DVDs

Following the Toy Story problems I've had I've been keeping an eye on the story.

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/

Reports that it's not just my machine but several others (inc PS2 - Sean can we
get my copy to you for a try ?) and with several new Disney discs. A fault
more at the authoring stage ?

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Philip Ayres
payres@
www.netcomuk.co.uk~payres
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On the subject of DVDs...

Doe anyone have any experience with PC DVD-ROM drives
?
Are they any good ? I assume it's a lot easier to
region fix them through software ?

Any comments ?

Cheers,

Paul.

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I run one, but I would rather have a stand-alone player. The noise of
several hard drives and cooling fans does distract somewhat. If you intend
to use the PC you need to be careful that the components you use are not
region-locked. I had trouble with my DVD drive and had to get it replaced
twice before I got a region-free one.

I also use a decoder card as my computer doesn't have the horsepower to
decode in software. This is switched between regions by a handy little prog
I downloaded. I believe that software decoders can be patched to bypass the
region locks though.


Andy
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For sheer convenience, nothing can beat a stand alone DVD player. Yes, it
can be almost twice as expensive, but trust me, when you've got seven fans
going in your machine and your PC sounds like an airbus taxiing for take
off, you won't regret it.

Having said that, if you just plan to sit in front of your PC and have a
decent sized monitor, it can be the cheapo way to go. Anything above a
celeron 400 will perform the MPEG2 decoding in software fine, so all you
need is the DVD-ROM drive. If you plan to output to TV however, you may as
well get a decoder card, the output quality is far superior to that of a bog
standard TV out. But, if you're going to be watching it on telly anyway, get
a stand alone :)

DVD-ROM drives now come as RPC2 only, which means that you generally get
about 4 region changes before it locks. However, there exist many firmware
patches (http://www.firmware.com) for various makes of drive which can set
it to RPC1, or region-free. You've still got the region-checking on your
software player, but that can be bypassed by using a util like dvd-genie
(http://www.inmatrix.com).

Having a DVD-ROM drive does have it's advantages tho. For a start, with the
suitable software, you can grab still images off a DVD-video and use it as
your background, or rip entire movies to DIVX;-) format.........

I've only got that at the moment. It's fine if there's just you, but tbh if you
want to watch with more than one person, a puny little computer monitor is just
not enough (my computer doesn't have a socket for attaching it to the TV). So
we're getting a TV one soon. The fan noise can be a little bit annoying, but
not desperately so.

Never tried region fixing it though.

Love,
Lizz




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They seem to work in most case better than stand alone players (as long as
windows doesn't crash on you). Never had any problem with any DVD, and it
even beats the new RCE region protection.

Getting them to be region free can be tricky, lots of horror storiers
about people trying to make their drive region free but ended up cup
holder instead.
But, as its been poitned out already, you can do alot with a PC-DVD,
basiclly the ability to back up your films in any number of ways.

Also, some of the PC frindly dvd's out there are actually contain decent
extras for your PC.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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@

Philip.Ayres@ wrote:
Oh, it's probably some stunning new "feature", or maybe an "anti piracy
device" or "region code enforcement" or something ridiculous. DVD is a
seriously screwed format. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be
anything nicer around at the moment.

---

Nick Waterman. Senior Systems Administrator, SO-NET, Sony UK
mailto:nick-sig@ http://www.nilex.co.uk/~nick/
AX25:G7RZQ@#32.GBR.EU #include <stddisclaimer> Team *AMIGA*!
Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.

Nahhhhhhh. The wharfedale 750, Grundig 210something or other, Proline 1000
and the PS2 are all based on the same chipset, which has problems with some
of these more 'extravagant' DVDs. The reason why these problems aren't
present on the Wharfedale 750S is because sony bought out the worlds supply
of (luxenor?) chipsets. This forced Wharfedale to change chips, hence the
750S, and hence no problems with it.