APTC & DVDs

Firstly.... I didn't make it down Thursday - was the Annual Peanut
Throwing Competition held in our new location ?

Secondly Tescos have had a quite massive restock of the Wharfdale DVD
players I've been pursuing. Any recommendations for discs to buy ?

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Philip Ayres
payres@
www.netcomuk.co.uk
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On Sat, 24 Jun 2000, Philip Ayres wrote:
No show I'm afraid. The toffs wearing Peanut-catching-hats were
non-existant. *8(
I've yet to find a crap disc. Picture/sound quality is vastly better than
VHS, obviously. The only thing that differs are the extra features - they
even vary between US and UK releases.

Chris

---

christ@ #include <stddisclaimer.h> http://www.instituteofcorrection.org.uk/

"So this is really me? A no-style gimbo with teeth druids could use as a
place of worship" - Duaine Dibley (Red Dwarf - "Back to Reality")

You have to wonder where they did go this year. Bet the MF didn't get kuch
extra biz off them.
The ones I have so far have been excellent - Dune, Matrix, Excalibur and 5
Doctors - very impressed. Sean brought some Region 1 stuff round yesterday
so I can confirm to anyone tempted that the R1 hack on the Wharfdale does
work. (The Godzilla discs have been ordered from Amazon US) The player
itself is thoroughly good value at 180 and I can recommend it to anyone
looking for a cheap start.

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Philip Ayres
payres@
www.netcomuk.co.uk
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OK... but does it play the Matrix (and other trouble DVD's)?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This tagline has been cruelly tested on cute furry animals.

"Let me try on your dress, it turns me on when we're a mess...
We won't live forever now, so let's make the most of it somehow"

nothing@

On Sun, 25 Jun 2000, Nothing *innocent* wrote:
Bad DVDs? Try Bladerunner, Fifth element Region 2, Starship troopers
region 2 (flipper, yuck), The rock Region 2 (same again), Highlander (poor
transfer image), and a whole host more. http://www.dvdweb.co.uk, and check
out the R1 vs R2 comparisons.

And yes, the wharfey does play problem discs such as the matrix. I don't
think it does conversion of NTSC to Pal50, like the samsung 709 does, only
Pal60, so there go any ideas of recording R1 dvds onto tape :o)

cheers
Asan

===========================================================
Asach Tu
elterwater@
http://www.cs.rhbnc.ac.uk/~asach
07956 151 141
===========================================================

Thanks .... I'm tempted by a few of them so I'll buy a couple - pay rise
season :-) - and see what the results are. According to Total DVD which I
read occasionally there's been no problems detected with this player so far.
The Bush 2002 through it's built in "Engineer's Menu" does apparently have a
facility for disabling macrovision copy protect.... Is this the same thing
we're talking about ?

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Philip Ayres
payres@
www.netcomuk.co.uk
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On Sun, 25 Jun 2000, Philip Ayres wrote:
No, it's not the same thing. NTSC pictures have a high refresh frequency
of 60hz but with only a screen resolution of 525 lines. PAL signals are a
frequency of
50hz but with a screen resolution of 625 lines.
Some older TVs cannot handle a true NTSC picture, but can handle a
hybrid NTSC/PAL form known as PAL60.

You can get UK DVD players which will convert an NTSC picture to
PAL60. However, very few Video recorders can actually record PAL60 or
NTSC.
So what you actually need is a DVD player which can convert NTSC to true
PAL50. My DXR2 DVD card can do this, as can the Samsung 709.
PAL60 tends to cause problems on older TVs and things, but if your TV
is capable of playing back NTSC it is generally capable of playing back
PAL60.

Macrovision is a form of copy protection employed on retail/rental video
cassetes and DVDs. The All-region hack for the wharfedale does not remove
the Macrovision protection I'm afraid, so there'll be no dodgy copying :/
(The samsung 709 does all-regions and Macrovision removal, as well as true
PAL50 output)

Read the following sites :o)
http://www.dvdweb.co.uk
http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk

cheers
Asan

===========================================================
Asach Tu
elterwater@
http://www.cs.rhbnc.ac.uk/~asach
07956 151 141
===========================================================

Asach Tu said:
Considering NTSC contains 60 frames per second, and PAL (at least the
standard PAL50 we're talking about) contains 50, there are only really 2
ways to do this "convert NTSC to true PAL50"...

1: You play 50 frames every second instead of the 60 that the film was
filmed in. The whole movie takes 20% longer than it should have done,
music is transposed about 2 notes lower in pitch than it should be, and
loads of idiots say "the american version must have been cut because the
UK version is 20 minutes longer!"

2: You remove 1 out of every 6 frames in order to play at full speed whilst
still using the standard frame-rate. This is fantastically difficult to
do nicely - you're bound to introduce a very noticable glitch, 10 times a
second, into any smooth motion, and there's really no way around it
without shooting film again at 50FPS.

Neither of these methods is particularly nice. Which methods are used by
your DXR2 DVD card and the Samsung 709 - do you know?

---

Nick Waterman. Senior Systems Administrator, Sony Interactive Services
mailto:nick-sig@ http://www.nilex.co.uk/~nick/
AX25:G7RZQ@#32.GBR.EU #include <stddisclaimer> Team *AMIGA*!
All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.

AFAIK The DXR2 uses 3:2 frame pulldown, which is pretty much the 2nd
method. However, the difference is not noticable (anyone who possesses a
copy of one of my "backups" has never noticed).

Certainly the effect is not noticable at all, and is a small price to pay
to get these pesky kids off me back with tapes of Pokemon the Movie....

:o)

===========================================================
Asach Tu
elterwater@
http://www.cs.rhbnc.ac.uk/~asach
07956 151 141
===========================================================

On Mon, 26 Jun 2000, Nick Waterman wrote:
not necessarily true. NTSC is 60 hz, but is interlaced, the actual frame
rate is 30fps. PAL is 50hz, interlaced, the actual frame rate is 24/25fps
(depending on who you believe).

Comparisons between US and UK running
times on movies have shown that an identical UK movie does run for a few
minutes extra, due to the slower frame rate.

The use of the terms NTSC and PAL to describe video standards has been
high jacked a little, since they were originally used to describe the
different colour modulation schemes between the different global
regions. PAL60 for instance is NTSC which uses PAL-style colour
modulation. They are more commonly used now as terms to refer to
525line/60hz/30fps NTSC and 625/50hz/25fps PAL. And don't even mention
SECAM....

:o)

===========================================================
Asach Tu
elterwater@
http://bounce.to/asan
07956 151 141
===========================================================

In article <Pine.OSF.4.21.0006262325020.752-100000@>, Asach Tu <asach@> wrote:
I believe the standards orgs. PAL is just about 25fps. (It's not exactly,
it is 1/625 of 1/1135 of 4 times the colour subcarrier frequency, which is
about 4.43Mhz. But that is more detail than most of you need.)

Panavision film is 24fps, and when they copy a film to video, they generally
go one frame per frame, and the film runs 4% faster. For NTSC, doing the
same thing would result in the film running 20% faster, so they use some
fancy digital games to convert the frame rate. These digital games lose
detail, so if you couple that with the extra 20% of resolution you
get (PAL is about 600 lines of picture, NTSC only 500) and the improved
colour resolution, you will see that our TV is not just superior to the
US effort in terms of artistic merit. We have some technical advantages,
too.


When you play an NTSC disc on a cheap DVD player, the picture you get is
30 frames/525 lines, but the colour signal is PAL. When you play it on
a good DVD player (and the DXR2 is one of the best) the player displays
the correct format: but you can see little artifacts, especially around
things like the credits. This is as they try to convert 500 lines to
600 lines: you can see the same effect if you look through two fences,
say when staring out of the window on the train.

For maximum picture quality from the DXR2, you use your computer monitor,
and display 1024x768 RGB. Now you have double the resolution of a normal
TV, or thereabouts, and somewhere approaching the 3000x1200 resolution of
true Panavision. Get a projector that does this resolution, all over the
wall, and you have the makings of the best home cinema system that Joe
Punter can buy.

You also have very little change from UK10,000. But doesn't "Galaxy Quest"
look good on a 120" screen that is bigger than some of the ones in Virgin
Slough?


[...]
Sequential a modulaire is the name for the French "we have to be different"
system that was developed ... all right, I'll get my coat.

---

Simon

---

"This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind" -Ecclesiastes 4:16

simon@ | Not affiliated to any religion
simon@ | Not affiliated to any politics
H +44 1784 431998 | Not affiliated to any ideology
M +44 7967 109779 (GMT/BST) | What does that make me?

simon@ said:
... let alone tottenham court road...

---

Nick Waterman. Senior Systems Administrator, Sony Interactive Services
mailto:nick-sig@ http://www.nilex.co.uk/~nick/
AX25:G7RZQ@#32.GBR.EU #include <stddisclaimer> Team *AMIGA*!
Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy.

DVD
than
they
5
yesterday
does
Plays the R2 Matrix fine - see above list of what I've got and tried on it.
The R1 discs we've tried included X-Files movie, The Mummy, A Bugs Life and
Austin Powers II

As for other problem discs - like what ? The Matrix is the main problem one
to the best of my knowledge.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Philip Ayres
payres@
www.netcomuk.co.uk
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"Probelm" disks tend to be those which are rich in extra features and
disks which have dvd-rom features.

as for copying to tape... I never get a good picture when using my dxr2
when copying region 1 DVD's. I always get a fuzzy looking picture
(probably doing something wrong), coulour always seems to be wrong and
picture is jumpy. Any advice to overcome this would be most helpfull.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This tagline has been cruelly tested on cute furry animals.

"Let me try on your dress, it turns me on when we're a mess...
We won't live forever now, so let's make the most of it somehow"

nothing@

On Mon, 26 Jun 2000, Nothing *innocent* wrote:
Like the Abyss Special Edition.
check you've got remote selector set to Pal DVD, Pal 50, Macrovision
disabled. Also, check your cabling and make sure you have decent shielding
on them. Interference from your PC will play havoc with the picture.

I've never had a problem with recording of NTSC DVDs onto a PAL video, so
long as it was all setup properly :o)

cheers
asan

===========================================================
Asach Tu
elterwater@
http://www.cs.rhbnc.ac.uk/~asach
07956 151 141
===========================================================