Posted by Smarty on 10/31/07 11:32

I've been creating HD content on DVD for a while now, and have found 5
viable formats which preserve the HD quality and allow for today's media to
be used.

Specifically, for the ultimate HD quality, I save the final edited HD
material on standard, single layer 4.7 GB disks in HD MPEG2 format. This
permits a recording of around 23 minutes, and a double layer disk would
permit 46 minutes of HD content. The playback is done on a computer using a
freeware HD player. The very same quality is also achievable with about the
same recording time by using Apple's Final Cut Studio HD whose DVD burner
supports true HD output as well. The Apple DVD player software provides full
navigation and menus in HD format as well.


For a bit less than the ultimate HD quality, I distribute in Microsoft WMVHD
format, which is still excellent but allows a full length movie to be stored
on a home-burned DL DVD. Quite a few commercial HD releases have been
shipping for over a year in this format, and it produces very nice results
from Ulead VS9 and other programs if you want to gain longer playback time
at the expense of some video quality.

Quicktime movies using Apple's H.264 / MPEG4 compression can also be
distributed to those with Quicktime (PC or Mac) and are roughly equivalent
to WMVHD.

The 4 methods I have described above deliver fine HD content today, but I
certainly also look forward to BluRay and other blue laser burners and home
playback machines to lengthen the program time without trading picture
quality. These will deliver 3 to 4 times the data capacity, and thus 3 to 4
times the program length of the current dual layer red 9 GB disks. A 5th
method, producing "DiVX HD" disks for use with an immediately available
settop DIVX-HD player is also an option, but not one I have personally used.

For the present until a few years from now when the format wars and HD DVD
adoption have been achieved, I think the 5 approaches above offer a very
viable solution.

Smarty


"Martin Heffels" <sheilly.li@163.com> wrote in message
news:jhstn1lajekh1aefljl87b3jb4okp97aq5@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 19 Nov 2005 03:12:41 -0600, "seascape"
> <seascape195@nospam_hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>I'm a little confused on the whole HD thing, since it seems pointless to
>>do
>>any recording, editing, renderings in HD, because there still isn't any
>>media to burn it too yet that supports the HD resolutions.
>
> You can burn HD-DVD's already. The codecs do exist, and you can buy
> HD-versions of movies on regular DVD's ("Hero" springs to my mind for
> example). The problem is only the limited size of the current DVD's, and
> that is where Blue-ray etc comes in.
>
> But nothing stops you from burning regular DVD's, and keep a HDV-master on
> tape, and print it to DVD when the time is there.
>
> cheers
>
> -martin-
> --
>
> "Beer is life!"

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