Can we safely say the HD war is a draw -- at least for now?

[Dave Lammey]

Originally Posted by Khoi Pham

You can burn .m2t files from your HDV camera on SD DVD as "Data"and PS3 will play it just fine.

wow. What software are you using to create the data disc? And what is the length limitation? For HD DVD, it's about 30 minutes of content per red-laser disc.

[Khoi Pham]

Originally Posted by Dave Lammey

wow. What software are you using to create the data disc? And what is the length limitation? For HD DVD, it's about 30 minutes of content per red-laser disc.

You can use any burning software, all you are burning is "Data" nothing special, I'm using Record Now Max, I put 20 minutes on the disc before and I think that is about the max.
With their latest firmware, you can also stream files from your computer, I have not try it yet.

[Zsolt Gordos]

Does anyone have a clue why no HD DVD burners are out yet, while more and more blu ray burners around?
I guess its to avoid piracy...:P It also means blu ray is better protected.
If this is true, it may mean blu ray will win, the HD DVD makers will lose sales once burners come out. Its code is cracked anyway.

Btw. blu ray shall win - it has the potential for larger file sizes. Think about 2k and 4k and stuff like that coming to homes in a few years. TV screen diameters and resolution increasing all the time. 1920x1080 is not the end.

The disks coming from a face lifted DVD production facility cannot be the future. Even if B. Gates himself supports it.

[Rob Lohman]

Originally Posted by Dave Lammey

I think most, if not all, of the HD DVD and blu-ray players upconvert standard DVDs. So you won't need to replace your old DVDs unless you're disappointed with the picture quality.

My media center already does a good job at that. Obviously I want to see the movies I own (or at least some of them) in full HD. Hence the need to buy them again (or rent I guess).

[Rob Lohman]

Originally Posted by Zsolt Gordos

Does anyone have a clue why no HD DVD burners are out yet, while more and more blu ray burners around?

Keep in mind that blu-ray has been around a lot longer than HD-DVD. It's being used in the broadcast sector. That means it was also targeted to data storage from day one.

As far as I know HD-DVD is still being targeted mainly as a movie format (only).

[Glen Johnstone]

Originally Posted by Harrison Murchison

DVD Studio Pro 4 will author HD content to DVD-R discs that playback in the HD DVD players.

I'd like to try this. Is there a Windows based workflow around?

[Heath McKnight]

I'm sure there is. But I wonder if the DVD SP 4 version is good for both Blu-Ray and HD DVD, since Apple support Blu-Ray.

heath

[Zsolt Gordos]

Originally Posted by Heath McKnight

I'm sure there is. But I wonder if the DVD SP 4 version is good for both Blu-Ray and HD DVD, since Apple support Blu-Ray.

heath

Heath,

I have FCS2 with DVD SP 4, there is no blu ray support, only HD DVD. Weird...

Until Adobe Encore for Mac comes out, there is no blu ray authoring software available for the Mac.
Compressor can make .m2t file from the HD source you output from FCP and blu ray players can play that without menu. I can confirm, at least PS3 can play it.

[Khoi Pham]

Originally Posted by Glen Johnstone

I'd like to try this. Is there a Windows based workflow around?

Yeah, try this site.
http://www.hdtvtotal.com/module-page...reating_hddvds

[Glen Johnstone]

Terrific link! Thanks. He wrote it up using VideoRedo, Ulead DVD Movie Factory 5 and Nero.

I found out that Liquid 7.2 can make the MPEG2 file and DVDMF 6 Plus is happy to burn the HD DVD structure onto a DVD-R.

Viola! A Mini HD DVD! It looks great!

[Heath McKnight]

I'm going to finally burn one and try it out on my friend's PS3, for the heck of it, and find an HD DVD player and do the same thing. Someone once mentioned to make it withOUT a menu.

Customflix offers Blu-Ray (720p, natch) DVDs (WMV HD now, too, HD DVD coming soon):

http://www.customflix.com/Products/HighDefinition.jsp

heath

[Harrison Murchison]

Originally Posted by Khoi Pham

Not a draw, according to Nielsen VideoScan as of 5/20, Blu-ray leads HD-DVD in overall software sales, 57% to 43% since both was launched. But in that last few months Blu-ray is outselling HD-DVD 67% to 33% year-to-date for 2007. That's a 2 to 1 margin.
As for hardware, Blu-ray has the exclusive support from Sony, Pionner, Panasonic, Samsung, Phillips and almost all of the computer industry, HD DVD has only Toshiba and MS and maybe some Chinese brand about to jump in, in the last few weeks Toshiba has been dropping their prices and give away 5 free movies, if that is not the sign of desparation, I don't know what is, they drop it so much I'm sure that it has to be sell at a loss, no major brand like Pionner, Panasonic will want to jump into HD DVD and compete at that price, sure it is tempting but I think the best HD DVD can hope for is just hang in there, no way they could win, HD DVD only has exclusive support of 1 Studio and that is Universal, Blu-ray has 5 exclusive studio, Disney, Fox, MGM, Lionsgate and Sony, so if you want to go out and buy Pirates of the Caribean and play it on your HD DVD player, forget it, Universal is the loaner, when do you think they will go neutral and start selling Blu-ray disc?
HD DVD is more mature than Blu-ray right now as far as extras goes, but Blu-ray will catch up, beside when I'm watching a movie right now, I just want to watch it, I don't gives a hoop about picture in a picture or connect to the internet for some other stuff, I just want to watch the movie.
HD DVD burner is no where in sight, but Blu-ray burner is now available, for us that is good, we can now deliver full author Blu-ray disc to our clients.
I got a PS3 awhile back, cuz I am a movie buff, I just want to watch HD movies, but now it as become the heart of my media room, it plays awsome Blu-ray movies, it upconvert SD DVD to 1080P, it plays my SD card picture, it play cds, it play games, I'm not a gamer but now I am, playing game in a 5.1 surround sound system is awsome, I can surf on the internet with it with the wireless keyboard and mouse plug into its 4 usb ports, but most of all it is my demo center for my work, I upload my HD demo into its hard drive and show my work straight from it.
The war is good, it droves the prices down fast, but cheaper is not always better, I think software is the key, no matter how cheap the players are, if there are movies that people want to watch but they don't make it for HD DVD then I don't think that format can win.

Nielsen VideoScan don't poll all stores. There are some fairly large online outfits that they don't count so I believe in their numbers but I'm staking anything of value to them.

Samsung ships HD DVD enabled laptops and will come out with the BDP-UP5000 dual format player this year so they certainly aren't exclusive. http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/12/s...player-on-the/

Dell is the only exclusive PC manufactuer that I know and they're fading fast. HP sells both platforms. You can buy Media Centre PC with HD DVD drives or their HD100 USB HD DVD player
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product...lang=en-US&s=1

Apple will be adding Blu-ray authoring in the future is my guess but to date they are only supporting HD DVD in DVD Studio Pro 4

The war is not winnable by either company. Blu-ray has required a cartel like hold on studios to survive. HD DVD has required charing less than competition in price to survive. If anyone see an "awesome" movie on Blu-ray you can rest assured that the same movie would look "awesome" on HD DVD. In fact many dual format owners claim that their HD DVD discs still look superior overall.

Originally Posted by Zsolt Gordos

Does anyone have a clue why no HD DVD burners are out yet, while more and more blu ray burners around?
I guess its to avoid piracy...:P It also means blu ray is better protected.
If this is true, it may mean blu ray will win, the HD DVD makers will lose sales once burners come out. Its code is cracked anyway.

Btw. blu ray shall win - it has the potential for larger file sizes. Think about 2k and 4k and stuff like that coming to homes in a few years. TV screen diameters and resolution increasing all the time. 1920x1080 is not the end.

The disks coming from a face lifted DVD production facility cannot be the future. Even if B. Gates himself supports it.

HD DVD burners are coming this summer according to gentleman named Robert Zohn of Value Electronics in Scarsdale NY. Blu-ray was conceived as a recording format so the there was a very small jump. HD DVD's code is not cracked. AACS keys were discovered and that affects both platforms because they both us AACS. Blu-ray offers BD+ as an adjunct to protection but to date no discs are using it.

Both formats are limited by a maximum of 1080p resolution so regardless of filesize you'll never go above 1080p with the current specification. Here's an interesting post that was closed down on AVS regarding a simultaneous release of Flags of our Fathers on Blu-ray and HD DVD. That Blu-ray disc was encoded at a higher rate in AVC which meant it was 13GB larger in size over the VC-1 HD DVD version

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=855599

As you can see the extra space is superfluous. The picture may even be softer than the VC1 version which sames 13GB.

Those who use Cineform and Red codec and now Apple's ProRes 422 should know that size doesn't equate to a better picture. It's about what you do with the encoding that makes or breaks the picture.

[Paul Cascio]

Can anyone confirm that all Blu-Ray players (not just the PS3) will play M2t burned tot a DVD-R/+R disk?

[Giroud Francois]

to answer to the question :Can we safely say the HD war is a draw ?
we can say yes, there is no war and no winner. The industry has proven that nobody needs HD, at least not in the proposed conditions.
DVD is still there and rock solid.
If you really need HD, there are solutions (mainly related to computer equipment) that perfectly fit the HD editing workflow.

[Heath McKnight]

HD DVD claims HUGE sales:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/11/h...at-the-moment/

heath