Developing miniHD-DVD

[PurpleMan]

Hello everybody.

I recently read in Doom9's news about a company which had an idea to put HD-DVD content on regular DVD-ROM media.

This seemed very interesting to me as I think we could definitely store a full movie (1080p or 720p) compressed in H.264 on a DVD-DL media.

To achieve this, I would think we would need to accomplish the following steps, some of which have already been achieved:

Step 1: Decrypt HD-DVD content to HD (AACS Decryption)
Step 2: Strip unwanted content.
Step 3: Demux EVOB files to separate VC1/MPEG2 video files and AC3/DTS audio files.
Step 4: Decoding VC1/MPEG2 to be frameserved.
Step 5: Reencode to compliant HD-DVD specs H.264 compression at an optimal bitrate (we could get 8mbit/sec total for 2.5 hours of video on HD-DVD.
Step 6 (Optional): Reencode DD+ to AC3 5.1 Dolby Digital to save space.
Step 7: Reauthor the content to replace the original (Wishful thinking would be to preserve menus).
Step 8: Hopefully play our backed up HD content on available media and recorders.

I would love to get any input and thoughts from the community, both on the idea itself and on how to technically achieve and implement each step of the process.

-PurpleMan

[zgx]

Sounds like a good plan.

Step 2: is very easy since the unwanted content is often stored in separate EVO files.

Step 3: is very easy to do with the tool EVOdemux that Pelican9 has made.

Step 6: Would be nice if the DD+ did not have to be re-encoded but that you just extract the AC3 part of the E-AC3.

[PurpleMan]

Step 2: is very easy since the unwanted content is often stored in separate EVO files.

We would have to get more technical because we cannot just remove the files, they will remain on the playlist.

Step 3: is very easy to do with the tool EVOdemux that Pelican9 has made.

I agree.. we have the ability to demux.

Step 6: Would be nice if the DD+ did not have to be re-encoded but that you just extract the AC3 part of the E-AC3.

Like I said, that's optional.

In any way, I think we should focus on how to properly encode to a compliant HD-DVD H.264 format and how to mux it back.

In theory it would be enough to remux the file and just replace the original EVO with it. But I could be wrong.

[zgx]

We would have to get more technical because we cannot just remove the files, they will remain on the playlist.Most likely you will author a completely new HD DVD and use only the demuxed audio and video streams from the main feature EVO files. So the original "VPLST000.XPL" containing the "playlist" will not be used at all.

[zgx]

In theory it would be enough to remux the file and just replace the original EVO with it. But I could be wrong.You probably would need to generate new .MAP files to match the new EVOBs and edit "VPLST000.XPL" to remove all the unwanted material.

All VPLST000.XPL files I have seen link to .MAP files and not to EVOBs directly.


There also seams to be people who have made HD DVDs with a DVD like file structure using IFO files instead of VPLST000.XPL in a structure like this:

HVDVD_TS:
HV000I01.BUP
HV000I01.IFO
HV001I01.BUP
HV001I01.IFO
HV001T01.EVO
HV001T02.EVO
HV001T03.EVO
HV001T04.EVO
HV001T05.EVO

I was told that one of these HD DVDs (that contained x264 encoded video fitted on a DVD5) was done in Scenarist.

[PurpleMan]

You probably would need to generate new .MAP files to match the new EVOBs and edit "VPLST000.XPL" to remove all the unwanted material.

I think that when reauthoring a new .MAP file is produced. as for editing the XPL, I don't think that would be a significant issue and can be easily done.

There also seams to be people who have made HD DVDs with a DVD like file structure using IFO files instead of VPLST000.XPL in a structure

Since our source is a XPL-based HD-DVD original, I would think it would be best to achieve the same disc structure in our backup.

[BlueCup]

I'm currently looking into step 7 myself.