question about HD-DVD burning

[kditty]

i just purchased a panasonic TH-42PX77U HD plasma widescreen television. my dvd player is pioneer dv-400vk. i have an hdmi cord conected between the two, i am wondering if the hdmi gives me any better of a picture if i use a regular dvd or burned dvd.

i am also wondering can an hd-dvd be burned to a regular dvd-r and play in my player. this whole thing, 1080dpi hdmi hd-dvd etc is really confusing to me!

if not, then what do i need to burn hd-dvds and what is a recommended hd-dvd player at a decent price?

very confused right now with this whole deal, ;x

[jman98]

You cannot burn HD-DVD format and play it back on a normal DVD player. You MUST have an HD-DVD player to play back HD-DVD content.

You need a lot of money to burn HD-DVDs. Burners are incredibly expensive and the discs are too. Not to mention you need to buy something that can author an HD-DVD. HD-DVD format is supported on DVD media, but it MUST be dual layer, so "regular DVD-R" won't work.

HDMI, DVI and component are all similar for picture quality and while HDMI is certainly better than S-Video and composite cable connections, it's not any better than DVI and component.

[disturbed1]

A DVD player will only playback supported DVD Formats, max of 720x480 MP@ML 9.8MBit/s. IF you had an HD-DVD player or BD-DVD player, then you could play back actual High Def content authored to either DVD media or HD/BD media. Authoring HD content requires an authoring software that supports HD authoring, such as Scenarist SCA, or Ulead DVD Movie Factory Plus 6. You can burn HD Content to a DVD-/+R (and DL) to play back on an HD DVD player.

A snip of some of the supported High Def formats that are able to be imported by Scenarist
MPEG2 MP@HL
1920x1080
1440x1080 all @ 29.97fps max of 29.4MBits/s
1280x1080
960x1080

VC-1 content
1920x1080
1440x1080

AVC Content
1920x1080
1440x1080 @ 29.97fps
1280x1080
960x1080

1280x720 @ 59.94fps

There are other resolution supported for each type of content, but these are at standard def resolutions.

Using the HDMI output of your SD (standard def) DVD Player only upscales the picture. Use your eyes to see if it actually looks better to you. For me, I have an Up Scaling DVD player hooked up with HDMI, that does not look as good as using the component outputs of my older Panasonic S35 which uses my TV's built in up scaling. But.... using the HDMI output of my Toshiba HD A2, SD content looks the best with it. So it depends on the actual player if a difference will be notice. It is nice to only string one HDMI cable, rather than 5 RCA jacks.

Click through some of the terms on the top left under the WHAT IS heading.

[Krispy Kritter]

There are currently two formats of HD video. HD-DVD, which is by far the cheapest. You can get the entry level Toshiba HD-A2/HD-A3 player for about $200. Your other choice is Blu-Ray, the cheapest players are about $400. Aside from cost, the only other deciding factor is movie support. There are some movies that are only on one format. If you are wanting a specific movie, you will want to see which format it is on.

Many movies are on both formats. New releases will run you $20-35 while catalog titles will be $15+.