With HDTV being such a hot commodity nowadays, maybe it's time to start one of these discussions. DVD quality for all it's worth is
low quality when we're talking HD! All the new HD DVD discs coming out now require you to have a HD DVD player as well and for good reason. The only way we can get more than 480p (standard DVD) out of this or any other video project is by having a burning software that can burn HD DVDs and then a player that can run the disc. There are also various HD quality settings and at the present the highest is 1,920 x 1,080p (progressive scan) HD. It has a bitrate and data flow extremely high and in true 16:9 aspect ratio. You'll only find this in select programming presently. Even most HD DVDs hitting the shelves are 1,440 x 1,080p and uses a 1.333 stretching of the horizontal pixels to give you "widescreen".
Our movie, Smoke On, is in 1,280 x 720p HD (a.k.a. 720p) with the bitrate lowered to allow most home computer users to, number one; download the movie (file size) and number two; be able to playback the movie without too many hiccups (stutters from not having enough horsepower in ones computer). It too is in true 16:9 aspect ratio, commonly known as "widescreen" and not stretched.
There are many intermediate settings and one popular one is 1,440 x 1,080p or 1,080i (interlaced) used in many HD DVDs hitting the stores. It will stretch the image and insert pixels to widen the image to become widescreen; however, it's native resolution is not true widescreen since it extends the horizontal pixels by a ratio of 1.3333.
Needless to say, all these HD settings (and additional ones... Believe me, there are many more) look far crisper and has many more pixels than a standard DVD at 480p. Let's not complicate things further now with all the various HDTV resolutions out there, many of which don't match the 720p, 1,080p standards natively either so additional stretching occurs...
So, back to where we started: A standard DVD is renowned for good quality, but when it comes to HD programming or rendering in HD you will lose a
substantial amount of quality burning any video that is natively HD on to a DVD disc. Just as you would notice when you watch HDTV programming and flip the channel to regular programming, the picture appears all blurry to you for a while until you adjust and realize this is what "normal" TV programming looks like. The end result of burning a DVD will be a pixel resolution of 720 x 480p and just by pure numbers you can tell, you've lost a lot of resolution already. Secondly, burning a clip that already has a bitrate that's lowered (for internet downloads) to a DVD will only add more "artifacts" (size to the disc without true content) and any real data behind it. Translation: Your computer will interpolate the additional bits, but not add any additional data quality to the project as would be the case if you rendered in higher bitrate from the original project files.
Best option to make a DVD would be to render a higher bitrate version of the project and plan its native pixel resolution to be 720 x 480p (full screen or letterbox) and that way get the most you can get out of a standard DVD, but having the bitrate of the render match the bitrate on the DVD disc for clearer picture quality and more data in each frame. This is something you'd need the project files for in order to do and I'm not about to upload those (@ 250GB+)! We'd have to to this for you!
You guys can feel free to experiment and try burning your own copies, but you will degrade the quality and/or end up with a higher bitrate (without the actual project data behind it). Having said all that, it still looks pretty good on a standard DVD (480p) and if you're used to bootlegged DVDs, then you won't be disappointed.
In the coming weeks we plan on attempting two additional options for the movie. Number one; a full uninterrupted render of the project. This one is iffy, since it demands almost a Cray computer to render without memory leaks. Number two; rendering a standard DVD version (480p) in native resolution and bitrate for DVDs and for anyone who wants it, the ability to buy this "true DVD" format for a small fee & shipping, either as a download to burn yourself at home or we'll send you a DVD. More details about that later unless other options surface and there would have to be a demand for it to be worth while our time.
I hope this explains some of your questions and concerns!
P.S. I'm interviewing with PIXAR in a few weeks...
Leaving the airline gig behind...