DVCPRO HD and high-def DVD

[David Saraceno]

I said lack of native DVCProHD support on a PC.

However, the blu ray spec, I believe, is h.264. Perhaps I'm wrong on that.

And you certainly can create mpeg2 HD streams on a PC if your encoder supports it. I didn't know ProCoder did that.

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by David Saraceno

However, the blu ray spec, I believe, is h.264. Perhaps I'm wrong on that.

Most current Blu-ray projects use MPEG2-HD encoding, but the format will also supposedly support AVC (H.264) and VC1 (WMV), as required by both the Blu-ray and HD-DVD specifications. I haven't heard of anyone successfully using H.264 on a Blu-ray disc; we're collectively having enough trouble getting MPEG2 to work.

By the way, not sure what you mean by "native" DVCProHD support or how that would have any bearing on using a PC to produce a Blu-ray disc from DVCProHD content. You can definitely edit DVCProHD footage on a PC and render the results out to a format supported by Blu-ray authoring programs, then use that to author and burn a Blu-ray disc. There's nothing stopping anyone from working with DVCProHD on PCs, just the limitations of individual PC programs.

[TingSern Wong]

For backward compatibility, MPEG-2 HD is preferred to H.264. As Kevin points out, even MPEG-2 HD is causing us lots of hickups. Don't need to mention H.264 - which few DVD HD authoring programs support today.

I am using Canopus EDIUS and ProCoder to edit and encode DVCProHD material (from P2 card) into DVDitPro HD authoring program. I don't have a problem with that. But, right now, I don't have a Blue Ray or HD DVD burner - so that means I have to dump it out to HD tape and pass it to somebody else to cook it for me. I am waiting for an affordable AND reliable BlueRay or HD DVD burner along with affordable media before taking the plunge. Better still, a dual media burner that can burn both BlueRay and HD DVD ...

[Mark Donnell]

TingSern - I am told that if you burn your HD-DVD to a standard DVD using a standard DVD burner, that most of the HD-DVD players will recognize it as HD-DVD and will play it back without problems. You can only get about 20 minutes of HD-DVD per standard DVD, but it sounds like a good temporary option for short projects. Have you tried this ?

[TingSern Wong]

Mark - I can burn the HD DVD into a normal DVD. But I don't have a standalone HD-DVD player right now. My standalone DVD player only plays SD video - not HD video. But, my friend has tried it using a Mac - and he says "no problems".

[Douglas Villalba]

I just finished updating a Toshiba A2 HD DVD player v2.2 but still I can't play dvds authored in DVDSP 4.0.3.

Any ideas what I am doing wrong?

Thanks

[TingSern Wong]

Douglas,

It is a Mac, right? I don't have a Mac anymore. I can ask my friend. But first, what are your parameters you feed into DVD Studio Pro? Next - what physical DVD media did you use? Is it a DVD-R or DVD+R? Can you try DVD-R if you are using DVD+R or vice versa?

[Douglas Villalba]

Originally Posted by TingSern Wong

Douglas,

It is a Mac, right? I don't have a Mac anymore. I can ask my friend. But first, what are your parameters you feed into DVD Studio Pro? Next - what physical DVD media did you use? Is it a DVD-R or DVD+R? Can you try DVD-R if you are using DVD+R or vice versa?

Good question, I think that I used a DVD+r DL and a DVD+r.
I'll try a DVD-r tomorrow.

Thanks

[TingSern Wong]

Douglas,

Some standalone DVD players can't cope with DVD+R or DVD+R DL media. Only works with DVD-R media.

TS

[Douglas Villalba]

Originally Posted by TingSern Wong

Douglas,

Some standalone DVD players can't cope with DVD+R or DVD+R DL media. Only works with DVD-R media.

TS

I just burned the same clip on a DVD-r and it runs smoothly, but I can't still get sound.

I encoded the sound to AC3 2 channels. Should it be encoded to something else?

Thanks

[TingSern Wong]

Don't use AC3 ... try uncompressed format - PCM 48Khz 16 bits stereo.

[Douglas Villalba]

Originally Posted by TingSern Wong

Don't use AC3 ... try uncompressed format - PCM 48Khz 16 bits stereo.

Ok so how do I convert to PCM. Is it the same as Aif or Wav?

Thanks again, we are getting there. ;-)

[Douglas Villalba]

I did use PCM audio but I still don't get sound. Any other ideas?

Thanks

[TingSern Wong]

On PC world, we called that audio file WAV. I am not so sure what the Mac world called it. PCM is Pulse Coded Modulations - the digital audio file used in music CDs. Normal music CD are digitised at 44Khz, 16bits. For video, the standard is 48Khz, 16bits. Can you trying playing a commercial HD DVD on your standalone player to test if the audio is okay?

How did you process the audio for your HD DVD? You used DVD Studio Pro on a Mac? PCM might be specified as input to DVDSP. But what is your output parameters for audio?

[Douglas Villalba]

I used .aif (PCM) for Mac at 48 khz 16 bit.
It even shows it like that when displayed the DVD details.

Has someone actually done a successful HD DVD using standard DVD-r?

I did a successful DVD that worked on a Toshiba A1, but I can't get this to work with the A2. Even after the v2.2 firmware upgrade.