HD content burned onto a standard DVD playable with either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray Players?

[Robert M Wright]

Does any one know if HD content burned onto a standard DVD can be played on either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray players?

[Emre Safak]

Take a burned DVD to BestBuy and, like a prospective buyer, ask them to test your DVD on their player :)

[Scott Jaco]

Originally Posted by Robert M Wright

Does any one know if HD content burned onto a standard DVD can be played on either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray players?

I have done this.

Here was my workflow. I exported my FCP timeline into compressor and created an H.264 file. This preserves the 1280x720 content. It took my Intel DuoCore about 2 days to encode a 90 minute movie.

I then used DVD StudioPro 4.0 and selected "HD DVD" in the settings and then did everything else the same way as normal DVD i.e. chapter index, menues ect.

I used a DL DVD because the file was still pretty large, about 6GB.

This so called "HD-DVD" burned onto a standard DVD disk only plays back on Mac computers. It plays back perfectly w/ fully functional menus ect.

I then visited 3 different stores. Circuit City, Best Buy and Fry's. I told them the truth, I wanted to test this burned HD-DVD and if it worked, I would recommend their HD-DVD player to my clients.

Results:

Blu-Ray DVD players will not play the disk at all.

HD-DVD players will display the Menu but it won't function. I managed to get the disk to play but I could only hear audio. No picture.

You probably just need to burn the content to a true HD-DVD or Blu-Ray instead of cheating (burning HD content to a regular DVD).

I'm waiting for the Blu-Ray burners to come down in price before I try this again.

When I do get my Blu-Ray burner, I won't bother with H.264 encoding. The larger capacity of Blu-Ray will allow you to encode HD content using the "HD Mpeg-2" preset. You won't need to compress it so heavily.

[Christopher Lefchik]

Interesting test, Scott. Wow, it took you two days to encode 90 minutes to H.264, on a Core Duo, no less? You have a lot of patience!

You said that the DVD you created could only be played on Macs. What software did the playback?

Originally Posted by Scott Jaco

When I do get my Blu-Ray burner, I won't bother with H.264 encoding. The larger capacity of Blu-Ray will allow you to encode HD content using the "HD Mpeg-2" preset. You won't need to compress it so heavily.

While I can definitely understand that from a time perspective (two days to encode 90 minutes is ridiculous!), as far as compressing heavily is concerned, H.264 is just as good as MPEG-2 at a half to two thirds of MPEG-2's bitrate.

If anything comes of the rumblings that GPU’s might be able to provide a huge boost encoding video, however, we might see the time required to encode H.264 video drop dramatically. I sure hope so. It’s just so agonizingly slow right now.

[Christopher Lefchik]

Accidental second post.

[Scott Jaco]

The Mac used "DVD Player" to play the HD-DVD. The program comes standard on all Macs, nothing special there. Just pop it in and it plays automatically.

I love H.264, my online demo clips use it. We just need to find a faster way of encoding it. I would like to hear more about the GPU support.
Maybe Compressor 3 will have it?

[John C. Chu]

Originally Posted by Scott Jaco

Results:

HD-DVD players will display the Menu but it won't function. I managed to get the disk to play but I could only hear audio. No picture.

You probably just need to burn the content to a true HD-DVD or Blu-Ray instead of cheating (burning HD content to a regular DVD).
.

I think this has more to do with Apple's DVD Studio Pro only working with the early preliminary specs for the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray discs right?[and having a "bug" in it so it doesn't work on the set top players right now]

I don't think it is "cheating" at all. :-)

To me, it seems like a real selling point for HD-DVD in that you can make HD-DVD's[albeit with shorter running times and heavier compression] and burn them on regular red laser 4.7gigs or DL DVD's right now with the equipment they have.

Can't wait till everything settles down.

[Christopher Lefchik]

Originally Posted by Scott Jaco

I love H.264, my online demo clips use it. We just need to find a faster way of encoding it. I would like to hear more about the GPU support.
Maybe Compressor 3 will have it?

First the GPU developers will need to get the feature working before software developers can build applications that take advantage of the feature. And, it might not work with your current video card. You might have to upgrade. Currently it appears that ATI is the one that is mainly working on video encoding (or maybe they are just making the most noise).

Links to more information:

ATI Delivers GPU-Accelerated Video Transcoding
ATI's Avivo Platform - H.264 Decode and Transcode Acceleration on R5xx

Currently the fastest H.264 encoding can be achieved with PowerEncoder MPEG-4 AVC Edition. I've seen a report that it achieved near-realtime performance on a Pentium D 820. And, the quality was said to match Apple's H.264 codec. Unfortunately, the application is Windows only.

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Christopher Lefchik

While I can definitely understand that from a time perspective (two days to encode 90 minutes is ridiculous!), as far as compressing heavily is concerned, H.264 is just as good as MPEG-2 at a half to two thirds of MPEG-2's bitrate.

Right, but if it's a question of taking two days to encode a finished video versus a few hours and the resulting quality looks about the same to most viewers, which option would you choose for most projects?

FYI, I've tested the Canopus "Speed Encoder" and confirmed that it can generate HD MPEG2 output in near real time on a modest dual-core computer. That's what I plan to use for HD delivery unless the quality falls noticeably short of other options, or I need to cram a whole lot of video on a blue-laser disc.

[Christopher Lefchik]

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

Right, but if it's a question of taking two days to encode a finished video versus a few hours and the resulting quality looks about the same to most viewers, which option would you choose for most projects?

Like I said, I would definitely understand the decision to use MPEG-2 from a time perspective. It just sounded to me like he was concerned about more heavily compressing H.264 video, which isn't a concern unless you compress it to less than one third the bit rate of MPEG-2.

And those of us on the PC can achieve near-realtime H.264 encoding right now with PowerEncoder MPEG-4 AVC Edition. Of course, it is a $50 investment, but if one needs that kind of speed, it can be obtained for H.264 encoding.

[Scott Jaco]

I agree that it should be possible to burn HD-DVD to standard DVD's. In fact, it is one of Apple's big selling points with their software. They brag that you don't need new hardware to burn HD-DVD's, only problem is, they only playback on Macs!

DVD Studio Pro 4.0 was released before these HD-DVD players were even released which is probably why they don't work. Why doesn't apple fix this bug with an update patch?


Another question, why don't they make a Mac version of the H.264 speed encoding? This real time sounds too good to be true. Is it single pass?

[Christopher Lefchik]

Originally Posted by Scott Jaco

Another question, why don't they make a Mac version of the H.264 speed encoding? This real time sounds too good to be true. Is it single pass?

I don't know why the company doesn't release the program for the Mac. But as for as the near real-time encoding being too good to be true, there is a demo of the program available (though it is version 1.0 and PowerEncoder is currently at version 1.5).

Note that the near-real time compression was from standard definition MPEG-2 source files. I don't know how fast PowerEncoder would be encoding HD material to H.264. Given how slow other encoders are converting SD material to H.264, however, it stands to reason PowerEncoder is still probably a good deal faster even with HD.

And yes, I'm sure it is single pass. Even at that, however, it sounded like it was good quality. But you don't have to take anyone's word for it, as there is the demo available.

[Scott Jaco]

Thanks!

I decided to encode an HD-Mpeg2 file this time instead of H.264. Good news is compressor says it will only take 6hrs for HDMpeg-2 instead of 20hrs w/H264.

I plan to burn another HD-DVD disk and see if it will play on a real HD DVD player. I'm hoping the "HD-Mpeg2" file will make the difference with regard to compatability this time around. I'll let you know how it works.

[Nate Weaver]

Supposedly an HD MPEG2 encoded HD-DVD from DVDSP (wow, what a mouthful) works in Toshiba HD-DVD players.

[Sharyn Ferrick]

We have been trying to get Microsoft/Toshiba to officially add in support for HDV, AVCHD, to the HD DVD players. Sony has made this part of BD to support their AVCHD camcorders. MS/TOSH are mainly focused on Hollywood content, and so far there is not a lot of enthusiasm for formally supporting HD content on red laser dvd's. Don't know if anyone visits the AVScience forum, but there is a thread on creating red dvd's for HD DVD players, and a forum for ask the insiders.

Sharyn