HD Video to DVD, HD DVD, Blu-Ray - I'm confused

[John Whorfin]

Hi,
I'm still getting up to speed on HD and HD DVD and have some basic questions:

- Can HD video content be authored to a standard DVD? If so, can it be played back on an HD or Blu-Ray DVD deck? What about a standard DVD player?

- If it can't, can 16:9 SD video be authored in a way that it plays back 16:9 in an HD DVD/Blu-Ray Player?

- Is the future of HD on DVD going to be that we'll have to author to both HD DVD and Blu-Ray formats?

Thanks for the help.
John

[Baldrick]

You can't author hd as DVD-Video on DVD. But you can author it as HD-DVD on a DVD using for example latest ulead dvd workshop or Cyberlink PowerProducer . But it's no guarante that it will work on all hddvd players. It wont work on any standard dvd player.

[bobkart]

I have authored HD video (from HDV camcorder) to standard DVD, playable on HD-DVD players, but not standard DVD players or Blu-Ray players. This was using Ulead DVD Movie Factory 5 Plus. The 1080i resolution of the source was retained.

I have also authored HD video (again from HDV camcorder) to standard DVD, playable on standard DVD players, of course the resolution was reduced to 720x480 in the process. This was with TMPGEnc.

You can of course author SD video to an HD-DVD but doing so will not increase the intrinsic resolution of the source, it will still be no more than 720x480 despite being upconverted to HD resolutions. This is pretty pointless since HD-DVD players will also play SD DVDs and upconvert them on playback.

Is there something specific you are trying to do, or just curious?

[John Whorfin]

Just curious.

Trying to figure out what people are doing with their HD footage since there are three different DVD formats out there: standard DVD, HD DVD, Blu-Ray.

We're looking to buy some new equipment and I wanted to see what I should be investing in. We primarily digitize SD video for customers and move SD video to standard DVD or just a hard drive if they want to edit it themselves. We've been asked by several customers in the past weeks about moving HD video around and I've had my head buried in SD for so long I'm playing catch-up on HD video and HD DVD.

So you can put 1080i (or whatever HD video) on a standard DVD and play it back on a an HD DVD deck with no quality loss? Interesting. Why won't it play in Blu-Ray or didn't you try? If the Blu-Ray can playback a standard DVD - shouldn't HD TV play there too?

How much HD video at 1080i can you fit on a standard DVD - ballbark?

Baldrick and Bobkart - thanks for all your help.

[bobkart]

So you can put 1080i (or whatever HD video) on a standard DVD and play it back on an HD DVD deck with no quality loss?

Correct.

Why won't it play in Blu-Ray or didn't you try? If the Blu-Ray can playback a standard DVD - shouldn't HD TV play there too?

I didn't try. I believe the HD authoring file structures are different between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray (think of Video Mode DVD versus VR Mode DVD). I could be wrong on this. Once I get a PS3 I'll try it.

How much HD video at 1080i can you fit on a standard DVD - ballbark?

~24 minutes at 25Mb/s.

Here is my main source of information about doing this: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=705146

[videopoo]

There are 2 competing formats: BD(Blu-Ray) & HD-DVD. Niether will play the other.

Ulead(PC) and DVD Studio Pro(Mac) will author HD-DVDs (Not Blu-ray). - never heard of Cyberlink PowerProducer. Instead of a VIDEO_TS folder you get a HVDVD_TS folder which is part of the HD-DVD spec. This folder can be written to a DVD-R and is supposed to play on a HD-DVD player. There are "high end" platforms, like Scenarist and Toshiba's priority system, which author the disc you buy in stores but they are 10s of thousand dollars and the Toshiba system is not sold to the public at all.

Since Toshiba put out thier new firmware updates for the new HD-DVD player, any HVDVD_TS folder I play fails (it played fine when it first came out). I never have used Ulead platform but I hear they play fine with the new firmware updates.


Bottom line is that NO ONE is ready for HD or BD authoring at this point. Even the Engineers at Sonic Solutions, Toshiba and Sony are learning as they go.

DVDSP is probably the closest on the "prosumer" market but even if you wanted to replicated disc authored in DVSSP you coudn't because its put out the wrong image format (DDP 2.1 - should be DDP 3.0) and DVDSP or Ulead do not support the "advanced interactivity" most noted on the new HD formats.

Heck we can't even get out SD DVDs to play right alot of the time Give it a year or 2 and we'll see where we go - thats if HD-DVD and BD discs are still available and haven't gone the way of Super Audio CDs and DVD-Audio - Remember those!?!


Also, Check out this link to microsoft's website - it as alot of great info on the HD-DVD spec and even a forum and sample code for the Advanced Interactivity (iHD). I'm going to spend alot of time here the next year for sure:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/hddvd/default.aspx

[edDV]

Just curious.
...

How much HD video at 1080i can you fit on a standard DVD - ballbark?

1080i needs inverse telecine or deinterlace first for 1080p/23.976fps which is most supported in current encoders. HD DVD will take 1080i MPeg2 but what source are you considering?

Figure
~20 min DVD-5
~40 min DVD-9

This varies progressive 23.976fps vs. interlace 29.97fps and compression used.

But currently playable on two Toshiba HD DVD players.

For home film transfer, this may be a temporary solution. Encoding is fairly tricky and if the source isn't 24fps (e.g. 16fps or 18fps 8mm) you are out on the bleeding edge.

[John Whorfin]

Videopoo, EdDV - Thank you.

I'm meeting with a customer tomorrow. They have a project that could last a year and I know nothing about what they're going to need. I know they want to shoot and edit HD but have no idea where the final product will be used.

Thanks for the good links - I'll be doing a lot of reading and testing in the next few weeks/months.

This whole HD-DVD/Blu-Ray thing sounds like a real mess.

I'm sure I'll have more questions in a few weeks.

I'd like to thank everyone for their time and help.

John