Oh, I see, that's good news. I wish apple didn't tell me that no computer could play back HD.
Can you make a blue-ray or blue laser DVD or atleast play them? I think that's where I was confused. HDV is good enough for me! But does anyone know if one could burn "true HD" with a red ray/DVD-5?

Apple's DVD Player will not playback other HD media such as Blu-Ray or even HD-DVD. The player will only playback HD-DVDs that were authored using a Mac and DVD SP. You can burn HD-DVDs using DVD SP on DVD-5 discs on a regular DVD burner. Look at the previous posts for more info.

Hugh

I'm assuming that's because of the protection on the commercial discs.

I have been doing some experiments and can pretty much say that 720p60 is not functional yet. When one goes to change the disc settings to HD-DVD the only option there is 30 (29.97) fps. 60 is not even an option. This totally sucks because I shoot 720p60. I can burn 720p30 discs but wish 720p60 support was there. I do have the option of converting finished programs to 1080i and then burning but this adds yet another step to the process.

Apple sure is slow to adopt 720p60 even though its an existing broadcast standard. Still cant even digitize or export 720p60 HDV over firewire! Hello?!

Anyway, still thinking about picking up one of the Toshiba players. Probably when the next iteration of DVDSP comes out.

Peace!

I have done this and can say it does work. I even burned onto a dual layer DVD using 720P30 footage.

Just take the disc to Best Buy and try it on a demo DVD player, they were curious to see it and let me.

Looked good on a 50inch Plasma and a Toshiba HD DVD player.

Hi Jim, I'm just reporting that 720p60 does not work. Anything at 30fps does work, just no 60.

That is sooo cool!!!
 

I tried this out over the weekend. Burned a DVD formatted as HD-DVD with some 1080p30 footage from my A1, just like Hugh described.

This is just so cool!! The quality is amazing. Played it back on the Toshiba A20 HD-DVD player that I bought about 2 weeks ago. Really nice. And, like Hugh pointed out, if the source footage is MPEG2 (and not Apple Intermediate Codec) then DVD studio Pro doesn't have to do any transcoding, so burning the disc took less than 15 minutes (that's on a G5/2.3Ghz). Disc includes a menu just like a regular DVD - it's just an HD-DVD.
Thought I'd have to share this since I think it's a great way to show finalized clips.
BTW, turns out you can watch such a disc on the Mac using DVD player (not sure this has been mentioned here). When you select "Actual size" from the video menu, you can easily verify that it's 1920x1080 resolution and not regular SD-DVD.

Best Regards,
Dino

EDIT: P.S. Totally forgot to thank Hugh for sharing this in the first place! Thanks so much!!!

I am glad to see that someone else has succeeded in burning 1080p30 content to a DVD-5 HD-DVD using FCP. Also, thanks for burning a disc that contains a menu. All of my tests to date have not included menus, so it is exciting to hear that your menu or menus worked properly. Did the disc's menu contain multiple buttons, video, sound, etc.?

This is clearly the most affordable way to output HD content at this moment provided your footage is 30 minutes or under. I wonder if you can use a duel layer DVD-5 discs for this same process. I would assume so.

Hugh

Yes, I used one of the templates with like 5 buttons that link to the individual clips. Each button is a frame with a movie tumbnail that loops around to preview the clips, so they play simultaneously as expected. Works beautifully; just like authoring a regular DVD. I didn't include sound in the menu yet, as this was just a first trial, but I intend to burn another one with more clips and I'll add some music there.

I agree, it's almost scary that it's so easy and cheap! I too assume it should be possible to burn DL discs. According to the tech spec the Toshiba HD A20 supports DVD-R DL; question is whether it supports this format as a DVD-5. I guess we'll have to try it out!
Best Regards!
Dino

Next Question!
 

What model of HDTV's are you guys using with your Toshiba? When I went to best buy to test my disk it really looked like horseshiite on the new Toshiba 1080p Regza model- the material was 720p24 which tells me that the A20's scaler is not so great. The bitrate on my DVD was low so I'll be testing another one shortly.

Not the computer guru like many of you on this thread, but would the same concept work with FCHD Express, and burn via iDVD? Haven't moved up to FCS 2 yet. But a very interesting thread. Thanks.

Actually, the scaler in the A20 is reportely one of the best, just following the Toshiba XA2 - that's according to many reports on the AVS forum. I haven't had a chance to test this thorougly on my setup, but so far I find the thing outstanding. I think the bit rate is the key thing here. Any transcoding will lead to a decrease in quality. That's why the procedure Hugh's described is so brilliant - it takes the original HDV encoding and burns it directly without transcoding. Also, I'd be careful with the p24 footage. Toshiba released a 24p-supporting firmwire update for the A20 and XA2 just last week and in order to fully support this your display needs to support it too otherwise it'll pulldown to 60 Hz again (that's all besides the fact the DVD StudioPro doesn't support 24p yet for HD formats).
Best,
Dino

No, that won't work with iDVD. That's one of the many reasons I did upgrade from FCE some time ago.

How much data may the HD-DVD's take, when burned with DVD Studio Pro?
Is it 4.7GB, just like a regular Standard Def. DVD?

This thread has some AWESOME info!!!

nearsightedproductions.com

HD-DVD is 15 GB (single layer) and 30 GB (dual layer). But I don't know of any burner or blank HD-DVD media yet available. I don't even know what they are going to call a burnable HD-DVD.

Maybe HD-DVDR?