Toshiba's HD DVD recorders
 

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/10/04/hddvd/index.php

Very interesting. HD DVD-r? Wild.

heath

Very cool! Isn't it fun to sit on the sidelines and watch. Kinda like football, with the score at zero to zero and no one can score! Might be about the third quarter right now. :)

Mike

Considering Toshiba's first announcement of a HD-DVD recorder was years ago and an actual working model seems to have never been delivered in Japan (could be wrong about this but searches show no information aside from that one model was set to ship at the end of July in 2006), and that the HD-DVD burner Toshiba announced in January is impossible to find, I would take this announcement with bemused skepticism.

It would change the rules of program distribution if one was actually delivered.

Years ago? I think you might mean HD DVD player, a short time ago. This has not even gone on that long.

M

I was doing research into high-def theater distribution earlier this year and I came across Toshiba press releases from 2004 regarding an imminent release of HD-DVD burners for desktops. I have to admit that I can no longer find this release on their site although I still have the report I wrote for the client. The Toshiba laptop HD-DVD burner was first announced last October. Has anyone here seen one?

I had a correspondence with Toshiba concerning their $3500 HD-DVD recorder that was apparently shipped in Japan this summer. They said that there was no way it was ever going to be released in the US.

For general info, one major theater chain has decided on HD-DVD for their electronic projection. How it's being implemented I can't say, but that's how they would like HD content delivered for the moment.

More like the score is 24-7 at half time and the HD-DVD team is missing several key people because one of their buses got stuck in traffic on the freeway. It's been almost 18 months since HD-DVD players started shipping and there are still no HD-DVD burners available for individual purchase in the U.S., plus disc speed and capacity are lagging behind Blu-ray. For indie producers Blu-ray currently wins by default because it's the only fully functional HD delivery option; HD-DVD isn't showing up for the game.

I have wondered where all the burners are even though I see the media for sale online.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...15GB_Disc.html

As an hobbyist-enthusiast, I have been having a great time authoring HD on a regular DVD-R which plays perfectly on my Toshiba HD-A1.

Just yesterday, I finished a 33 minute project [from my Canon HV20] that I was able to put on a 4.7 gig DVD-R @16 mbps using MPEG-2 compression. [Complete with menu and chapter markers]

Apple's Compressor has settings that allow you to tweak the bit rate, and it reports how long a final project you can fit on a DVD-5 at certain bit rate.

I also picked up some dual layer DVD+R's for $1.40 each in a pack of 25. I should able to fit a good hour of HD on them. My home movie projects rarely exceed this length. I can probably fit more if I try the H.264 setting, but it also scales the video down to 720p.

For those trying to deliver HD on a budget, you really can't beat this workflow. HD DVD players cost only $299!

The problem is that some of us want to be able to deliver full-length HD videos without any tricks or compromises, and HD-DVD doesn't offer that at this time. Also, dual-layer discs can be problematic so that's not a particularly good solution for longer projects; with Blu-ray you don't have to worry about that until your video passes two hours in length. It's good that there is a way to deliver something to those with HD-DVD players, but until proper HD-DVD burners are shipping in volume it's a hamstrung format for indie production.

Last I checked, Amazon had the HD-A2 for $230 shipped, and the 1080p HD-A20 for $299.

Got one of the latter units myself, and watched some HD DVD content I created using my Macbook Pro and a Sony HC1 camera ... fantastic.

www.createspace.com offers both, and Windows is onboard officially for HD DVD (createspace.com used to be customflix.com). Note: Blu-Ray is coming soon.

heath