Rivergate Software Inc. - makers of DVDAfterEdit

There are several different HD DVD and Blu Ray video formats:

MPEG-2

Familiar to all SD authors, MPEG-2 is a "known quantity" but requires higher data rates than the other formats. Encoding solutions include:

• CinemaCraft Xtream
• Sonic Cinevision
• Apple Compressor
• Canopus ProCoder
• MainConcept
• Add others

H264 / AVC

Offers better quality than MPEG-2, however it's not clear which encoders are producing compliant streams yet, and player support also needs to be investigated.

• Sonic Cinevision
• Apple Compressor
• MainConcept
• Add others

VC-1

A subset of Windows Media, and widely acknowledged to be the best codec for HD DVD, most "Hollywood" releases use this.

• CinemaCraft Xtream
• Sonic Cinevision
• Apple Compressor - via a plugin from Telestream ( Flip4Mac ), may be issues with encoded files ?