[Frameworks] combining SD and HD

[David Tetzlaff]

> BR authoring on DVDSP isn't possible. 

Not directly. But you can create HD files in Compressor, author them into an HD project in DVDSP, and use Toast to burn it to BluRay... _IF_ you use the workaround to hack the DVDSP output so Toast interprets it as BluRay -- which is not that complicated, though I just looked and I can't find it at the moment.

If you don't have a lot of content, and/or you can live with a higher rate of compression using H264, you do NOT need a BluRay burner. You can write BluRay format onto a DVD5 blank (I'm not sure about dual layer) with a conventional DVD burner, and it will be compatible with a standalone BluRay player.

> there are a bunch of blu-ray export / burning options in the mac pro apps (compressor) but I've never tried them; they are probably plain-vanilla and similar to Toast in their limitations.

Well, the Compressor settings are just labeled 'HD', but they are anything but vanilla. They're highly configurable and can be set for very high quality. The worst thing about Compressor is that it's slow and can be a little buggy. The results are MUCH BETTER than anything you can get than encoding with Toast, even tweaking the Toast settings to the extent they can be tweaked. That is why people figured out the work-around. Toast's BR encoding sucks, but the FCS suite does a good job, though you have to go outside the box to get it into a BluRay.

I speak from having done all this myself, not just passing on what I've read.