--- Forwarded Message from "Michael Bush" <[log in to unmask]> ---
>From: "Michael Bush" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: "Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum" <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: RE: #4805 DVD-Regional Standards
>Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 14:34:14 -0700
>In-reply-to: <[log in to unmask]>
>Importance: Normal
------------------
Ed asks some interesting questions here. I am working on an article on all
of this, but since he raises the questions, here is some advance
information.
He stated:
> The regional standard is set by the disk makers purposely
> so as to avoid copyright infringement and/or guarantee
> multiple sales in different countries.
I think this is accurate, but it is also is a question of licenses and
rights. For example I have seen French movies that have been released in
this country that have the regional code set for North America. My
understanding is that these companies have rights for this market but not in
Europe so they set the discs can only be played in North America.
> 2. If this is the case, is the regional standard issue insurmountable?
> How does one use a DVD brought back, say, from the Czech Republic
> or Germany?
You have to first deal of course with the issue of PAL versus NTSC data
streams since these two are of course different. Do not fall into the trap
that "because the data is digital we should not have this problem." We still
have to deal with frames per second and lines per frame, both of which are
different in the two primary TV standards. It is essential that he digital
data representing these frames and lines must still be based on the TV
standard on which the images will displayed. Nevertheless, this is not
technically a very difficult problem to solve. The biggest issue is whether
it is economically interesting for consumer electronics companies to make
such capabilities widely available. Please note that the industrial DVD
player from Philips scheduled to be available in February will play both PAL
and NTSC discs given of course that you have a multi-standard monitor that
will handle the two signals.
The next issue is one of the region code. My first thought has been that
European companies have significant economic interest in addressing this in
the widest possible means. On the one hand they will want to have the
broadest possible market available. On there other they have licensing and
distribution issues that they must address. Nevertheless, I have heard of
black-market ROM fixes on the Internet that circumvent this issue. There are
perhaps of course issues of legality here, but I have to wonder if one
cannot change any player one owns. Members of the DVD Forum are
contractually bound to respect the requirements of the Forum, but there is a
question as to whether anyone with the technical skills to change a ROM
should be able to do so. Of course if the ROM contains code that is a
violation of copyright laws, then they are probably at fault in implementing
it. I am of course not a lawyer but this seems to be a common sense issue
(not always a good basis of judgement in legal issues).
> 3. In the event that foreign purchased DVD discs can be used in some
> fashion, how are European DVD films generally audio recorded? Are they
> likely to have multi-lingual tracks that can be selected? Are they likely
> to have multi-lingual subtitles that can be chosen among?
This is a very subjective issue and depends on the movie. There is a WIDE
variety of how companies are doing this. One interesting fact is that
sub-titles and audio in the SAME language are often VERY different. As an
extreme case, I just got permission to return an opened copy of Ponette to
Amazon.com because company that produced the disc (Fox Lorber of New York)
had used the sub-titled version from which the videotape was used, i.e. the
sub-titles were on the video itself and could not be turned off and on like
one can normally do with DVD. Between a disc that is "well-done" (whatever
we think that might mean) and this example, there is a lot of room for
variation.
One element of DVD that I have found to be extremely exciting is my ability
to create compact discs in the Video CD format that will play on DVD
players. The Pioneer DVD V7200 player that we purchased this past fall will
only play CD-RW discs, but the newer Philips industrial player will play
both CD-R as well as CD-RW discs. I have impressed myself with what I can do
with a Hi 8 video camera, a Dell 450 MHz PC with 128MB of RAM, a fast 14 GB
Ultra DMA EIDE hard drive (I would get a little better performance and video
quality using a fast SCSI 2 hard drive) motion JPEG video encoder card,
Adobe Premiere, the Xing MPEG 1 encoder and Adaptec's CD Creator Deluxe.
Given that I can also take snippets from VHS and videodisc movies, as well
as use video from Hi 8 and JPEG graphics, the potential here for classroom
use is enormous.
Cheers,
Mike
Michael Bush
Associate Professor of French and
Instructional Psychology and Technology
http://moliere.byu.edu/digital/
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