Format Wars: HDV Output, Part 1

I''ve been shooting in HDV for about two years, and it used to break my heart to scale my gorgeous 1920x1080i footage down to 720x480 to produce an SD DVD. Then, in late 2006, the first high-definition recordable DVD options became available. I''ve been producing in high definition ever since.

It''s been a rocky road with lots of hurdles and hidden gotchas. But there are several viable options, and if you shoot in HDV and aren''t already producing HD discs, now''s the time to get started. Trust me, the first time you see your high-definition video on an HDTV playing from optical media, it will all be worthwhile.

In this article, I''ll start with a brief overview of the two competing HD technologies, Blu-ray and HD DVD. Then I''ll walk you through the current state of each market—HD DVD in this first edition, and Blu-ray in the next—covering both the recorder and authoring software side. After reading the two articles, you''ll know what''s possible in each format, which products you need to purchase to make it happen, and the potential playback pitfalls.

To be clear, I''m not describing how to master Hollywood Blu-ray or HD DVD mass-produced titles. My focus is on HDV shooters seeking to produce low quantities of HD DVD or Blu-ray Discs on recordable media.

Interestingly, as non-mass-market producers, we''re in a great position to leverage high-definition video irrespective of the format war slowing general acceptance. That is, if you''re shooting a corporate announcement, advertisement, or similar project, you can specify that the client will need a Blu-ray or HD DVD player to watch the video—or maybe even the cool new LG SuperBlu
player, the first to play back DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray. Ditto for wedding and other small-quantity event videography.

The negative is that manufacturers producing the consumer HD DVD and particularly Blu-ray players can make changes that affect small producers unexpectedly, which means you have to be careful in understanding and controlling the playback environment . More on this one in the Blu-ray production section presented in the next issue. But let''s start with a look at the two competing HD formats.

Table 1: Blu-ray vs. HD DVD
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Anyone who endured the DVD-R/+R format wars had to be doubly disappointed when the patent holders for Blu-ray and HD DVD couldn''t come together with a single standard. Having competing standards confuses the market, slows consumer acceptance and makes our jobs as producers much more challenging, as well as potentially more expensive. It''s even more frustrating once you realize that at least from where I sit, the two standards are very similar, as shown in Table 1.

Blu-ray clearly has the advantage in capacity, making it the clear favorite for compilation discs and data backup chores. The supported video formats are identical, although HD DVD supports 30p HD while Blu-ray doesn''t. Both support the same core audio codecs, although both support additional codecs not listed. Both formats offer a degree of interactivity that goes beyond the simple menus and play lists offered by today''s SD DVDs—but none of the prosumer programs, such as Adobe Encore (Blu-ray) or Apple DVD Studio Pro (HD DVD), support this level of authoring.

Most revealing from the perspective of the corporate or event producer is that while Blu-ray recorders have been available since January 2007, HD DVD burners have yet to appear in large quantities. Perhaps for this reason, several programs can burn an HD DVD-formatted DVD-R/+R disc that will play on an HD DVD player, but these are obviously limited to 4.7GB and 8.5GB for single-layer and dual-layer DVD-R/+R, respectively. Interestingly, because Blu-ray recorders are available, few, if any, software vendors can burn Blu-ray formatted discs onto DVD-R/+R drives, the only exception being Pinnacle Studio.

As you probably know, both formats have their own dedicated set-top players to play their discs; neither format is backward compatible. Even though you can create HD DVD-formatted discs on DVD-R/+R media, regular DVD players can''t play these discs.

To summarize, with the notable exception of Pinnacle Studio, you''ll need a Blu-ray recorder to produce Blu-ray Discs. Some models, such as the Lite-On Internal Serial ATA 2X Blu-ray Disc Triple writer, are available for less than $500. As mentioned, you can create HD DVD formatted titles on DVD-R/+R media with several programs, some of which you may already have, which obviously reduces the cost of market entry. Whichever format you choose, your customers will need a format specific player to play the discs.

Step one for producing an HD DVD in Apple DVD Studio Pro.
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Producing HD DVD discs is cheaper than Blu-ray because you don''t have to purchase a dedicated recorder, and it's simpler as well because there''s only one basic variety of HD DVD title (Blu-ray has three varieties, each with different playback profiles, which can lead to playback compatibility issues). I''ve produced HD DVD titles using a range of programs and burners, and each played fine on my Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD Player, which you can now purchase for less than $300.

The only drawback is that you have to burn your title to DVD-R/+R or DVD-R/+R DL discs, which give you a maximum capacity of 8.5GB, sufficient for about 50 minutes of high-quality video, or about 30 minutes for a single-layer disc. You can cram more on, but obviously, quality will suffer as compression ratios increase.

These durations are fine for many corporate and even wedding videographers, but can be problematical if you''re shooting concerts and other performance events. All authoring programs discussed here can produce both HD DVD and SD DVDs from the same project, so you can service both HD and SD customers with minimal additional effort.

As mentioned above, none of the prosumer oriented programs take advantage of the interactivity provided in the HD DVD spec. Rather, they simply extend their current authoring capabilities to the new medium, so you get your menus and buttons, but no extra interactivity. This makes authoring for HD very similar to SD, so there should be minimal additional learning curve.

This approach works well so long as you''re simply looking for a medium to distribute your high-definition videos. If you''re looking to push the HD DVD authoring envelop, you''ll need a system such as Sonic Scenarist, which costs between $4,999 and $35,000. Or, for a relatively new alternative to Scenarist, check out NetBlender DoStudio MX, which is distributed on a subscription basis—$249 per month—and you only pay for the months you actually use the software.

Burning to HD DVD in Pinnacle Studio.
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The first authoring program to burn HD DVD formatted discs to legacy SD drives was Apple DVD Studio Pro, which created discs you could play only on other Macintosh computers. Once the Toshiba HD-A1 and similar players became available, Apple updated its software to ensure compatibility with those devices, so be sure you have the latest version before starting to author.

The procedure is straightforward: Select HD DVD when you start your new project, then import video as normal (Figure 1). DVD Studio Pro allows you to set encoding preferences for both SD and HD DVDs, so when it''s time to produce, it''s as simple as choosing the desired format.

The next program with this capability was consumer program Pinnacle Studio Plus, which costs less than $100. While you probably wouldn''t want to edit your video in Studio, the program successfully input HDV and HD DVD-formatted MPEG-2 files from Premiere Pro in my tests, so you can start there and just author in Studio. Like DVD Studio Pro, the procedure is straightforward, you author as normal and choose HD DVD as your output option (Figure 2).

There are a number of other consumer programs that can also produce HD DVD titles on DVD-R/+R recordable media, including CyberLink PowerProducer 4 and Ulead VideoStudio 11, but Pinnacle Studio offers the most flexible authoring.

That''s it for HD DVD. In the next installment, I''ll discuss producing Blu-ray Discs.