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.

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Comments

craftech wrote on 6/27/2007, 4:13 AM

Bitrate is only a small part of the picture. I can drop a HD bitrate from 25000 to 19000 I hardly notice it.

RESOLUTION is the big ticket winner. what you will gain in a higher bitrate you will SURELY lose in uprezzing resolution. You are certainly welcomed to try... (I have)... but then you have to ask why more people aren't doing this.

You don't even need HD DVD to conduct experiments. Just uprez a 720x480 4:3 avi to 16:9, 1440x1080 and render it to file as mpeg2 at 25000. Vegas can do this easily. Then download a HDV sample (lots of them on dvinfo.com) and compare.
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Blink,

I think maybe the variable may be the pixel aspect ratio. That is what I am not sure about. For the NTSC DV Widescreen (720x480, 29.970 fps) template, should the properties of the video be changed to "square pixels" instead of 1.2121 and the Mpeg 2 rendered at 10-bit? I would think that unless one chooses the proper pixel aspect ratio it will come out blurry. When you tried it, did you change the project properties to "square pixels" or leave them as is?

Also, I noticed that Larry mentioned using "upper field first" when rendering the HD DVD. Wouldn't one use "lower field first" for standard 4:3 camera footage like mine? Which one did you try?

Or did you try the HD 1080-60i (1920x1080, 29.970 fps) template which uses "square pixels" and "upper field first"?

Thanks,

John

LSHorwitz wrote on 6/27/2007, 8:09 AM

HDV is recorded upper field first (UFF) and would require nasty re-rendering if you forced the authored HD DVD to become lower field first.

Larry

Laurence wrote on 6/27/2007, 9:56 AM

Your SD footage will look good rendered to HDV upper field first mpeg 2 so don't worry.

The reason is that all interlaced SD cameras average the even and odd lines for a little extra gain before noise. This means that in NTSC land you are only getting 240 rather than 480 lines of resolution (and also explains one of the reasons that HDV cameras with downrezzed captures look so much better than DV cameras at standard definition). Anyway, because of this, it doesn't matter if the odd interlace lines become even on the uprez (and vice versa) since they were always fudged to begin with.

In reality, you are uprezzing 240 lines to 1080 so don't expect miracles, but yeah, it does look a little better than it would played back on a standard DVD.

apit34356 wrote on 6/27/2007, 12:04 PM

Laurence, if the SD camera captures the full 480 at -once, then splits it, the order has no effect in general on motion . But if the camera CCD only captures 240 lines at once, then the next 240 lines(rows) -- then the field order is critical for motion. Many of the new HD cameras capture a full frame, so even/odd order is meaningless for motion if decoded correctly or if you are downsizing.

4eyes wrote on 6/27/2007, 1:55 PM

craftech wrote on 6/28/2007, 4:45 PM

Actually you can encode your dv.avi file to a 720x480 interlaced UFF @ 14500kbs CBR & audio@244kbs (just stay under 15MBS total) and MF6 will not re-encode this file. It is compliant and also in the hd-dvd & blu-ray backward compatibility specs.

Max bit-rate for 720x480 is 15MBS(total) I think.
I would prefer a 1280x720 upconvert if going from dv to hd.
The 720x480@15MBS max looks great.
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4 eyes,

I am not sure exactly what you set everything to so I used the standard Vegas Mainconcept Mpeg 2 template and rendered it using 720x480 UFF at 14500 kb/s CBR at 10-bit with audio at 224kb/s and imported the file into MF 6+. I chose the HD DVD 15GB template and it would not allow me to modify the specs to 720 x 480 so I had to use 1440 x 1080. I also set the bitrate to 14500 kb/s CBR and the audio to Mpeg Layer 2 @ 224 kb/s.

Despite checking off the setting: "Do not recompress Mpeg compliant file" it recompressed the file but never finished. Instead it stopped and gave the error message: "Unspecified Error".
It was only when I kicked up the bitrate to 19000 kb/s or higher that it completed the encode (after recompressing it).
The results didn't look any better than the normal DVD I had created upconverted by my Toshiba HD-A1 and projected onto my 120 inch screen. If there was a difference it was slight. There were however some motion stuttering problems although minimal. So far nothing looks as good as the original DV tape.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I do appreciate them and will keep experimenting until it works.

John

4eyes wrote on 6/29/2007, 9:29 AM

720x480 UFF at 14500 kb/s CBR at 10-bit
MF thinks there is something that's not compliant in the video you made. Maybe check & see what MF is reading as the max bit rate. You don't need to match project settings for compliant videos.
If you edited the video or did anything to it MF will re-encode it. Doesn't re-encode mine and they are 14500 or a Max < 15Mbs. (This is the video & audio combined).
BTW, My source videos, the standard def ones are 16:9 aspect ratio. I don't think 4:3 will work, have to test this.
Better off posting questions on the ulead forum related to that product.

I've been using Nero to create AVCHD disks (on standard 5 1/4" dvd's) and they are playing in my HD Blu-Ray player. Menu's and everything. I used source videos of hd-mpeg2@25MBS_CBR with alot of motion in them, nero converted them to approx 15VBR 1440x1080 (h264) with Dolby audio, the motion looks like the original which I'm quite surprised at. My computer could not playback the AVCHD Disk correctly though because it's only a P4, but the HD player had no problems.
Nero (lastest program with the plug-in) also will burn a HD-DVD to standard dvd (pretty sure).

A 120" Screen, neat, I thought mine was big.

Laurence wrote on 6/29/2007, 9:35 AM

Now all we need to do is find an easier way to do it!

4eyes wrote on 6/29/2007, 9:44 AM

To do what?, I don't understand.
I thought you had this down. I don't go through all the conversion your doing to get the program to work fast. There is no re-rendering of the original output from Vegas Movie Studio 7 Plat.

My videos are 1440x1080i@25MBS with any type of audio. I maybe smartrender the video & re-encode the audio if I want other then mpeg audio but to me mpeg audio sounds just fine.
Depends though if I'm working with the elementary streams then I'll just mux them together to a PS file and use that in MF.
Usually I just output a .m2t file with mpeg audio, convert it to PS (very fast, a simple copy), then use that in MF. Never recodes the PS files.

BTW, my previous post is the AVCHD disks play in my Blu-Ray Player (with menus).

Laurence wrote on 6/29/2007, 9:52 AM

I've got the mpeg2 workflow down pat. It's easy. I understood that you were using Nero to encode the more compressed AVCHD mpeg4 format. That's what I would like to be able to do more easily. My apologies if that is not what you were saying.

Laurence wrote on 6/29/2007, 9:55 AM

Meanwhile, on the Roxio forum, people are starting to figure out that the new more affordable Sony BDP-S300 will not play their DVDit Pro HD authored discs no matter what they do:

http://forums.support.roxio.com/index.php?s=64af8d59a83eb6407de95245e8c290f8&showtopic=23713

4eyes wrote on 6/29/2007, 10:02 AM

I used Nero 7 Ultra edition (extreme), you need the latest update patch from their website.
It writes a 2.6 UDF file system on the DVD, if you want to view the dvd you need a packet writer installed. Pretty sure you can also create the BDMV Harddisk folder structure.
The conversion to h264 (i used high as a setting, not the highest quality) was actually a good one so I'm impressed with the conversion to h264. If you re-import the avchd you created then you'll get the native H264 file (.m2ts).

I still prefer hd-mpeg2 video versus the H264 video, at least so far.
If I can burn a AVCHD disk with menus that play in a Blu-Ray Disk player then why can't I put hd-mpeg2 video instead? I would think this should be possilble.

craftech wrote on 6/29/2007, 10:37 AM

720x480 UFF at 14500 kb/s CBR at 10-bit
MF thinks there is something that's not compliant in the video you made. Maybe check & see what MF is reading as the max bit rate. You don't need to match project settings for compliant videos.
If you edited the video or did anything to it MF will re-encode it. Doesn't re-encode mine and they are 14500 or a Max < 15Mbs. (This is the video & audio combined).
BTW, My source videos, the standard def ones are 16:9 aspect ratio. I don't think 4:3 will work, have to test this.
Better off posting questions on the ulead forum related to that product.
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4eyes,

I think maybe the problem is that you didn't really explain your MF6 settings. I guessed at them. I am setting MF 6 to the HDV template 15G and using 1440 x 1080 with a CBR (not a variable bitrate) of 14,500. The audio is 224 kb/s Mpeg 2 same as the original. And yes, it is 4:3 not 16: 9 footage. Like I said it works with a CBR of 19000 or more, but not with a setting of 14500. Either way it re-encodes.

John

4eyes wrote on 6/29/2007, 6:29 PM

craftech wrote on 6/29/2007, 7:22 PM

Maybe takes awhile to learn MF.
I just started a HD-DVD Project, inserted 4-SD 704x480@8400kbs, 4:3 Aspect Ratio, Dolby2/0@256kbs and one 1440x1080@25000kbs 16:9, mpeg audio@384kbs.
So that's 4 SD(4:3) & 1 HD(16:9)
Never changed my project settings from their defaults. No motion menus, no background junk, no menu transitions (simple).
Burn stage says encoding menu page then immediately says Video/Audio Multi-plexing.
No rendering at all except for the menu page.
I don't know what's going on with your machine.
==========
Maybe it's the menus. I used motion menus. Let me try it without any menus and post back. Thanks for the help 4e.

John

EDIT: When you suggested earlier using a setting of 720 x 480 at 14500 kb/s for the HD template in MF6 how did you change to that resolution when that resolution is not available?

4eyes wrote on 6/29/2007, 9:23 PM

I didn't say for a template or setting of the project settings. A mpeg2 file encoded within the mpeg2 specs is acceptable/compliant for hd-dvd.
I still don't understand the 10bit setting when you encode ( Is this possibly making the mpeg2 non-compliant?) The point is the HD-DVD doesn't have to just be HighDefintion. It call also be high quality Standard Defintion Mpeg2 video above the dvd spec bit-rate or within the dvd specs. Which is nice to know because one can even put alot of SD video on these larger disks.

Back to Blu-Ray format, Sony and Panasonic both support the AVCHD disk/codec. I've taken a few hd-mpeg2 videos that were .m2t or mpg files encoded at 1440/25MBS, created a AVCHD dvd from these videos with menus, sub-menus & chapters. The encodes from hd-mpeg2 to h264 are very acceptable. Almost half the bit-rate (depends on quality settings, can also set manually). Navigation is very similar to a dvd. I'm using Nero 7 latest update to create the files & burn the avchd disk. The avchd dvd plays in the PS3 Blu-Ray reader.

I would think that the next version or an update to DVDA may also include this capability.

craftech wrote on 6/30/2007, 7:09 PM

I still don't understand the 10bit setting when you encode ( Is this possibly making the mpeg2 non-compliant?
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The DC Coefficient regulates the discrete cosine values used in the video image compression. The program will then eliminate the visually irrelevant frequencies. The same thing is used in the compression of Jpeg images. The higher the value the better the quality. Motion artifacts will be reduced for certain scenes with that setting. 8-bit would be for a SVCD.

I tried setting the project properties in Vegas to HD 1080 30p (1920x1080) at 29.97 fps. I rendered using the same template but changing the bitrate to 23000 kb/s CBR and the audio at 224. It rendered fine and when I imported it into MF6 and chose the equivalent template it rendered the file in no time flat without recompressing it. That was WITH a menu.

No real improvement despite the square pixels, progressive, etc settings. Looked about the same as the last one and equal to the SD version upconverted on the HD-A1. The problem may very well be that I am expecting too much. Don't forget I am blowing the video up to a 120 inch diagonal through an LCD projector. Motion artifacts this time were noticeably lessened.

John