Making a HD home video. How shall I play it? Xbox 360? PS3?

[Colmino]

Time to elaborate. I've got all kinds of home video footage, captured over a span of decades, and I'm in the process of sorting and remastering it all. My plan is for the end result to be a 1080i60 video file encoded in one of the two current-gen formats (VC-1 or H.264). Two reasons for that. First, MPEG2 at 9Mbps can only take you so far, and I am sick of its limitations. Second, some of the video is in fact HDV.

Here is the conundrum. The resulting video will be at least two hours long. This means that unless I really like the way 1920x1080 video looks at 9 Mbps (no), the video is going to have to be played from a hard drive. The trouble here is that the location where I plan to play this video will not have a HTPC - not that I would ever use one for this, as I have never gotten a 100% solid framerate from any Windows box - nor do they have a good streaming solution; any attempt to go over about 6Mbps wirelessly results in stuttering playback. Again, no surprises there; I've had hideous luck with wireless solutions.

Now, I've had success getting both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 to play HD video off a DVDR. The PS3 can only do stereo audio under such circumstances, so I am leaning towards the Xbox 360; it may turn out that I have uses for 5.1 audio.

But what I don't know is this: Can I send a ~30GB video file to the hard drive on one of these two platforms? And if so, how? And if not... then what sort of hacking am I going to have to do to get the job done? Because a HTPC is out, and streaming is out, and a HD movie on a DVDR9 (assuming I could create such a beast without complications) is also out. I need to get this thing figured out in advance, rather than tripping over technical issues in two months when it needs to be complete.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Midzuki]

First, MPEG2 at 9Mbps can only take you so far,

Very incorrect. MPEG-1/2 @ 1920x1080 @ higher bitrates is not impossible.
Software that can create/author anything above Main Profile @ Main Level
is a different subject.

[Colmino]

When I said that, what I was talking about was DVD spec. Specifically, I was saying that the quality afforded by said spec is something I would choose to exceed since the option exists.

[Midzuki]

[ i g n o r e ]

[Colmino]

You and everyone else, Chief. ;p These forums are normally quite replete with knowledgeable individuals, as opposed to folks who misread what I typed.