HD content burned onto a standard DVD playable with either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray Players?

[Thomas Smet]

As for authoring, HD-DVD does not use the usual form of authoring as DVD did. The new authoring structure uses XML and is an open format. You can get the specs from Microsoft and really you could author a HD-DVD with a text editor if you knew exactly what to do. I would have thought if DVD Studio Pro says it can create a HD-DVD that it would have actually used the XML format for the aurthoring but it looks like it is more of a hack right now since the specs were not finalized when DVD Studio Pro came out. If the XML structure isn't in DVD Studio Pro then even if you could burn to a HD-DVD you would still have the same problem with the menus not working.

The only program I know of at this stage that creates the actual XML structure is the cheaper DVD program from Ulead.

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by John C. Chu

Most people will wait, I imagine.

Speaking as someone who would very much like to have an HD player for my HDTVs, count me as one more person who is opting to wait this mess out. I'm not spending my hard-earned money until there's more support at the authoring end, lower prices, and a better indication of how this is going to play out with the movie studios. Having two competing formats could thwart HD adoption for years to come, and cost both sides in this battle a lot of money compared to if they'd gotten together and agreed on a single option. In the meantime, widescreen SD DVDs work fine for me and most people I know.

Thanks to Sony and Toshiba for effectively killing HD - nice going, geniuses.

[Tom Roper]

I own the Toshiba A1 HD-DVD player, but not a single HD-DVD Hollywood title. For me, it is just another tool along with the I-O Data AVeL LinkPlayer2 to display HDV video on an HDTV monitor.

It's only a few simple steps to get from native HDV to HD-DVD, without re-encoding. Playback via the HDMI connector cannot be beat.

So I don't really care how the war turns out. Blu-Ray needs interoperability and HD-DVD needs studio support. Neither one wins without both, so most people remain on the sidelines.

I'm really enjoying the HD-DVD player though.

[Sharyn Ferrick]

It is a mess

AFAIK

VC1 for consumers is probably going to happen, and burning red dvd's with hd content is also likely to continue to be supported in the HD DVD camp. AVCHD support is NOT likely

On the BD side of things I think Sony will push that AVCHD as the only way to go for red laser hd content on dvd , even thought VC1 is supported in the format.

Fun fun fun

Sharyn

[Sharyn Ferrick]

One key thing to keep pushing for is to get Microsoft to make the HD DVD addon for the xBOX 360 work on the PC. From all the discussions it seems to be more of just getting them to do it, and of course not stepping on Hp and the other people who are looking at bringing to market drives at a bit higher price point.

IF the HD DVD addon were working on the pc then I think the Studios would look at the vast potential base there in addition to Xbox and standalone players as significantly higher than all the PS3 hype

Sharyn

[Mike Schrengohst]

Originally Posted by Scott Jaco

**Success**

I’ve finally got this damn HD-DVD thing working. I got it to work on the Toshiba A1 HD-DVD player.

Here is what you do if you are using Final Cut Studio….

Encode your video timeline with Compressor “HD Mpeg-2 30min 19Mbps” preset. Make sure to change the frame rate to 59.97. The default is 50 which won’t work.

Encode your audio from FCP as an AIFF file. (Do not use Compressor to make it Dolby 2.0 or AC3) just leave it uncompressed.

Use DVD Studio Pro 4.0 and switch the preset to HD-DVD. Import your video & audio assets as usual and create your chapter markers. Don’t bother with menus. They don’t work on HD-DVD players. Just set your video asset as “First Play” and delete the top menu.

This works perfectly.

2 drawbacks to this method. You can’t use DVD menus, but this shouldn’t be that big of a deal since your chapter makers will allow you to skip ahead in the movie.

Second drawback is DVD capacity. A Dual Layer DVD 8.5 GB will only hold about 50 min. of HD footage so you will need to split your videos across 2 disks if you go over.

Hope this helped! It took a lot of trial & error!

Do you mean 59.94?
What was your original timeline??

[Douglas Villalba]

Has anyone tried using a Mac Mini as an HD DVD player connected to a Plasma or LCD?
If that works that is probably the best way to show HD DVDs with chapters.
I am going to the Apple store tomorrow to try an HD DVD out.

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Douglas Villalba

Has anyone tried using a Mac Mini as an HD DVD player connected to a Plasma or LCD?

I looked into that but found that the current high-end Mac Mini barely meets the recommended specs for 720p playback and is a hair short of the specs for 1080p. User reports seem to be more encouraging that that, but it's still $799 for the good Mac Mini versus as little as $599 already for a Blu-ray player and less than that for HD-DVD.

[Douglas Villalba]

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

I looked into that but found that the current high-end Mac Mini barely meets the recommended specs for 720p playback and is a hair short of the specs for 1080p. User reports seem to be more encouraging that that, but it's still $799 for the good Mac Mini versus as little as $599 already for a Blu-ray player and less than that for HD-DVD.

I am thinking more of showing my work in HD DVD with chapters at Bridal Shows and in the office.
I wouldn't buy it to see HD movies. It is too early to decide on format, but I want to sell HD since I already have the cameras and charge more for it.
I have customer that bought the HD packages and they want their videos in HD now.
I was thinking that if the Mini works then I can sell it included in a package.

[Gene Brockhoff]

I have the Toshi HD player and DVDSP and a Hi-Def project. I am going to try and see if this works myself but I also have my G5 with DVI out into a Panny HD 720 projector so if the Mac is better at playing HD-DVD I could just send it out through the DVI-HDMI and see how that works. My question would be if sending out an HD project using 59.94 means that it's not a 24p dvd. Does the project have to be a 60p because I understand that 720p24 is the only format that is not a video format and that is what my project is. Oh well, testing, testing.
By the way, all of my older SD DVD's look unbelievable on the Toshi-HD-DVD player. When I make a comparison with a standard player, most of them will show dancing macro-blocks in the darker areas of a scene, whereas the HD player somehow rids it-self of this artifact. You could show most SD films and 99% of the public would no doubt believe you if you said it was HD. How do the HD-DVD's look? Fuhgettaboutit!

[Nick Ambrose]

Originally Posted by John C. Chu

This whole format war really sucks for the consumer and content producers.[Ad naseaum] But it is so true.
....
As for Blu-Ray--they have some great movies that I want but the only player currently available is from Samsung at $1,000! And it won't play home grown HD on red laser DVD-R's. Even if they drop the price down to $499 to match the HD-DVD players, I would still like the HD on red laser DVD-R capability.

..
Most people will wait, I imagine.

i will wait too, but for blu-ray, you can pay $599 for a PS3, get a 1080P blu-ray player and a free game console too :)

[Douglas Villalba]

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

I looked into that but found that the current high-end Mac Mini barely meets the recommended specs for 720p playback and is a hair short of the specs for 1080p. User reports seem to be more encouraging that that, but it's still $799 for the good Mac Mini versus as little as $599 already for a Blu-ray player and less than that for HD-DVD.

I just came back from the Apple Store. They didn't have the 1.66 Mhz in the showroom and the place was a mad house. I played my HD DVD without any problems, so it should work on the 1.66 Mhz as well.

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Nick Ambrose

i will wait too, but for blu-ray, you can pay $599 for a PS3, get a 1080P blu-ray player and a free game console too

My wife and I bought a PS3 on Jan. 1st and are getting good mileage out of it as a game machine, plus it can display my digital camera photos directly off the memory cards and seems to play regular DVDs just fine. I haven't tested it for Blu-ray movies yet, but if that works it's an easy choice for an HD player because, as Nick said, you get a free game console! By the way, the base model is only $499 with a smaller hard drive than the $599 version. A TV-like remote costs an extra $49.

I vote the PS3 a videographer's "gadget of the year" for 2007...

[John C. Chu]

I got a good deal on the discontinued HD-A1 today. This thing is built like a tank.

But the most important thing is seeing if I could create my own HD-DVD compliant disc on regular red laser DVD.

I started by experimenting with a TS file I recorded from over the air ATSC HD stream from the local PBS channel. [Using Migilia TVMiniHD for the Macintosh].

A 30 minute 1081i program ran about 3 gigs.

I then used MPEG Streamclip for the Mac to demux the TS stream to M2V and AIFF [Thanks Scott for your pioneering work for the Mac]

I then loaded it up in DVDStudioPro 4 and created a HD-DVD project.[You author exactly like a standard DVD] but with no menus and autoplay.

I burned the disc and voila--works perfectly on the HD-A1.

It is too bad that the Mac has only one "authoring" progam available for HD-DVD creation.

The PC side has a couple different options.

I had originally wanted to get an ioData AVELINK player...but this is the best bet for the future. Once I get a HDV cam, I will be nearly set.

Woo-hoo!

[John C. Chu]

Update: Disaster!

I ignorantly upgraded the firmware from 1.4 to 2.0 on the player and now the DVD Studio Pro authored "HDDVD"s are no longer recognized in the player.

This sucks.

Unfortunately, there is no way to downgrade the firmware. I understand that this does not affect HDDVDs authored in Ulead Movie Factory--just DVDSP.

Ah jeez.

As stated previously, until DVDSP is updated, or another company comes out with new tools for making HDDVDs on the Macintosh platform, Mac users are left out of the party unless one uses some PC side tools.