DVDs

mbangler · Jul 23rd, 2003, 11:22 PM

As I understand it the North American standards for DVDs are different than European. ie: A DVD purchased here will not play on their hardware.
My question is this: If I were to purchase a PB w/superdrive here would the burned DVDs be playable on hardware there?

Neil Yates · Jul 23rd, 2003, 11:57 PM

DATA DVD-R discs - yes. They are not regionally coded, like DVD-Video discs.

Moscool · Jul 24th, 2003, 03:22 AM

mbangler, a couple of concepts here:

1) Superdrive as a player:

Superdrive will play any format DVD that is not regionally encoded, i.e. most non Hollywood products.

Superdrive will also play any format DVD that is regionally encoded, but you need to reset your DVD reading software to the correct region. OS X lets you do this 5 times after which you configuration is fixed. There are some hacks around although I have not looked for specific ones (by the way there are no *legal* requirements do restrict zones, simply contractual arrangements between software and hardware manufacturers. The view, especially in Europe, is that you should be able to read any DVD, provided that you have paid for it!

2) Superdrive as a burner

Superdrive will burn to both NTSC (Americas + Japan) and PAL (Europe + rest of the world). On iDVD it is a bit fiddly: you need to set this in he preferences for a new project before you create the new project. This can be changed for each new project.

3) Reading NTSC DVDs in PAL countries

Virtually all DVD players less than two years old read NTSC DVDs. The vast majority of DVD players sold in Europe receive a post manufacturing 'tweak' to make them multi-region compatible. In other words any NTSC DVD burned with a Superdrive will run on any modern European DVD player. However, because of frame rates, picture definition, etc, there will be a slight loss of quality when reading NTSC into PAL. The picture will look a bit more 'cackey' and 'digital'. Not a big problem for amateur films.

4) Reading PAL in NTSC countries

The combination of US lawyers and 'doesn't the whole world want to watch all films in zone 1?' makes it quite difficult to move the other way around. In practice it means that a PAL DVD can only be read on a computer (whether zoned or not). Obviously you can link said computer to a TV/big LCD.

5) Which blank media?

DVD-Rs are completely format neutral, like VHS tapes before them.

I hope this helps.

Ohenri · Jul 24th, 2003, 08:55 AM

Three cheers for ehMac.ca!! what brilliant details... I love this. Sorry for the moment guys. Nice one Moscool.

mbangler · Jul 24th, 2003, 04:02 PM

Thanks Moscool, that explained a lot. I noticed you have the new 12" PB listed as your hardware. This is what I'm considering getting w/superdrive . . . thus my original question. How do you find the small screen? By chance are you originally Canadian and now living in London? I'm going to be moving to France for a year or maybe forever soon. (Love makes ya do silly things. [img]redface.gif[/img] ) Any idea how the market place is for Mac programmers in general for Europe as a whole? I know that's a really open ended question but any advice would be appreciated.

Moscool · Jul 24th, 2003, 07:46 PM

mbangler another multiple level question... [img]graemlins/lmao.gif[/img]

So here we go:

PB12 is really cool if you can bear your left wrist roasting slowly. I went for the 60Gig HD and 384 RAM which are both enough for small film projects. I have since purchased a FW drive to store the huge film and DVD files.

The small screen is not a problem, as long as I don't have to sit next to s.o. with a Ti next to me! Film edits are very good even on a small screen. Weakness? The desktop gets cluttered really quickly.

I am indeed a Canadian, but of the $20 type (reference to the *old* price for a passport). Grew up in Paris an maried a Montréal girl met while at McGill... Been in London 17 years... Looking forward to buying a nice lake cottage in the Eastern Townships one of these days...

Finally, no clue about the market for programmers, not my field at all. My recommendation re. France: go for it, don't get offended and headbut first! Once you are past the early pissing contest life can become very pleasant indeed.
[img]graemlins/heybaby.gif[/img]

Sirius74 · Aug 11th, 2005, 07:34 PM

I'm running an iMac 2GHz PowerPC G5, 20" with 1 GB DDR SDRAM and 2 DIMMs and OS X Tiger (and updates are taken care of).
With that in mind, my questions are this: 1) Is there a way of resetting the DVD region code setting after it has been done 5 times? If so, how?

2) I have a set of DVDs that are "All Region"; however, the English subtitles are horrifically done! Can anyone tell me how I can get into these DVDs (there are 6 in total) and redo the subtitles proper? Better yet is there not only a way, but a program to take the dialogue and translate it to comprehendable English (subtitles-wise)?
i've been told there are, but as you can imagine, just being told there are (by PC only users no less) and not WHAT they're called, if there's a GOOD Mac version (or Mac only! ^^), etc.... is very frustrating! Especially since these DVDs are of a show that I used to watch in my youth and it'd be nice to have properly translated subtitles!

Any help anyone can offer will be GREATLY appreciated and I can only hope that I can return the kindness!

Gerbill · Aug 11th, 2005, 08:38 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by Sirius74
	I'm running an iMac 2GHz PowerPC G5, 20" with 1 GB DDR SDRAM and 2 DIMMs and OS X Tiger (and updates are taken care of). With that in mind, my questions are this: 1) Is there a way of resetting the DVD region code setting after it has been done 5 times? If so, how? 2) I have a set of DVDs that are "All Region"; however, the English subtitles are horrifically done! Can anyone tell me how I can get into these DVDs (there are 6 in total) and redo the subtitles proper? Better yet is there not only a way, but a program to take the dialogue and translate it to comprehendable English (subtitles-wise)? i've been told there are, but as you can imagine, just being told there are (by PC only users no less) and not WHAT they're called, if there's a GOOD Mac version (or Mac only! ^^), etc.... is very frustrating! Especially since these DVDs are of a show that I used to watch in my youth and it'd be nice to have properly translated subtitles! Any help anyone can offer will be GREATLY appreciated and I can only hope that I can return the kindness!

Well, you can pull the contents of your DVD onto your hard drive, simultaneously removing all regions and copy protection. There are a few Mac programs that will do this - my preference is MacTheRipper (free) http://www.ripdifferent.com/~mtr/

When you have "ripped" the DVD to your HDD, you can:

(1) play it directly from the Video_TS folder. You can use other solutions, but I prefer VLC Media Player (free) http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html

(2) change it to a QuickTime or MPEG movie for further editing. Again, there are other apps available, but I use a combination of the QuickTime Player Pro, ($30 US) http://www.apple.com/quicktime/pro/
QuickTime MPEG-2 Component from Apple ($20 US) http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/
and the MPEG Streamclip application (free) http://www.alfanet.it/squared5/mpegstreamclip.html
then edit in iMovie HD (part of iLife 5)

(3) burn it to a DVD-R. Since commercial DVDs are much larger in capacity than DVD-Rs, this often involves dropping some content (extras, language tracks, etc.) and/or compression. There are free solutions available, but I like Roxio Popcorn ($50 US) http://www.roxio.com/en/products/popcorn/index.jhtml

Hope this helps!

Glipt · Aug 14th, 2005, 09:58 PM

Unfotunately not all players play DVD-Rs. I'm running about 25% rejection on everything I do.

dona83 · Aug 14th, 2005, 11:02 PM

whenever I try to put a region 2 dvd into my drive, MacTheRipper won't read it, I just get a note saying that the DVD drive is set to the wrong region, if I press cancel it just ejects the DVD and MacTheRipper never gets a chance to rip it.