--- 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)