--- Forwarded Message from Carine Ullom <[log in to unmask]> ---

>Date: Tue, 05 Mar 2002 14:06:50 -0500
>From: Carine Ullom <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: even more DVD questions

Hello,
I've been following the DVD discussions on this list (both those of
February '02 and Nov '00-April '01) and have
learned a great deal from many of you.  However, I have a few more
questions that I haven't seen addressed and for
which I hope some of you have experiences that you can share.

Background: We have 4 classrooms with instructor's stations (computers
w/DVD drives) and ceiling mounted data
projectors capable of playing PAL or NTSC.

Fundamental question: Should we buy stand-alone DVD players or should we
use software players?  Other than the
obvious additional cost of the stand-alone players, what are the pros
and cons?  What do your faculty prefer and why?

Secondary questions:
If you use software to play DVDs:
1) Do software driven DVD players play PAL DVDs (I don't have any to
test with yet)?
1a) If yes, does it detect the format automatically or will the
instructor have to change a setting?
2) We have PowerDVD installed all over campus.  My lab tech tells me
that it ignores region codes so that I won't even
have to worry about a software decoder or a hack to get it to work more
than 5 times with non-region 1 DVDs.  Does
anyone out there have experience with this?
If you have a stand-alone player:
I've collected the make/model of several DVD players that are
region-free, play PAL and NTSC, and output an NTSC
signal.  Now it comes down to price and ease of use/learning curve.
Assuming we can afford the price (big assumption, I know), what can you
tell me about ease of use?  I'm interested in high faculty adopt-ability
and use factor rather than high geek factor.  Is the remote control easy
to understand and use?  Are the buttons on the panel easy to get to?
See?  Understand?

Thanks in advance.  I so appreciate the breadth and depth of knowledge
on this list and the fact that so many are willing to take the time to
share what they know.

Regards,
Carine Ullom
Director, Language Resource Center/
Instructional Technology Specialist
Department of Modern Languages & Literatures
St. Lawrence University
Canton, NY 13617
[log in to unmask]
315-229-5857 (tel)