Hi Def video and Whether to Switch to Mac?

Hi
I am currently a PC user and want to make the switch to a Mac, however there is one issue that is stopping me crossing the divide…. High definition disc authoring. Currently I have a Blu Ray enabled Sony Vaio laptop and have had nightmares creating standard def discs, let alone high def, with error after error occurring.
I see that recent Macs support importing of HD video but strangely don’t include a burner to match, even as an extra!
My main question is... Could I use the Mac platform to import and edit HD footage, save the completed project to an external HDD then use my Vaio’s Blu-Ray burner to burn the disc? If so, what software will I need to make the External HDD readable and writeable to both OSX and Windows?
I know the latest version of Roxio Toast makes bold claims about it’s Blu-Ray burning ability but I also have seen that this is actually NOT the case with video files!!
What other options do I have for exporting my edited HD Video to disc?
I’ve searched the forums and all over the internet but no one seems to have asked about this with regard to cross platform, with Blu-Ray being the destination.
Even Apple shop staff have had difficulty answering these queries so at this stage, ANY help would be very much appreciated.
If it makes a difference, I use a Playstation 3 to watch Blu-Ray discs.
Cheers

This is an interesting issue. I just checked http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/dvdstudiopro/specs.html to see if they specifically mention Blu-Ray, but they only say, HD assets. Seems like you'd need Toast to *really* do what it says, and then you could use the HD assets that Apple's DVD Studio Pro spits out.
If you find a successful solution, post back and let us know.

DVD Studio Pro can create HD-DVD disk assets, but not burn to that type of disk. As an experiment I've burned HD-DVD conent to regular DVD disks. Apples DVD Player software can read them. I don't remember the documentation mentioning Blu-Ray or how that differs.

I'd look into the LAFCPUG forums or the Apple forums, or anyware else the pros hang out.

As for the editng of HD, I don's see that as issue and think you could even render the needed video and audio codec files and place them onto a drive. But you'd still need a DVD editing tool that could handle creation of Blu-Ray formatted content.

The harddrive format might be an issue. OS X only had read capability of the latest microsoft format, but can read and write FAT32. There are one or more third party drivers to allow OS X to also write the newer format. There also one or more third party drivers to read and write to OS X formatted drives on Windows.

You may find better answers at Apple's support page. You can download the manual from there and link to Apple's forums.

My impression by some of the wording in the manual is that they are limiting their talk to HD-DVD, not Blu-Ray, but they never use the "-" when they mention HD DVD. For instance, see page 20 in the manual.

The manual says that your HDV footage from the camera is directly usable in a HD DVD. It is MPEG-2 HD.

No I haven't tested my disk in a real player yet. My only access would be a store and I've been a bit shy about walking in to try that. Oh, a friend I'm suppose to see this afternoon has a PS3. I'll try to find some time to recreate that disc and test it. {Couldn't make it. I'll try later.}

If this helps, the assets of a HD disc are contained in a folder named HVDVD_TS.

That would be great. Thanks for your help in this.

Just checked the link out you posted. The manual says you can author DVD's containing High Definition Video that can be played back on red or blue laser players. As both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD use blue lasers I assume it will work then. Still not entirely sure if it's HD though or a very good SD picture.
I'll email Apple direct as well but I'd still be interested to know how your disc plays on your friend's PS3. Thanks again, my Mac purchase is getting ever closer!

I tried my disc in my friends PS3 last night. It didn't work. I burned the disc at 4 times speed as that is the only option I had that was close.

My test disc has three resolutions; 480i, 720p, and 1080i. DVD Player confirms the two top ones are HD. So does a visual review by just watching the content. I haven't tried just burning a H.264 file straight to a disc and don't have time to try that.

Just in case you don't realize it. DVD Studio Pro is part of the Final Cut Studio package which is pricey. An alternative my might be Adobes offering, or to create DVDs via the PC, or to find a used single license copy of DVDSP.