenses and patients that go along with the codecs (h264, dolby digital, DTS, etc)


Half the battle I feel with today's HD camera is the native format. Currently I have to convert my MOV(h264 i think) to MP4 before I can even edit my videos. Sometimes buying editting software will actually help you avoid that. What does your camera specs say is your HD format??