pats52 wrote:

 

I am a complete novice with regard to video editing.  

 

• My goal is to be able to take HD home video I shoot with the Canon Vixia HFM500 and publish movies to my computer’s hard drive.
• From my computer, I plan to play the movies on my HD TV
• I would like the option of burning the project to a blu-ray at a later date, but that is not my plan right now.
• The files imported into Premiere for this project are in AVCHD format (1920x1080; 29 fps as specified in the file properties).
• but am extremely confused trying to figure out which format to select for export under “publish and share". 
• Depending on which is selected (MPEG or AVCHD), what is the best “Preset” setting for what I want to do...
• I expect my videos to be pretty long (~2.5 - 3 hours each)... will I be able to fit each video on a single blu ray?

 

I am less experienced than the people that have given you advice so far.  But, I started with exactly the same goals two years ago with no previous video experience.

• I don't have a Canon.  I have a Panasonic and a Sony.  I suggest you set your camera at the highest quality setting, which I think might be AVCHD 1080p30.  I think it gets a few more lines than MP4 settings.
• I have played movies from my laptop to a HD TV with a $10 12 foot HDMI cord.  It works very well until you trip over the cord.  My favorite way of viewing videos on a TV is the Western Digital WD TV Live.  It is a very small box similar to the Apple TV or Roku except that it is famous for being able to play nearly every video, graphic and audio file format.  It is usually around $90.  It will, with a nice menu, show your orinial clips along with your finished video. 
• If you are going to use your computer and and HDMI, I suggest you try the (free) Splash LITE player.  It is quick, smooth and handles AVCHD formats very well.
• In Premier Elements 11 you can manage files a couple ways.  But, the idea is to keep all your working copies of asset and project files in one folder.  Then you can move the folder to any storage device you choose.  At a later date you can locate the entire folder and make a new output version, like Blu-Ray when you get a burner.  I do the folder management "old school' with Windows explorer, but PrE11 has an "Archive" process that seems to do about the same thing.
• The files you are importing are probably (and should be for best quality) AVCHD 1080x1929p30.  The "30" is really 29.97 due to a hold over from an old video standard.  The "p" is about full frames instead of the other choice "i" which is sort of like half frames.  I don't think your Cannon will do 60p, but if it does that will be slightly better for clips with fast action in them.
• I think "Rendering" is made to be confusing.  The first form of it takes place when you start your project.  When you put the first clip on the timeline PrE11 picks a setting that allows it to "render" a preview while you work.  Depending on your computer you may have to help it once in awhile for smooth previewing.  At "Share" time you pick a viewing device and can choose "render" settings.  Ideal for iPhone viewing, YouTube viewing, computer playback and Blu-Ray burning are all different.  In your case, for computer viewing the best choice is to match the original files.  In other words, pick Computer>AVCHD and then find one that says "1080x1920 30p".  The output "render" process takes every frame from your original, adds your transitions, titles and effects and write an entirely new video file with minimal loss.
• To my knowledge, very few editing systems can render without a little loss of data.  But that is not visually important if you are adding transitions and effects.  The sum is greater than the parts.  And, because PrE11 NEVER changes the original files, you can "Share Render" to optimums for every viewing device.  There are some programs that can join or trim clips with complete lossless results but they don't allow transitions or effects.  They are too "cut and dried" to be any fun.
• I think the Blu-Ray limit is around four hours for ordinary single layer disks.  Premier Elements 11 can do that.  I think it can even compress a little if it has to.  Until you get a Blu-Ray burner, you may have fun with a derivitive called an "AVCHD disk".  Premier Elements will put up to about 30 minutes of Blu-Ray quality video on an ordinary DVD for playback in a Blu-Ray player. 

Premier Elements 11 is very much the right software for what you want to do.  Growing for years into version 11, every possible thing you might want to do with home video has been added to a menu somewhere in it.

Bill