--- 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/