[Jason Harbaugh]

No way to do a 32bit AVI with Alpha enabled? That would be the most ideal. I work with Vegas as well and for the moment I just render on black and do an overlay in Vegas. It works, but isn’t perfect.

With programs like Bluff Titler and Serious Magic Ultra supporting alpha in AVI, surely it can be included with PI.

[Jason Harbaugh]

“I’m torn between both at the moment. I’m not liking HD-DVD cause its been developed my Microsoft, and will probably be full of critters… then again I’m not a fan of proprietory formats such as what Sony brings to the market like UMD, Mini-Disc etc… ”

Well HD-DVD wasn’t developed by Microsoft, but rather Toshiba. Microsoft’s contributions have been the interactive layer called iHD as well as the VC1 codec. Otherwise, this is the DVD Forum’s format.

Blu-ray also shouldn’t be confused with past proprietary formats from Sony. It was codeveloped by a great deal of companies in the Blu-ray Group, more overall support from CE companies and Studios than HD-DVD.

With that being said, if you just compare both formats side by side, Blu-ray is clearly the winner.

BD has more capacity per layer and has shown potential for more layers down the line with dual-layer (50Gig) being ready for mass production while HD-DVD is stuck at 30 Gig dual-layer and their 45Gig 3-layer still being in the lab. In BD’s lab is a 4-layer 100Gig disc as well as a dual sided 200Gig disc. Will be a long time before those are ready for the public, but the potential is there.

BD has a higher data transfer rate than HD-DVD allowing higher bitrate of both audio and video.

BD has the majority of Studio support with only Universal being the last stubborn studio to off support.

BD will be 1080p from the getgo. HD-DVD won’t be until second gen players.

HD-DVD does have the price advantage for their early players. $500 for their stripped down entry player, and $800 for their upper model which is still not fully featured. BD is coming in at $1000 for a full featured player and up to $1800 for Pioneer’s Elite. However, come November, the PS3 which is still being promoted as a full featured player, will come in at a guestimated price of $500.

Movies are looking to be identical in price for both HD-DVD and BD.

But then there is always a grey cloud and that being ICT (Image Constraint Token) which as someone else has mentioned, will downrez all HD content to 540p if being displayed through a non HDCP capable connection. There is an estimated 12 million HDTV’s out there that are not HDCP capable. That is a huge consumer base to be shitting on so early in a format war. Right now a few studios have stated that they will not use ICT on movie releases….yet. Doesn’t exactly give you a lot of confidence now does it?

I for one have 3 HD capable tv’s. 1 rear projection, 1 front projector, and one HD widescreen computer monitor. None are HDCP compliant but fully capable of 1080i, 720p, and 1080p respectfully. I won’t support any Studio that enables ICT ever, even after I eventually upgrade my equipment to HDCP compatible displays. But until both formats are out and we actually see final product and disc reviews are out, I’ll wait on the sidelines…rooting for Blu-ray.

I don’t see either format becoming a viable archiving format for quite sometime, until their blank disc prices plummet. By that time, there could be something better out for disc storage, but don’t expect any new format to compete with HD-DVD and Blu-ray on the home video front. Too much politics with the Studios for a 3rd party to just come in, even if the format is much much better. For HD on an optical disc, we are stuck with HD-DVD and Blu-ray and I choose the one that offers the most potential.

[Jason Harbaugh]

A second kudos for Ultra 2. We just purchased it last week for a big project with over a hundred scenes needing keying. I started with just Vegas but was disappointed with the results. I’ve keyed with Vegas before and have gotten a few really good keys but it seems that you really have to have a near perfect background.

With Ultra, in less than a minute I did a key that was unbelievable considering the backdrop was wrinkled and uneven. The amount of tweaking you have available really makes a difference and I highly recommend it if you do a lot of green or blue screen.

[Jason Harbaugh]

Thanks for the help guys. Looks like we are going with the Canon after all. As for HVX200 availability, I guess we just have the right connections because there is one sitting at a store waiting for us if we wanted it. 🙂

[Jason Harbaugh]

Thanks! That looks like it could do the trick.

We are making our purchase tuesday and it seems like we have it narrowed down to the Panasonic or the JVC HDV cam.