A couple days ago Pinnacle announced it's HD DVD Pack ($49.95 upgrade MSRP) from it Pinnacle Studio Plus software, which is bundled with the Pinnacle MovieBox/Movie Boards products. This new upgrade will allow users to burn HD DVD content on typical DVD-R (4.7 GB) discs, which allows anyone with a DVD-R burner the ability to burn and deliver HD content. The HD DVD Pack is capable of doing this because HD DVD players read typical DVD-R discs at three times speed. With a maximum bit rate of 10Mbps on a DVD disc, spinning at 3x, you'll get a 30Mbps stream. That's perfectly capable of displaying HD content. When Pinnacle was visiting us several weeks ago they demo'd this feature and the results we're pleasing. Of course, to really benefit from this feature you'll need to find an audience that has an HD DVD player (which currently is still a relatively expensive device, about $500), but isn't it nice to know you can bypass an HD DVD burner for now. We'll have a review shortly, so stay tuned.
