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Probably a dumb question: HD content on DVD?
Hi All,
This is my first time here. I’m pretty experienced, though still learning all the time, and recently I embarked on an endeavor which leads me to some interesting conundrums.
Now what I’m doing is I’m digitally scanning over 1,200 kodachrome slides belong to my grandmother. I want to make a new disc set for every member of the family, to replace the old VHS tape made in the early 80s. These are beautiful slides and cry out for HD, and I envisioned doing a dual disc blu-ray and DVD set, so whether the recipient has Blu-ray or DVD, they’re covered.
However, I’ve got an interesting problem. I’ve started to build the encore project (I’ve got CS3), and I’m beginning to realize that when all the photos (scaled to 1080p) are loaded via the slideshow feature, the resulting build will be less than 1gb!
To burn a blu-ray for 1GB of content seems rather a waste, when it could all fit on a DVD. But I REALLY want to wow my family with the quality of these images, and I don’t want to finish exclusively on SD I want them to see these images in HD.
So here’s my question: given the file sizes, is there a way to have HD content on a DVD? Or are they wholly incompatible due to bit rates and resolution limitations on the DVD format? Will I just have to bite the bullet and burn a blu-ray with only one gb used?
Your advice would be most appreciated!
Best,
BR
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2 Replies
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You would be amazed at the quality of your DVD from 35mm Kodachrome slides. Did you know that modern Blu-Ray players now ‘upscale’ DVD’s for playing on HD TV screens? OK, it’s not true HD but for your purpose as near as damn it. I presume that you are creating an HD programme from the scanned slides? That way you always have the option of producing Blu-Ray discs if you want to go that route.
By the way, what encoding software are you proposing to use for your DVD’s? I use BitVice which is easy to use and does a great encode. It will do a very high quality downscale from your HD material at the same time.
Michael Slowe
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I think I could add something here. If your video is really clean without lots of random motion and noise, it can compress very well on DVD. However, Blu-ray really is cheap these days. When I started out writing DVD software, DVD-Rs were $10 each. DVD recorders were $500. Now, Blu-ray recorders are around $200 and Blu-ray recording media is around a dollar. Blu-ray is your best bet for getting HD material to look like HD. However, really well produced video compress very well and can upscale well on DVD. It’s just a lot more work.
Brad Wright is software engineer, so often hard to figure out what he is talking about. He is always happy to explain answers further.
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