Making and releasing HD NOW in Annapolis MD
 

My clients and I are not waiting for Blu-ray or HD-DVD. I'm shooting all direct booked projects in HDV*, editing HDV and releasing in both SD DVD and WMV-HD.

I still own one SD camera and use that only for backup and for doing location shoots, b-roll, and interviews for other producers out of town but needing something from here. The only other exception is when I tape a long form program like a recital, originating and editing HD, and releasing the long form in HD and a short sample in SD. So getting an SD result from me is an opt-out step.

I can get about 75 minutes of 1080p WMV on a regular DVD disc. For programs that have a 30 minute result, I put the WMV-HD in an extras folder of a regular DVD and in all cases, in lude a readme file on how to play it.

The trick to this is for the client to use a PC or Mac for HD playback. An increasing number are very comfortable with this, and for about $30 in cables, can connect their computer to their HDTV. For example, I bought a DVI to HDMI cable for under $20 at Sam's Club.

I went in this direction because, IMHO, it made no sense to base my HD business on waiting for adoption of either HDDVD or Bluray. It will be years before either dominates and goes into wide use. It also seems to me that the concept of distribution and playback of a single program from one of these formats is on the way out, in favor of hard drive playback.

I further advise my clients to copy their HD shows to the hard drive, make a desktop icon, and playback with a mouse click.

If you don't think that is viable, I have one word for you: iPod!