OK, time for me to start asking questions about what I've been attempting the past couple of days.

I have some source files that I converted from MP4 to MOV (using QT Pro) that are 1280x720 and I'm trying to write, using DVD Moviefactory 6 plus, to a standard DVD. It seems that the program writes to the DVD fine, but when I play it in a Toshiba HD-DVD player, the video is in slow motion and the audio is inaudible. I've tried many settings converting the source files in PRE7 to no avail. When I output HD 720i mpeg (1280x720, 30fps), MF won't even try to convert/burn ("unspecified error" - love those). If I output HD 720p (1280x720, 25fps), and burn with MF, the video is better as far as speed, but still stutters terribly in the player.

I know Paul_LS has done this before and, in addition to him, if anyone else has, I'd sure love to hear your work flow and theories as what I may be doing wrong.

Thanks!

I have no background in this Ron, but would suggest you try the disc on a different player - perhaps a Blu-Ray one this time if you can. Obviously you want to be able to play it on your own player, but it would yield some information about the problem, perhaps.

Hm, currently no access to another player. I was kind of hoping that someone else had a similar issue and knew how to correct it. Especially users of Moviefactory.

On to trial & error'ing. May be time to invest in a Blu-ray player

Hi Ron, yes I write high definition video to standard DVD using DVD Moviefactory 6 plus. I used to produce HD DVD discs but now I produce AVCHD discs as HD DVD is no longer around. However I play them back to my HDTV using a software DVD player on my HTPC. I also had issues with audio playback, no sound, and had to change the audio format to overcome the issue.

So are you burning a HD-DVD disc? When I produced HD-DVDs I exported from Premiere Elements as 1440x1080 MPEG2 files. And have you selected the NTSC presets? And finally what speed are you burning at? I set the burn speed to the minimum.

Hi Paul, thanks for your insight on this! I have a Toshiba HD-A2, I believe it was one of the first HD-DVD players on the market. I'm burning to a standard DVD/4.7GB. The setting in MF indicates the same.


OK, great info. First of all, if my original files are 1280x720, do I select that preset in PRE7 or do I select 1440x1080 and scale. Conversely, won't I lose quality doing either, because it has to scale up? Or am I just not understanding the specs? Isn't 1440x1080 Blu-ray specs?

I just wanted to create some HD-DVDs for now and postpone a Blu-ray player because anything that will play in the HD-DVD player should look OK in a Blu-ray player in the future as well, right?


Yes, NTSC is selected (I suppose you mean in MF?). And I just checked the settings and I was burning at maximum. Do you think that would really make a difference? I also tried burning an iso file and burning the image with Imageburn and I think I used a lower speed there and same results.

I can understand the audio being a culprit, but what about the video being in slow motion? It just seems to me that MF is converting the video to its standard (which I believe is upscaling to 1440x1080 as well), then it wouldn't matter what the source file is, MF will still output this problem.

I think I'm just confused with the different resolutions for starters.

If I recall DVD Moviefactory 6+ will only burn 1440x1080i or 1990x1080i HD DVDs, so at some stage the video will be upscaled and this will impact the quality slightly. At least if you export from Premiere Elements as MPEG2 at 1440x1080 or 1920x1080 you can check the video is still playing good at this stage before importing into DVD MF. And DVD MF will smart burn the format without the need of re-rendering.

Issues during playback often come down to the burn speed and quality of the disc. At least burning at a lower speed eliminates this possibility.

Ron,

Not sure if this will offer any help, but I just posted a link to the Adobe PrPro forum on HD - SD workflow:
http://www.muvipix.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=6953

Good luck,

Hunt

Thanks, Bill! Not exactly what I'm trying to do, but I will definitely attempt that flow, that was intense.

That guy knows his stuff!

I too watched that tutorial.

Ron, if you are going to try it can you post back and let us all know how the results compare to a 'standard' downconvert?

I used the very first technique in the tutorial and I have to say that the quality is amazing. This could very well be my new workflow for my HD content until I make the switch to Blu-ray. I'll try the MT portion next as I have a multi-core processor and I want to see if it is in fact a faster technique.

Actually, that tutorial solved the problem of the HD-DVD video on a standard DVD as well. That specific work flow of exporting as a Lagarith codec seemed to be just what DVD Moviefactory needed to create the HD-DVD disk. So, thanks to Hunt and that link, you can now create a HD down-converted high-quality video on DVD as well as a HD-DVD mock on a standard DVD!

The actual link is here - http://bellunevideo.com/tutorials/hd2sd ... hd2sd.html

I think it would be worth watching for any video project. Not just HD-SD because some of the techniques and settings can be applied to many situations.

I also tried the MPEG indexing route, and though it was a little faster at final render. It has more steps, so I prefer the very first technique in the tutorial. Again, quality is amazing!

Thanks again Paul and Hunt!