Nero announced the addition of high definition video authoring and playback capabilities to Nero 7 Ultra Edition Enhanced.
The updated version allows users to enjoy the full power of high definition video, including AVCHD and editable Blu-ray (BD-AV) video capturing, authoring and playback. An optional plug-in adds HD DVD-video playback capabilities as well.
AVCHD, a new camcorder format developed by Sony and Panasonic, uses the highly efficient MPEG-4 AVC codec. With Nero 7 Ultra Edition Enhanced, users can now capture video from AVCHD camcorders, manipulate the footage, and then use the suite?s Nero Vision application to author the content to a wide range of commonly used media formats such as DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW, Memory Sticks and SD cards, in full HD quality (up to 1080p). The content can also be played via most Blu-ray players, including PlayStation 3. For PC-based viewing, the Nero ShowTime application can playback AVCHD content from a hard drive.
Nero users can now author their video content onto Blu-ray Discs (BD-R and BD-RE) featuring sophisticated menus, and can play the authored discs on their PCs, and via Blu-ray players. The software enables capturing HDV and DV directly from the camcorder to disc without the need to transcode. Users can also capture from analog devices, such as a TV card. Video can be encoded to MPEG-2 in resolutions up to 1080p, complete with up to 5.1 channels of Dolby Digital audio. Users can even modify a disc that they?ve already created by editing clips and rearranging playlists directly on the disc.
Nero has also released a new plug-in that enables HD DVD playback with the Nero ShowTime application. This allows users to experience 1080p HD DVD content with up to 5.1 channels of HD audio. All HD DVD video codecs, interactive menus and other advanced HD DVD features are fully supported.
Nero 7 Ultra Edition Enhanced is currently available at retail for $99.99, and via download from www.nero.com for $79.99. Current Nero 7 owners can download the update free of charge. The additional HD-DVD plug-in costs $24.99.