Apple first to market with HD-DVD

[BJ_M]

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/

DVD Studio Pro 4

* HD DVD: Showcase your HD content with industry-standard H.264 encoding.
* Distributed encoding: Dramatically speed up encoding of HD and SD video.

[MikieV]

The down-side being:

DVD Studio Pro 4 integrates scalable H.264 encoding, so you can burn feature-length HD titles using existing drives with existing media and play them back using the Apple DVD player.

So, if your audience has Macs running OSX 10.4 & Quicktime 7, you're all set.

[dcsos]

So correct me if I'm wrong BJ:

using existing drives with existing media and play them back using the Apple DVD player.

This means that you are burning a STANDARD DVD structure with HI-DEF vob's.
This is a new standard APPLE has come up with, NO?

ITS LIKE, pardon my analogy, the XVCD of DVD's
or 'APPLE invents the HI-DEF DVD by making it a xDVD format'!

[BJ_M]

no vobs - just a data disk , can be played back on PC also (no menu's though ?)


really - they just jumped the ship on what defines a true HD-DVD ...

But this is Apple and truth really doesn't play a part in their advertising (witness the truth that came out about G5's - i.e. not the fastest , not the first 64bit desktop system)

[dcsos]

So its sorta like WMV Hi Def

a standard with no place to PLAY
..except the machine that made it

Of course what you can do with WMV-HD is the same as this APPLE HiDef VERSION..on WINDOWS you can burn it to a DVD DATA Disc and play it in WMV 10 or higher..
It just seeems APPLE is also giving you a way to MAKE the file
(try making a hi def stream on WINDOWS without a third party APP!)

[guns1inger]

Apple - overrated yet aesthetically pleasing. And that's what counts, right ?

[Nilfennasion]

At least they are trying, as opposed to Mickeysoft's "here it is, its HD, now buy it" joke on such DVDs as the Terminator 2 Extreme Edition.

[Faustus]

Yeah with apples DVD player softwware. How else do you plan to play something unsupported by any DVD players out on the market?

[hexxisoft]

ooh, i'm getting a mac.



syke.

[adam]

Sonic won't be far behind. They have already been demonstrating their own HD authorer and encoder and they are supposed to be released this summer.

[ViRaL1]

ooh, i'm getting a mac.



syke.

Only $500 :P ($450) in some cases.

[dcsos]

Look at this

It looks like Apple DVD Studuo Pro 4 will AUTHOR to the AOD format!!
(cause Toshiba's providing the player!)

DVD Studio Pro 4, Final Cut Studio’s professional DVD authoring program, is the first commercially available DVD authoring software that lets users burn their HD projects to high definition DVDs based on the latest HD DVD specification. DVD Studio Pro 4 will be demonstrated at NAB with a prototype consumer HD DVD player from Toshiba set to debut later this year.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/apr/17fcstudio.html

[BJ_M]

but it now looks like blu-ray and HD-DVD might merge into a new standard

[dcsos]

I just saw that other thread! thanks!
Wow if they really make one standard on 2 differing media that would be cool.
And we'll all have to take this upgrare to HiDef seriously!

[BJ_M]

it would be really good for us lowly consumers ... for once .. (maybe, maybe not -- no competition means higher prices also)

[Nilfennasion]

If they make the standard universally-owned or public, like DVD-Video mostly is, then it will do well. No one company fully owns DVD-Video, and it is thriving. Toshiba and Warners basically said "our way or the highway" with DVD-Audio, and look what happened. On the basic format level, the market will not support competition. It's at the content level where competition will come in.