HD on Linux and Mobile/CloneDVD2 development

[sej7278]

I'm thinking of getting a HD-DVD drive (and AnyDVD-HD upgrade) and was wondering if anyone has managed to get HD content to play under Linux.

I was thinking of doing like I do with regular DVD's and use AnyDVD under VMWare to rip, and then either play the VOBs under Linux, or recode to XviD using Mobile.

But can you even play the EVO files under Linux - or is Mobile going to be able to recode them in the foreseable future - maybe to an H264 or MKV file (preferably something my XBox1 Media Centre can cope with).

I seem to recall that CloneDVD2 can't convert EVOs to VOBs (i.e. convert HD-DVD to DVD) is there any progress on this, or is that not even considered - I guess converting HD to DVD is a little pointless.

If most HD-DVD's are 30Gb or so, what's the quality like when reduced to 4-9Gb to fit on a DVD-R, still better than a regular DVD I guess (I'm one of those people who was never really impressed by DVD quality).

I just noticed that NeroLinux can burn HD-DVD (or BluRay) although I didn't even think the hardware existed yet, bet the media is expensive (DVD+R DL is still a Pound a piece last time I looked).