Converting high Definition DVD Help

Pardus

Pardus

Lurks: 15,289
Ok, I tried searching for help on this and didnt find much help, hopefully someone can give me some.

My wife is a teacher and bought a high def copy of discovery channels Planet Earth series. She thought it would be great to show it in High def to the class.. well, she isnt Mrs. Tech and the school doesnt have a high def tv let alone a high def player. We haven't even made the jump here at home to high def so we need to convert it. A friend has an external HD drive i can borrow but wondering if it is possible to convert it to regular DVD format?


If I am breaking copyright laws doing this, please save the lectures for another day
 
Pardus said:
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If I am breaking copyright laws doing this, please save the lectures for another day
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Of course, it is breaking copyright laws. Duh!

However, you can't very well convert the disk if you can't read the disk. You need a HD-DVD or Blu-ray drive to read it. Double-duh!
 
triple Duh... i said save the lecture.

quadruple duh.. i said i had an external HD(dvd) drive i could borrow....

God... good job increasing your post count.
 
I know that it is possible to crack the encryption on an HD-DVD certainly on a PC there is a utility to do this and from there copy it to the Hard Drive. I don't think there is a conversion utility to convert it to normal DVD anf if there is you are going to need enormous amounts of disk space to do it.

Would it not be possible to exchange the HD disks for normal DVD's or rent an HD setup at the school just for the lectures ?
 
I dont really want to return it as we will be upgrading our own home theatre to HD soon. I will probably just buy a HD dvd player, we do have a PS3 so its too bad it wasnt blue-ray. I thought it would be worth a try as it is a pain to return stuff to amazon. thanks
 
the best answer is not always the one you're happiest with. at the moment, there really isn't the software to easily convert an HD DVD and make it into a usable dvd, not for mac, anyway.

i would see it like 'oh i've bought the wrong dvd' and take it back, to exchange for something you can all use.

when you get your new hi-def hometheatre, i'm sure you'll be able to buy it again in the future, or even, something else.
 
My understanding is that you can play HD-DVDs over non-protected channels (like composite video), but it will downscale the video to something more like DVD quality. If you're looking to convert it to DVD, this is not a problem.

So, you should be able to copy it using a VCR or set-top DVD recorder or something like that. (Assuming your hardware has these ports to begin with.) I'm not aware of any Mac apps that will play HD-DVD content (even in low-res form), though, so I don't think you can do this on your Mac.
 
Mikuro said:
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So, you should be able to copy it using a VCR or set-top DVD recorder or something like that. ...
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The OP can use neither because he has no HD-DVD drive to use as a source. If he had the HD-DVD source drive, then he would not need to convert the video.
 
If you intend to keep the HD-DVDs for your future home HD-DVD setup: Okay.
You now need DVDs. I think it's _much_ less hassle to just buy the DVD version _also_ right now. Yeah it comes at a price, but certainly less than renting a whole HD-DVD/HDTV setup, no? (Also take into account that _also_ will take time and hassle...) You could maybe even take back the DVDs after using them, saying that your wife already got the HD-DVD version (including receipt)... ;) Or maybe you can rent the DVD version even?

P.S.: Planet Earth (I take it Discovery Channel is the distributor for the BBC Series in America?) is a _beautiful_ series, certainly worth having if only for showing off HDTV equipment.
 
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