HD DVD vs Bluray when using standard DVD-Rs

Laurence wrote on 6/11/2007, 12:17 PM
Yesterday I bought a Toshiba HD-D2 at Sams wholesale for $243.87. That price includes 5 HD DVDs by mail. That brings the actual price down closer to $150.

Anyway, I tried it out with the Ulead Movie Factory Plus software I bought a couple of months ago and the results are just superb. I can author an HD DVD on a regular 30 cent DVD with menus and full bandwidth playback that looks exactly the same as if I connected my camera to my HD TV. With a half hour available on a single layer DVD and a full hour available on a dual layer, I can't even see any advantage to using actual HD DVDs.

My experience with trying to author Bluray format red laser discs was nowhere near as fullfilling. After spending $200 on Roxio DVDit Pro HD, I still could never make a red laser disc that would playback properly on my Playstation 3. In order to author discs that would play back smoothly in standalone Bluray players that would work with these discs (testing courtesy of Best Buy and Circuit City), I had to drop the bitrate down to about 18 mbps. This still looks very good, but none-the-less it is a compromise.

Anyway, in comparing authoring both HD DVD and Bluray formats on standard red laser discs I have come to the conclusion that for now at least, the HD DVD approach is better for the following reasons:

1/ Playback consistancy. Bluray discs authored on DVD-Rs don't playback on Playstation 3s or on standalone Bluray players with older firmware.

2/ Bandwidth. The Toshiba players seem to play back full 24 mbps bitrate mp2 encodes burned onto a standard DVD-R with no problems. Bluray players seem to need a lower bitrate of 18 mbps or so in order to playback smoothly consistantly.

3/ Ease of authoring. I can author and burn from one application (Ulead MF+ 6) without any real extra effort. With Roxio DVDit Pro HD, I need to author in one application, delete files, then burn the discs with another utility.

4/ Price. The Toshiba HD-D2 is only $250. The authoring program is another $80. For under $350, you are all set. The combined price of the cheapest standalone BD player and Roxio DVDit Pro HD is at least twice that. Then your still going to want to buy a Bluray burner and blanks for full bitrate final discs. Overall, HD DVD is way cheaper and exactly the same quality as you would get with full Bluray authoring including a Bluray burner and expensive Bluray blanks.

This could change. Walmart is getting ready to update their home electronics department in order to compete with stores like Circuit City and Best Buy. They will be pushing the HD DVD fornat with cheaper Chinese HD DVD players. One thing that could go wrong (for us at least) is that these new super cheap HD DVD players might not play back red laser HD DVD format discs as well as the Toshiba players currently do. Hopefully they will, but if they don't this would keep the red laser HD DVD format from being the wonderful cheap HD distribution format that it would otherwise be.

Comments

blink3times wrote on 6/11/2007, 1:59 PM
I quite agree...

When it comes to watching Hollywood movies, I don't think you can go wrong with either format. But as far as home burned HD disks go, Toshiba is CLEARLY the more stable and dependable of the 2 . We'll see what happens when the HD DVD burners come out in August. I wonder if they will be as stable as the standard media system, or meet the same semi-faulty fate as the blu ray system.
Laurence wrote on 6/11/2007, 2:19 PM
You know, with about an hour available on a standard dual layer at full 25 mbps bitrate, I really don't have a need for actual HD DVD discs. Maybe for archiving, but for that I'll probably go with a Bluray burner with it's greater storage.
LSHorwitz wrote on 6/11/2007, 3:48 PM
I've been praising Ulead for over a year now, since I have making HD DVDs with the prior version of Video Studio 10 Plus which look and work every bit as well as the newer releases of Video Studio 11 Plus and Movie Factory 6 Plus. I've done literally several hundred red laser HD DVDs and find the results are always better than using Apple's Final Cut Studio HD / DVD Studio Pro or any other method of HD DVD production. As we have observed, the results are identical to what comes out of the HDV camcorder when proper settings are selected, and the rendering times are extremely short (except for the elaborate animated HD menus which are totally optional).

I want to make the opservation that mounting and playing red laser DVDs is inherent to HD DVD, since they will, by virtue of the HD DVD spec, also play standard def DVDs. I would therefore doubt very much that the other HD DVD players from China or elsewhere would reject our home-made disks, but I guess it is certainly a possibility.

The 50 minute dual layer red disks are a great solution, and I hope to find a method to author VC/h.264 HD DVDs soon, in which case a much longer playtime will be possible without using a blue burner or blue media.

Larry
john-beale wrote on 6/11/2007, 4:46 PM
> I hope to find a method to author [AVC] / H.264 HD DVDs soon...

Me too! If you find a way, I hope you will post it here.
Laurence wrote on 6/11/2007, 7:30 PM
It;'s not that I'm worried that an inexpensive Chinese HD DVD player won't recognize the HD DVD on red laser disc format. I'm worried that it might not handle the high (25mbps) bitrate that we all seem to be currently using and that current Bluray players seem to have trouble with. I don't believe that 4x speed from a standard DVD is part of the HD DVD spec, but that seems to be what we need in order to guarantee that our HD DVD red laser discs will work with new players.

Anyway, for now it seems to work just perfectly!
Laurence wrote on 6/11/2007, 7:50 PM
> I hope to find a method to author [AVC] / H.264 HD DVDs soon...

> Me too! If you find a way, I hope you will post it here.

In addition to giving us more playback time, this would likely solve any potential bitrate problems with red laser HD DVDs as well.
4eyes wrote on 6/11/2007, 9:11 PM
I'm somewhat confused why you needed to create a blu-ray compatible disk in the first place on your PS3 multi-media player.
Maybe you have a defective PS3, but I use HDVSplit or Vegas_Movie_Studio 7Plat and capture either to my internal Harddisk or an external harddisk.
Either way, I plug the external HD into the PS3 usb port and it plays back the .m2t files no problem at full 25MBS. The PS3 also plays back true AVCHD disks that others have brought over created on one of those new cams that record in the Hell264 format.

I also burn to single and dual layered dvds and get 20/40 minutes of HD, either TS or PS.

I guess you wanted to have hd-dvd's with menus?
My menus are long file names :)

Edit: Re-read your original post, if you couldn't playback full 25MBS TS or PS on your PS3 then either the PS3 couldn't read the dvd's properly or a defective PS3. I would suspect badly burned dvd's maybe. I do not have any problem playing dual-layered dvd's with 40 minutes of HD-Mpeg2 on my PS3 at all.
Laurence wrote on 6/11/2007, 10:18 PM
I can play back m2t files on my PS3 off a regular DVD-R just fine. I just can't play a Bluray format disc burned onto a standard DVD with menus.

If I was just concerned about playing my video in my living room, playing m2ts off data DVD-Rs would be just fine, but what I want and have been looking for is an HD delivery format. I want to make HD discs that I can distribute and that will play back consistantly accross players of a given format, and I don't want to spend an exorbitant amount of money on blanks.

That is why the red laser HD DVDs are so appealing to me. It is a format that will playback fine (as far as I know) on all the HD DVD players, and yet I can use my regular 30 cent blanks and DVD duplicator to run off copies.

Yeah, I'm sure most people will still want standard DVDs, but being able to offer and showcase inexpensive HD DVDs sure is cool!
4eyes wrote on 6/12/2007, 5:37 AM
Laurence,
OK, I think you would be interested in the fact that the avchd cams that record to mini-dvd's when inserted into a PS3 are displayed as an AVCHD disk. The videos also playback with a small type of menu system. They are the Hell264 format, the PS3 will not allow copying to the harddisk videos from these mini-dvd's like other media can. But this shows it is possible to create a avchd disk with other formats on it and playback on the PS3.

If this helps some of your threads another program that converts the TS .m2t file to PS to use with other software very fast is this program "Avidemux2". I use this program to convert the directly captured files from HDVSplit or the .m2t files exported from VMS7 to convert them from TS to PS format. Makes them more compatible with other editors and some software players.

Avidemux2
Instructions:
Open the .m2t TS file, answer YES to Index the file.
Settings:
Video = Copy
Audio = Copy
Format = Mpeg PS A+V
Save the new PS video file with the an extension of .mpg

I use this program to convert the directly captured files from HDVSplit or the .m2t files exported from VMS7 to convert them from TS to PS format.

You can convert your videos also to H264 and other in this program.
To convert your videos to H264 that can playback on the PS3 then download & install the program "Super".
In "Super" Choose the PS3 template and create your video file, these exported files from Super playback on my PS3 in file mode, the conversion is average. Not the best for the fielding information.
teaktart wrote on 6/12/2007, 9:41 AM
Quick questions:

1> can the Toshiba players play both DVD-R and DVD+R discs with the HD DVD content?

2> can theToshiba player play both DVD-R DL and DVD+R DL discs with the HD DVD content?

When I look at the specs for the A20 player it doesn't seem to include "+" discs....and I would like the option to try DL discs as well.
blink3times wrote on 6/12/2007, 10:39 AM
"1> can the Toshiba players play both DVD-R and DVD+R discs with the HD DVD content?

2> can theToshiba player play both DVD-R DL and DVD+R DL discs with the HD DVD content?

When I look at the specs for the A20 player it doesn't seem to include "+" discs....and I would like the option to try DL discs as well."

==============================================

Yes, yes, and yes...

Although I have found that you must use fairly good quality disks... especially with the DL disks. I ran into trouble using the cheaper +r DL disks.... they would play in kind of a slo mo with out any audio. But when I switched to Verbatim I haven't had a problem since.... and I have done at least 6o disks now.
blink3times wrote on 6/12/2007, 10:48 AM
From 4eyes:
"I also burn to single and dual layered dvds and get 20/40 minutes of HD, either TS or PS.

I guess you wanted to have hd-dvd's with menus?
My menus are long file names :)"

=================================================

For me it's not so much menus and such as it is dependability. A disk needs to be fairly universal to be any kind of real success. In other words, if I create a HD DVD, then I should be able to play it back in any HD DVD player. You can't have custom disks for CERTAIN players. A blu ray disk MUST work in any blu ray machine. What happens (in the unlikely event) if they discontinue the PS3 BD playback, or your PS3 dies and you have to get a new one... will it play in the new machine..... or you're making a disk for a customer and they have a BD player instead of a PS3

THIS to me is where Toshiba wins the game and Blu Ray fails terribly. Maybe things will get better, but they have had PLENTY of time and homeburned BD's are STILL hit and miss.


I should also add that BD burners have been out for quite some time and Authoring is STILL extremely crude. This is not that it's impossible to come up with the proper software... Ulead already did at one time (The first 2 weeks of Ulead Movie Factory 5 could TRULY author a BD disk). But then it got pulled and Ulead won't talk about it or re-issue the software , So it is CLEARLY Sony and their extremely strict licensing habbits that got, and continue to get in the way.... not a good idea when your'e trying to get a product off the ground!!!
tnw2933 wrote on 6/12/2007, 11:15 AM
Laurence,

You have written a well stated and, from my own personal observations, accurate account of burning Blu-ray and HD-DVD's on to standard red-laser disks. Like you, I have discovered that while DVDit Pro HD will burn Blu-ray disks on to red-laser DVD's (both single and dual layer), it is necessary for the dual layer disks to use a third party program like Nero Ultimate 7 to burn the dual-layer Blu-ray disk on to dual layer red-laser disks since DVDit pro HD does not support dual layer Blu-ray disk burning. Furthermore, I can confirm that my Sony BDP-S1 standalone player equipped with the latest firmware (1.60) will not play back Blu-ray on RL disks that have been encoded at a bit rate much above 18K. In fact, even when I burn Blu-ray DL disks at rates above 18K they will not play back smoothly on the BDP-S1.

I have found that my Toshiba HDA2 will play back both single and DL HD-DVD's created on RL disks at bit rates of 25K without any problems.

DVDitPro HD is a nice piece of software, but it does not allow for the really neat looking 3D animated menus that can be created by Ulead's DVD Movie Factory 6 Plus. These menus are one of the most attractive features of the Ulead Movie Factory 6+ software. Unfortunately, while I like the Ulead DVD Movie Factory software, I have occasionally had problems with it, and Ulead's has non-existent technical support and posting a question on their forum has never resulted in me getting any worthwhile responses to the issues that I have posted. In fact, I have come to the conclusion that the moderators of this forum appear to know less about the program than I do. Conversely, I have found Roxio's technical support and the responses on their forum by one of the Roxio employees to be on target and useful.

I have used DVDit Pro HD to author 25 GB Blu-ray disks and burn them with my Lacie d2 Blu-ray external burner. It has always worked perfectly, and these Blu-ray disks (even encoded at a VBR of 25K with a maximum of 30K) play perfectly on my Sony BDP-S1. I have also found the Lacie d2 Blu-ray burner does an outstanding job of archiving data on to 50 GB dual layer disks. I use Nero for this purpose and it takes about 2-3 hours to burn and verify the data which I think is not too bad for this first or second generation Blu-ray DVD burner.

Ii would very much like to see the following: (1) External HD-DVD burners make an appearance. I cannot understand why these are still only available as internal drives on very expensive laptops. (2) DVDit Pro HD to support burning 50 GB DL Blu-ray disks. (3) Sony's DVD Architect to be upgraded to an HD-DVD and Blu-ray authoring program. It is deeply disappointing to me that this has not happened and may never happen. (4) Better availability of 50 GB Blu-ray media. These media have been very hard to obtain.

Tom
bsuratt wrote on 6/12/2007, 12:26 PM
Larry,

I agree that Ulead MF6+ or VideoStudio11+ are a great way to inexpensively put HD-DVD onto regular DVD blanks as long as you are "smartrendering" directly without a rerender. Granted, some very simple edits can be done in Mpeg2VCR or VS11+ but not to the level many will need. I have been less successful with editing in Vegas, VideoStudio, MediaStudioPro8 getting a usable render.
Both Vegas and VS11+ have resulted in unacceptable motion blur
and MediaStudioPro8 which has a good "SmartRender" feature almost works but has some "jumps" after each simple crossfade transition and an occasional color aberration. I feel like I am very close but there are so many combinations!

You mentioned in an earlier exchange that you may have some suggestions along this line and I would greatly appreciate them.

Thanks,

Barney
.
blink3times wrote on 6/12/2007, 1:51 PM
"Ii would very much like to see the following: (1) External HD-DVD burners make an appearance. I cannot understand why these are still only available as internal drives on very expensive laptops."

====================================================

It was officially announced about a month ago that they will hit the shelves on or before August of this year. Pricing has not been made quite clear yet.
LSHorwitz wrote on 6/12/2007, 7:26 PM
Barney,

With regard to further tips for editing and HD DVD creation........

Ulead Video Studio 11 Plus as well as VideoReDo are my 2 favorite solutions for HDV editing / HD DVD Authoring, since either achieves superb picture quality, indistinguishable from the original camcorder output.

In the case of VideoReDo, an inexpensive "cuts-only" editor, you can remove the start, end, and "middles" of HDV clips arbitrarily and easily, at the "I frames" which occur at least every half second, and the user impression is that you have true frame-level editing. There is never any re-rendering involved, and the output file merely contains what is left after the "cuts" are eliminated. The output file is written at the same speed as a normal file transfer, with no rendering time, and the image quality is identical. For removing stuff, it is a great solution.

If you want to do the more sophisticated stuff like titles, transitions, filters, overlays of multiple video tracks, etc., as you would with Vegas, then Video Studio 11 Plus is a great solution, again allowing identical file output quality for parts of the clip where no changes have been made, and very nice looking video otherwise, done by a rendering approach which equals the best I can get from Vegas or Final Cut Studio Pro. The renderer is Mainconcepts, just as in Vegas.

The tricky part is the absolute urgency of getting the settings correct. I can lead you to a thread where this topic has been exhaustively discussed. Take my word however that the program can and will produce superb quality with edited video such as to make your HD-DVD content indistinguishable from the camcorder output unless you choose filters to change sharpness, color, contrast, etc., in which case the video will be changed commensurately.

The point of all of this is that this $89 program from Ulead called VideoStudio 11 Plus will take you all the way from capturing HDV to editing, titling, transitions, filters, audio mixing / 5.1 Dolby, to an essentially perfect HD-DVD, rednering smartly so as to make the process very speedy. Once again, I say "Shame on Sony....."


Larry
bsuratt wrote on 6/12/2007, 9:13 PM
Larry,

Thanks for your input. I have VS11+ and I will try it again with more attention to detail.

It is a shame that HD is such a pain at this point just to edit and place on disc. Sony got burned with the VHS/BETA thing and so you would think they wouldn't make the same mistake twice. Furthermore, Sony's fanatical obsession with DRM is so counter-productive. If they would just sell the movies at a low enough price no one will bother to copy, plus they would seel a lot more and probably make more in the long run.
Laurence wrote on 6/12/2007, 10:03 PM
Well in order to get more into the HD DVD authoring thing, I ordered and downloaded PhotoImpact 12 so that I could customize my MovieFactory Plus menus. Unfortunately it won't install properly. It goes all the way through the install then gives me the following error:
____________________________________________

The following files did not self-register or unregister:

1. C:\WINDOWS\Downloaded Program Files\isusweb.dll
Access is denied

To continue, click OK; otherwise, click Cancel
____________________________________________

If I click OK, it will finish the installation, but further installations like the content packs or the Cool 360 panorama program won't install because they don't see the PhotoImpact 12 installation. If I click cancel, it uninstalls. I sent Ulead a tech support request yesterday. I found two Ulead forum thread discussing this problem (with Videostudio rather than PhotoImpact) http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic.php?t=20988&sid=64179953fa27ca59ec5b524ba1f6839ehere[/link] and http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic.php?t=14186&view=previous&sid=d4ff03a2fc214dfffcbfb5031a05e88bhere[/link]. Neither has any resolution.

The problem seems to be related to the Macrovision installer, but I can't find any solutions on their web page either, even though I can see other software installation routines also sometimes have similar problems.

When I tried using the partial install that I could do, some of the HD DVD features and templates are included in the content packs that this installation problem won't let me install.

This is particularly frustrating because I just did a complete reformat and reinstall of my hard drive, Windows and all my software recently. I haven't even reinstalled everything and already Windows XP seems to be buggered up. Oh well, I'm sure it will work in the long run.
LSHorwitz wrote on 6/13/2007, 5:59 AM
I am anything but a Windows expert, but my own experience with installer issues with Ulead or other programs, especially those related to denied access, are typically caused by my antivirus, antispyware, or firewall software. Installing in the "Safe Mode" and disabling all 3 protection products solved these types of problems for me.

Larry
Laurence wrote on 6/13/2007, 8:26 AM
I've tried installing in safe mode and disabling my anti-virus and firewall. None of these things help. Like 99.9% of all computer problems, this one seems to be related to copy protection, The installation needs to register with the isusweb.dll file that is supposed to be in the C:\Windows\Downloaded Program Files folder. This folder is read only however and this read only status is unmodifiable even by an administration status user. Somehow I need to reregister the isusweb.dll file, but it is not on my system and even if it was, I would not be allowed to copy it to the proper folder. Hopefully Uleads tech support will get back to me at some point.

This is frustrating. I'm not that keen on the menu templates and I really want to be able to do my own.
LSHorwitz wrote on 6/13/2007, 10:09 AM
Laurence,

At risk of adding a bit of additional frustration / confusion....is it possible you are referring to the online registration process which Ulead does when first using their programs, as opposed to a Registry change needed to make your Installer finish the installation? Pewrhaps isusweb.dll may be the code needed to register you as a user????

Larry
LSHorwitz wrote on 6/13/2007, 10:14 AM
After a bit of Googling, it appears that isusweb.dll is an Intellishield Update Service dll which periodically checks for updates to the application.

A workaround to get it installed is described near the bottom of this page:

http://support.installshield.com/kb/view.asp?articleid=Q111057

Good luck and hope this helps you,

Larry
Laurence wrote on 6/13/2007, 1:00 PM
I tried all those things. Reregistering isusweb.dll didn't work because the dll is not on my system. Neither installing the SDK on the linked page or using the uninstall program on the same page worked either. I have also tried going way back in time with the Windows XP system restore. Still no luck.
LSHorwitz wrote on 6/13/2007, 1:47 PM
Laurence,

For whatever it's worth, my system does not have isusweb.dll anyplace on it even though I have a fully installed and registered copy of PhotoImpact 12. It would appear that this file is only present during the install but not thereafter.

Larry