Toshiba HD-A1 plays HD-DVDs on red-laser discs
 

Had an occasion recently to play with Ulead DVD Movie Factory 5. On th box it says "Blu-ray and HD DVD ready". I used some HDV clips, as well as SD clip and authored a primitive HD DVD. It wanted to burn it onto HD DVD burner (which I obviously do not have), but not being easily discouraged, I created an image file, then burned that onto plain old DVD-R.

I don't have anything to play it on either (why couldn't somebody create a software player?), so I took it down to my friendly neighborhood Best Buy. I'm happy to report that the Tosh HD-A1 played it properly, including menus. It crashed, however, when I put in a disc with just MPG files.

The Ulead pgm appears to encode only MPG2 (not 4), as the file sizes seemed appropriate for MPG2. No mention was made of this in the instructions. PQ had deteriorated some as well. MPG4 would be worthwhile considering the limited disc space. I haven't checked whether or not it can author from pre-encoded MPG4s. Being a low end program, there are several other issues as well. I was surprised to find that both MPG2 and MPG4 are acceptable for HD DVD.

Knowing that the HD-A1 plays red-laser HD-DVDs opens up some nice distribution possibilities though!

I was wondering if this could be done.
 

Now I have my answer.

Thanks David !

UPDATE:

While my trial disc worked OK, some are not having such good luck. A brisk discussion on MF5 and the HD-A1 is going on at AVS Forum.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...2&page=1&pp=30

another burn
 

Well, having checked out the other site, lot's of useful info, I find that the new version of Uleads HD-DVD is crippled. First the Blu-Ray and now HD-DVD.

The trial version does not offer any support to burn either. It promises a free HD-DVD bundle which will allow the user to burn the software once HD-DVD recordable discs are available.

Well, since I can't try out Ulead, I googled my way to another burning program which seems promising. Its Power2Go by Cyberlink. They'll claiming burning capabilities for both. I've download the trial and will see if I can burn some discs like the experiment with DVD+R were successful on burning and playing on the Toshiba players.

The other cool feature is that Cyberlink also has their PowerDVD software which will play HD-DVD and Blu-Ray based discs. Something the other site mentioned were wondering about. A software based program to view their burned discs on.

I thought I remember reading that Ulead rebranded this and removed the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray ready info. I could be mistaken.

Any luck with Power2Go?

Both HD DVD and Blu-ray will reportedly support MPEG2 and MPEG4 HD playback, as has been speculated since these players were proposed.

No, it'll only allow burning as a HD-DVD or BluRay. It won't let me burn it on standard DVDs.

John, are you referring to Power2Go? Are you saying it actually authors high definition disks but you can't burn them?

If so, will it allow you to generate an ISO file instead? This should then be burnable via ImgBrn, DVD Decrypter, Nero etc.

I have HD-DVD disks working by using Ulead to create the folder structure, then using Nero Burning ROM. Set up a DVD video project, stick an empty text file in the VIDEO_TS folder and add the HD-DVD folder to the root of the project. Burn and it'll work.

It offers a data burn. I guess Power2Go will not let you burn a disc if you choose HD-DVD or Blu Ray and the specific disc is not in the drive.

I tried burning regular files to disc and it didn't work.

I tried burning m2ts files and m2ts converted to mpeg from HDTV2Mpeg. I did not try turning it into a iso file for a hd-dvd movie. I'll try what you said about saving a dvd project and adding the hd-dvd file.

My technique definitely works but the difference is that I used my own MPEG2 files encoded as program streams. I authored in Ulead, created the titleset folder and burned it in the manner I described.

I have HD-DVD working and now want Blu-Ray working, but Power2Go (like Nero) only appears to offer Blu-Ray data burning. So no good for authoring.

John, do you have both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players, or just HD-DVD?

I don't have either players. I wanted to work with the programs to see how well it burns.

I know that the eariler adopters of Uleads program are able to do that but the current version is so lacking, with Ulead taking all the features out, that I'm looking into other products.

If I'm successful with the programs, than I'd be willing to go out and buy the players. Probably HD-DVD format, as it'll support regular DVD burns.

If a standard 4.9 gig DVD can hold 20 minutes, and a dual layer will hold 40 mins. I'll be happy to use regular discs until the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray blanc discs are comparable in price to what DVD prices are now.

I definately would love to have HD discs to watch the shots I've taken with my FX-1.

I don't want to use my FX-1 to watch the clips, ruining the head on the camcorder, etc...