How do I burn a Hi-Def DVD?

iDVD can't make any HD media.

No Mac ships with any HD burner (Blu-Ray style) or software to make HD DVD's.

You would need third party software (Toast) and a Blu-Ray DVD burner to create them.

The latest version of Final Cut Studio has the ability to burn Blu-ray discs directly from Final Cut Pro 7

Quite frankly, it's amazing to many people that the Mac OS does not natively support Blu-ray.

However, there are several companies that make Blu-ray drives (some installed internally) that includes the appropriate driver software to make them work.

http://mcetech.com/blu-ray/

Because Blu-ray discs hold 50 GB of data, they are excellent for backup purposes also.

I love iMovie 11, but if one wants to burn in high-def, then one can also purchase final cut pro x at the Mac Apple Store, that does that. Costs $299.

Hugh

First, some nomenclature:

DVDs are standard definition. 720x 480 is the best you wiill do with DVD autoring software like iDVD.

HD DVD is an obsolete product that is no longer sold. You might find some used HD DVD players on eBay. It lost out in a battle with BluRay.

There are no consumer level BluRay burners. BluRay is a standard that requires large licensing fees and long press runs.

However, it is possible to burn AVCHD to a disk that will play in most BluRay Players, although you cannot use the BluRay Logo for this. This will be up to 1080P, depending on your source. For this you need Apple's Compressor Software (latest version from the Mac App Store for about $50). Or you need Roxio Toast Titanium with BluRay Plugin. In this option, you can burn to BluRay blank disk or you can burn to a standard DVD, but it will hold a amall amount of data. (About 20 minutes if you burn at full quality. Longer if you create a highly compresed AVCHD file.). It will only play back on a BluRay Player.

This is all very confusing, so what I do is use my Apple TV for home viewing, and use YouTube for sharing in 1080P.

From Apple's FCPX help menu....

"Burn your project to a disc or create a disk image

You can burn your project to either a standard-definition DVD or a Blu-ray–compatible disc. There are a couple of ways to create a Blu-ray–compatible disc:

• Use an external optical drive that supports Blu-ray burning to blue laser media.
• Use a standard DVD burner and standard red laser media to create an AVCHD disc with HD video content and menus. You can play AVCHD discs in Blu-ray players that are specifically compatible with AVCHD discs.

You can also create a disk image (.img) file that you can copy to an external drive to take to a disc replication facility or burn to DVD or Blu-ray disc media at a later time using Disk Utility.Markers are automatically added every 30 seconds to the project on the disc. This makes it possible to use the DVD or Blu-ray player’s remote to skip forward or backward 30 seconds each time the Next Chapter or Previous Chapter button is pressed. Following are the limits to the number of markers that are added:

• Standard DVD: 99
• Standard Blu-ray: 999
• AVCHD: 50

Note: If you have Compressor installed, you can use the Send to Compressor option to open the project in Compressor, where you can add and name chapter markers using its Preview window. For more information, see Compressor Help.ShowBurn to a standard-definition DVD or create a standard-definition disk image fileHideBurn to a Blu-ray or AVCHD disc, or create a Blu-ray disk image file

1. Select the project and choose Share > Blu-ray.
2. In the window that appears, choose a file destination from the “Output device” pop-up menu.The pop-up menu displays your system’s suitable output devices, including optical drives and the computer’s hard disk. Each device is identified by the type of output it supports (Blu-ray or AVCHD). To create a disk image (.img) file that you can copy to an external drive or burn to Blu-ray media later, choose Hard Drive.
3. Choose a disc option from the Layers pop-up menu.
   • Automatic: Use this to have the type of disc you insert be automatically detected.
     Note: You must insert the disc before clicking Burn for Automatic to work. Additionally, Automatic always creates a single-layer disk image when Hard Drive is selected as the output device.
   • Single-layer: Identifies the disc as a single-layer disc. You can use this to force a dual-layer disc to be treated as a single-layer disc.
   • Dual-layer: Identifies the disc as a dual-layer disc. You can use this to force the disk image to be formatted for a dual-layer disc when you choose Hard Drive as your output device.Important: Choosing “Dual-layer” when using a single-layer disc may result in an error while burning the disc, depending on the project’s length.
4. Choose a template from the “Disc template” pop-up menu.
5. Type the name of the disc in the Title field.By default, the name of the disc is the project name.
6. To specify the Blu-ray player’s action when the disc is inserted, choose an item from the “When disc loads” pop-up menu.Choose Show Menu to have the main menu appear or Play Movie to begin playing the movie immediately.
7. Do any of the following:
   • To add a loop icon to the menu: Select “Include loop movie button.”This option is not available for all disc templates.
   • To add a background, logo, or title to the menus: Click the Add button and choose a graphic.To choose a different background, click the Reset button and click Add again.
   • To see previews of the menus included with the selected template and background: Click the Main Menu button.
   • To skim over the main video content: Click the Project button and move the pointer over the image.
8. To see details about the files that will be output, click Summary.
9. To take advantage of distributed processing or to send your project to Compressor, click Advanced.For information on the Advanced options, see Export your project using Compressor.
10. Do one of the following:
    • If you’re burning to a disc (instead of creating a disk image): Insert a blank disc into your disc-burning device and click Burn.
    • If you’re creating a disk image file: Click Next, type a name and choose a location for the file, and click Save.

You can monitor the render progress using Share Monitor.

Note: Blu-ray and AVCHD menus are best suited for displays set to show 1080 lines of vertical resolution.

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Hugh