making an HD DVD

Hi All,
I'm working on Final cut 7 on an Intel Imac.
I cut my project in HD 1920x1080 29097. That is also how I shot it...on a card.

My question is, is it possible to make an actual HD DVD that can play on a regular dvd player that is hooked up to an HD tv? I had to burn my project in dvd studio pro in SD 16x9 format and then it looked like crap on my HD tv? I need to be able to play the video/dvd in a theatre. How is it all done these days.
Thanks for updating my obviously outdated skill set.
Thanks in advance
evarita

> I had to burn my project in dvd studio pro in SD 16x9 format and then it looked like crap on my HD tv? I need to be able to play the video/dvd in a
> theatre.

Well, depends on how you define "looks like crap". Burning the DVD yourself will never yield pro-looking results (they pay people a lot of money for proper colour correction, mastering, etc.), but it should be passable for a quickie screening. But you already have two strikes: An SD video source will never look all that hot when projected to a big screen.

> My question is, is it possible to make an actual HD DVD that can play on a regular dvd player

DVDs are Standard Def. If you want to make an HD DVD(the Toshiba format intended to be competition for Blu-Ray), you can, but that format's been dead for years and almost nobody has a player anymore. And playing an HD DVD on a "regular DVD player" is an impossibility -- sounds like you have some misconceptions about the formats. What you want is a Blu-Ray disc (BD).


www.derekmok.com

Users of DVD Studio Pro see the HD DVD option so they think it's real. Hardly. And they don't see the Blu-ray option (which is hidden in FCP's "Share" ) so they think it's exotic. Hardly. Many more theatres can play Blu-rays than can play HD DVDs. FCP + Compressor can create simple Blu-rays via "Share". The forum covered this here and here. Amateurs can make good looking Blu-rays because with H.264 at 30 Mbps it's hard to make crap (from non-crap). evita would only need an inexpensive Blu-ray burner.

evita should contact the theatre or theatres where the video will play. Can they project Blu-rays? Some theatres can project from .mov files.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany