can you use a HD compatible prog like tmpgenc xpress 4 to take a half-hd avi, like 650 by 270, and make it into whatever format hd or blue ray players play, author it to a dvd-r and have the br or hd player play the half-hd video from the dvd-r? if so id imagine you need an authoring prog that can do that exact task so which one can? im cheap, i aint buying a hd burner just yet.
I haven't used TMPEGEnc but I've been able to do this on DVD+R using ULead Movie Factory 5. My source files are 1080i *.TS files recorded from an HD cable box and the discs play fine on my HD-DVD player. The 1920x1080 resolution is intact as well as the 5.1 DD soundtrack. A 45 minute episode of CSI for example fits in one DVD+R single layer discs. There's no need for an HD burner. Here's a guide: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=705146
will the resulting disk play on BOTH hd abd blu ray players or just one or the other? what format do you encode to? ie, do you stil encode to .m2v before authoring? can you just use any old authoring prog or do you need a special one?
I've done this too like error5 using the avsforum guide. The discs are HD-DVD only as the file systems are different. The player recognizes the disc as HD-DVD. The source files we use are 1920x1080 MPEG2 *.TS. You use VideoReDo to convert the transport stream to program stream. You use the Ulead software to do the authoring to HD-DVD file format then you burn the disc using Nero. I think the source has to be 1920x1080 though or it won't work. It's all in the guide.
then i could just use tmpgenc 4 to make my 640x270 avi into 1080i. somewhere i think i remember reading that a 640x270 xvid avi is 720, half hd, when converted into tv pixels or something, am i right? or should i just keep burning my avis to 704x480 dvd? so is there a way to do this or something similar on the ps3? thats what i use for blu ray playback. if not thats a huge advantage for the 360 over the ps3 that people dont realy bring up then. i ask because i see you have one.
ULead DVD Movie Factory 6 should be able to do this for BluRay. See this news article: http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/9215.cfm
