DVD Studio Pro 4: Deciding which DVD standard to use
Summary
DVD Studio Pro 4 gives you the choice of authoring a traditional DVD using standard definition (SD) assets or high definition (HD) assets. There are several factors to take into account when deciding which DVD format to use:
Products Affected
DVD Studio Pro 4.2, DVD Studio Pro 4.0, DVD Studio Pro 4.2.1
- While an HD-based DVD can provide excellent HD video output, it can only be played on devices designed to specifically support it, such as Apple DVD Player. SD-based DVDs can be played on all DVD players, including those that play HD-based DVDs.
- An HD project can be written on either a red laser disc (as is used by SD projects) or a blue laser disc. While SD-based DVD players can read red laser discs, they cannot play HD content from them. However, you can write an SD project and an HD project to the same red laser disc, which will play SD content when used in an SD-based DVD player and HD content when used in an HD-based DVD player.
- Blue laser discs can hold about three times the data that a red laser disc can hold (a single-layer red laser disc can hold 4.7 GB, while a single-layer blue laser disc can hold 15 GB). Since you can use SD video in your HD project, writing on a blue laser disc allows you to get much more content on the disc.
- You may need to author both SD-based and HD-based DVD versions of your project. The easiest way to do this is to first author the SD-based DVD version of your project. You can then set the DVD standard to HD DVD. DVD Studio Pro automatically converts the project, and you can then choose which QuickTime assets to encode to the HD format. Alternatively, you can swap SD assets with HD assets as needed.
Additional Information
For more information, choose Help > DVD Studio Pro User Manual in DVD Studio Pro.
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