Did I mention Avid's Pinnacle Systems Studio 10.6, you know that under $100 piece of crap, well it now has a module to burn HD-DVD directly to regular DVD. At some point Sony will have to add it as a feature or they will lose customers.

BigRockies.com Your Home in the Rockies!

If I remember correctly, Vegas added MPEG 1+2 support late in the shelf life of Vegas Video (Vegas 2). I know this because I purchased a copy at Best Buy and E-mailed Sonic Foundry for the upgrade, and they offered me Vegas 3 instead (with MPEG support, of course). I can't help but believe that Sony might have a nice little suprise for us in a few months. (Please?). I'm really pushing to get Vegas into our post house and I know that would tip the scales.

It seems the folks at Madison aren't shy about adding features in the point releases instead of just bug fixes. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see some type of HD-DVD or BluRay support in DVDA 4b. May give us basic support and save the advanced code for the version 5. Be surprised if we don't see something relatively soon.

Well I definitely hope for something well before V8/DVDA5 considering the amount of time that passed between V6 and V7 (1 1/2 years.)

It's not mandatory for Blu-ray players to play DVDs with Blu-ray authored contents. However, at least the Panasonic DMP-BD10 does it (read about it in another forum). And since the content is not DVD, one is not limited to the 8Mbps limit for DVD.

I think I saw some rumors about Blu-ray support for DVDA to be announced at CES... but who knows?

With an IO Data Avel LinkPlayer 2, you can make HD discs using a standard DVD-R or a dual layer disc or you can simply stream it off your PC using a network. You can make the video in HDV (max video bitrate 19 Mbps, max audio 192 kbps), or with WMV-HD, or with DIVX-HD. The player costs a measly $249. And there's no need to buy a new HDTV to get HDCP support. And its not still in the stage of using customers to be the beta testers.

This is old news.

The only downside (a big one) is no support for menus. Still, at the cost of DVD media (no $20 coasters), this is great. And the video is beautiful.

This is not a solution for everyone. But at such a low cost and with great results, I'm happy with this for now.

So am I.

JJK

I noticed in the release notes for 7.0c that support for Blu-ray compliant MPEG-2 has been added when using Blu-print software. Could this be a sign of things to come?

god, i hope not!!!!
how many edittors, here, can afford the cost of Blu-print?
This is EXACTLY the kind of misguided thinking that will take Vegas out of the hands of indie's.

Let's hope they don't forget Hd-DVD when they release HD support in DVDA. If they "Pull A Sony", and only support the propritery blueray in my mind that will be the reason to move on to something else. They must the support the leading format which is HD-DVD to remain credible and usuable in the market.

BigRockies.com Your Home in the Rockies!

You said "I noticed in the release notes for 7.0c that support for Blu-ray compliant MPEG-2 has been added when using Blu-print software. Could this be a sign of things to come?"

Well I bet that same file can be used to buzz HD-DVD's on regular DVD's (forget Blu-Print, I'd rather buy a new car). With 7.0b when trying to ouput Mpeg2 at this resolution Vegas always crashed HARD. I will try it and see. I'm hoping they have now provided inadvertently to key piece we need to make HD-DVD format fly now and cheaply (how about that for irony?).

BigRockies.com Your Home in the Rockies!

With 7.0b when trying to ouput Mpeg2 at this resolution Vegas always crashed HARD.

What resolution are you referring to? I was able to render out to .m2t at 1080i (60 Hz) without any issues. Or are you talking about a different frame rate, progressive etc.?

I've never owned or demoed a Sonic product that actually worked.

...........They must the support the leading format which is HD-DVD to remain credible and usuable in the market.

uh big rock , if you put a gazillion dollars into a product would you jump ship this early in the game ?

I have just successfully burned my first HD DVD video using Ulead DVD Movie Factory 5 and Nero 7 onto a standard dvd. It was a short CGI file created with Vue 5 and edited with Vegas 7b. I rendered using 1440 x 1080 60i mpeg2 program file, not transport, @18 mbps. No audio was included. It played just fine on my Toshiba A1 HD DVD player. It was very easy. Next I'll try some HDV from my FX1 and let you know how it goes. Detailed instructions can be found here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=705146

I agree that Sony must support HD DVD as well as Blu Ray authoring if they want to stay competitive with Avid, FCP, and Adobe. The under $50 Ulead DVD MF5 already supports it. It is really a wonderful stop-gap measure until HD DVD and Blu Ray burners and media become mainstream. My money is on HD DVD to win, but you never know. If the PS3 doesn't give Blu Ray a big boost then it might be over sooner than later.

As has been pointed out a few times on this thread, you can get an hour or more of really good looking 1080i or 720p video on a standard single layer DVD at bitrates of 6000 kbps or less using any of several versions of the mpeg 4. The only reason we aren't already distributing DVDs in high definition is because the major companies trying to corner the HD disc market are trying to sell their new high capacity drives and are crippling what they give us in order to sell everyone a bunch of new expensive hardware.

You said "What resolution are you referring to? I was able to render out to .m2t at 1080i (60 Hz) without any issues."

I was able to do that as well. However I was rendering to 1920x1080 Progressive in the Mpeg2 format not M2T. I then would use that file to feed DVD Movie Factory 5 to burn an Hd-DVD (if it actually worked which it did not, crashed hard every time). This a big step above the standard M2T resolution and it seems the encoder cried for it's mommy every time.

BigRockies.com Your Home in the Rockies!

m2t is mpeg 2 with some extra transport info. It is nowhere near as tight compression as you get with mpeg 4. Although both formats can use either mpeg 2 or mpeg 4, the titles released in Bluray so far have been in mpeg 2, and the titles released so far in HD-DVD have been in mpeg 4. This is why comparisons in image quality have thus far given HD-DVD the edge. This is also why (IMHO) certain HD disc authoring systems have only been given the go ahead to release software that can author in mpeg 2: because if we were authoring in mpeg 4, most of us wouldn't need either higher capacity disc format.

I don't know that it can really be said MP4 gives better image quality than mpg2. In comparisons of WMV-HD and DIVX-HD (both variants of MP4) against .m2t (mpg 2), it is usually found that the .m2t is much better in image quality. But in these cases the .m2t was encoded at 19 Mbps or better, compared to much lower bitrates for the MP4 encodes.

All I'm saying is that image quality is more than just a matter of MP4 vs. mpg2.

But for sure, MP4 gives better compression (for a given level of image quality). AND, MP4 requires a heck of a lot more horsepower to encode and decode. Perhaps the amount of CPU grunt required to make good quality MP4 for a next-gen High Def product is beyond the reach of most consumer-level applications and users.

You'll notice I didn't say that it was my opinion that mp4 looked better. I merely stated that comparisons so far between HD-DVD and Blueray have given HD-DVD the edge, but reviewers have pointed out that this is based upon how the HD-DVD mp4 footage looked compared to Blueray's mp2 footage. This is sort of humerous when you realize that Sony is only using the mp2 format because they have more storage space and don't need to compress as tightly.

The fact is you can look at either format and see compression artifacts. To my eyes, mp4 looks about as good with HD resolution as mp2 does with SD resolution at twice that bitrate. Once you get into equil bitrates, mp4 just blows mp2 away, just like mp2 blew away mp1.

The issue isn't whether mp2 looks better than mp4, it's how mp2 at HD-DVD or Blueray throughputs compares to mp4 at standard red laser rates. From that perspective they are very close. What I see is companies using mp2 specifically so that users will need the extra storage and bandwidth of the new disk formats.

I have done a lot of tests myself and I can say that with mp4 I can get decent looking HD at half of what it takes me to get good looking mp2. That is a bitrate that will give me two hours on a single layer DVD-R or four on a dual layer! If I use the same bitrates I do to write an SD DVD (6000), it looks outstanding. Sony and Toshiba know that. That's why they aren't letting us write HD to a standard red laser DVD-R just yet!

You said "the titles released so far in HD-DVD have been in mpeg 4"

On this you are almost completely incorrect and wrong also. The only HD-DVD title release in Mpeg4 so far is U2's Rattle and Hum. Every other title has been released in Microsoft Video Codec -1 (VC-1). Must people who have seen them consider the VC-1 encoded disks to be slightly better than the Mpeg4 released U2 one. Anyone how hasn't either been dead or in Edmonton, can see that VC-1 looks better than Mpeg2.

BigRockies.com Your Home in the Rockies!

You said: Sony and Toshiba know that. That's why they aren't letting us write HD to a standard red laser DVD-R just yet!

Unless you've been dead or in Edmonton you know quite well that you can burn HD-DVD content to a standard red laser DVD-R already and almost since the launch. It requires only $50 tool to make it happen. Now with the Sony, yes it is currently and probably forever impossible. That's the power of the open XML based HD-DVD standard, no propriteraty BS stopping people from growing the market base.

BigRockies.com Your Home in the Rockies!