If you mean dvd owners buying imported discs, then i would say it's much more than 1%, because they wouldn't be selling multi region dvd players as well if region 1 discs weren't very popular over here. They have them everywhere, amazon, in the shops. Basically, you have a dvd player that can play all regions, but you might mostly use it for region 2, but if you want to play region 1 discs, then that feature is always there to use.
The vast majority of people buy their DVD player from Argos and their disks from Tescos. We are not typical!
I'm kinda new around here and this post may seem a little off topic, but...
Does anybody who really appreciates quality ever play back region 1 discs on a region 2 system anyway?
The conversion from 30 to 25 frames per second generally produces devastatingly hideous results, not to mention the horrible rescale involved to stretch the reduced number of scan lines back out to the UK standard.
Unless the new players are going to be vastly superior to the poo we have to put up with now, watching region 1 discs in the UK is not an option for a videophile anyway.
I'm seriously hoping that HD-DVD or BlueRay playback drives become available for PCs (or are they already?) because it's the only way to get sufficient processing horsepower behind the decode process to give a really clean artifact-free picture at present.
Surely the increased datarates that will be potentially available will only exacerbate this problem regardless which of the two standards wins through.
This is not a rant... this is not a rant... LOL!
Cheers, Slipstreem.
Converting NTSC to PAL does give poor results if you convert to PAL 50.
But most dvd players will play NTSC as NTSC,so no quality is lost.
Many will convert to PAL 60 which is nowhere near as bad as PAL 50.
Usually the el cheapo players will either be preset to output NTSC as PAL 50 or 60,or may not even offer pure NTSC playback at all.
But quality players will give you the choice,and while NTSC is never as good as PAL(it is 100 lines less after all),results are nevertheless ,satisfactory.
Before someone says it,NTSC plays back at 24fps after pulldown,rather than 30fps,so it does not make up for the loss of those 100 lines.
But many will buy R1 purely because they get a better deal,or because you get more extras,no cuts,and also as certain titles are simply unavailable in the UK.
The knowledgeable punter who's bothered about the contents of a disc will already be aware of R1.The majority of the quality unconscious British public could not care less whether their dvd looks better than VHS anyway.They only bought a dvd player because everyone else has one
Can't argue with any of that. Guess I've just become a fussy sod since moving over to a 60" screen DLP projector system. LOL!
I'd been saving my pennies for ages to build this setup and I get amazing results with good source material, but anything even remotely sub-standard makes my eyes ache.
VHS? Bring back Philips v2000 I say. Still have 2 machines in full working order circa 1983. Awesome beasties!
Can't argue with any of that. Guess I've just become a fussy sod since moving over to a 60" screen DLP projector system. LOL!
I'd been saving my pennies for ages to build this setup and I get amazing results with good source material, but anything even remotely sub-standard makes my eyes ache.
VHS? Bring back Philips v2000 I say. Still have 2 machines in full working order circa 1983. Awesome beasties!
I'm kinda new around here and this post may seem a little off topic, but...
Does anybody who really appreciates quality ever play back region 1 discs on a region 2 system anyway?
The conversion from 30 to 25 frames per second generally produces devastatingly hideous results, not to mention the horrible rescale involved to stretch the reduced number of scan lines back out to the UK standard.
Unless the new players are going to be vastly superior to the poo we have to put up with now, watching region 1 discs in the UK is not an option for a videophile anyway.
I'm seriously hoping that HD-DVD or BlueRay playback drives become available for PCs (or are they already?) because it's the only way to get sufficient processing horsepower behind the decode process to give a really clean artifact-free picture at present.
Surely the increased datarates that will be potentially available will only exacerbate this problem regardless which of the two standards wins through.
This is not a rant... this is not a rant... LOL!
Cheers, Slipstreem.
Cheap DVD players usually have three picture format settings:
PAL - 525/60 converted to 625/50
NTSC - 625/50 converted to 525/60
AUTO - 525/60 and 625/50 output as is
If you use AUTO and change the colour setting from composite to RGB you will get the best possible quality.
One of the reasons some of us like to buy region 1 discs is that 24fps sources (feature films, US TV shows) do not run 4% fast. Some people like to pretend that playing back 24fps sources at 25fps makes no difference, but actually it makes quite a lot of difference; Lost for example is far more atmospheric when not speeded up.
Hopefully 24fps content on Blu-ray and HD-DVD will be encoded at 1080p24 even in Europe. Not everyone believes this though, and it's possible next gen UK DVD releases will also be speeded up.
The difference between 24fps and 25fps is only noticeable if you get to compare them.
Most people don't get the opportunity.
And as the great British public have been watching movies and US imports at the wrong speed for almost 40 years,its a bit late to worry about it now
I don't use a standalone DVD player since setting up the projection system. Tried a few and they all looked pretty ropey by my standards on a 60inch screen.
My source signal comes from the SVGA(high quality RGB) output on a home-brewed PC multimedia centre. I use PowerDVD as the playback software and the image quality is truly awesome!
Had to make a few sacrifices in order to save up the dosh to build this setup, but worth every penny.
The total cost of the PC and DLP projector came to just over a grand, which I could have spent easily on a plasma or LCD setup and then spent forever whinging about. I'm VERY happy with what I have!
We seem to be comparing apples to oranges here. I'm not slating standalone DVD players, but the video bandwidth of the best standalone player is significantly worse than the output of any PC graphics card.
From memory, the video bandwidth of a theoretically perfect standalone machine will be in the region of 7MHz. The video bandwidth (using RGB) of even the worst modern projectors comes in at around 60MHz. Modern PC graphics cards have a bandwidth well in excess of what can be displayed by even the best projector.
My run-of-the-mill graphics card provides :-
Seamless integration of pixel shaders with video,
FullStream™ video de-blocking technology,
Noise removal filtering for captured video,
MPEG-2 decoding with motion compensation, iDCT and color space conversion,
All-format DTV/HDTV decoding,
Adaptive de-interlacing and frame rate conversion,
Dual integrated display controllers,
Dual integrated 10-bit per channel 400 MHz DACs.
In layman's terms, the PC route gives at least 8 times the crispness of any standalone! This is probably why I notice artifacts on all but the best of source material. Swings and roundabouts.
I'm not sure what the maximum recoverable video bandwidth is from a DVD disc, but currently, a PC is theoretically the only way of recovering this much bandwidth.
My post was all tongue in cheek. Mate, take no personal offence As you said, apples and oranges. I was just spoofing my view. 'Bunch of Arse', was just a comedy expression. I should have added some smilies, so I've added them now.
At the moment, if you're using various media with different resolutions like HD. A PC is the only way to go just now. I'd be very curious to see a set up like yours in action.
Apologies if I over-reacted a bit there. So many people seem to have a deep-seated fear or hatred of seeing PCs taking over and I feared that you may be one of them.
I'd also like to make it clear that I'm not bragging about my system, just trying to be a good samaritan and spread the word.
I currently watch MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and DVB streams grabbed from a PC Freeview card, as well as listening to MP3 files via jukebox-style software. The audio goes out via optical digital to a 5.1 surround amp. Nothing I could buy off-the-shelf comes close to this setup for performance.
One day, everyone will have a system like this, but sometimes I forget how lucky I am being able to build my own PCs and tend to take it for granted that everyone can.
Morning folks. Interesting news from HP that they might go from exclusively supporting BluRay to supporting both BR and HD-DVD if the BluRay standard doesnt make a change to allow ripping of BR-Rom media to allow streaming around a home network.
To tell you the truth, i'm not really surprised that BlueRay is gaining more support. It's the only sensible thing to do really, i mean, BlueRay has 50GB of space for a dual layer disc (which they'll most likely be using), whereas Toshiba's only has 25GB of storage space, i know which i'd pick.
If they were both of the same size, then they might have had equal chances at being picked, but with one considerably larger storage that the other, this gives so much more advantage to the bigger storage disc.
I really don't know why Toshiba only decided to make theirs with just 25GB, when BlueRay discs came with a whopping 50GB of storage. Unless Toshiba had no idea how big BlueRay's were going to be, and came into the race blindly. But anyway, i would definitely go for BlueRay's. More content can only mean much better for the customer. It will keep them entertained for far longer than what was on the 25GB versions.
One day, everyone will have a system like this, but sometimes I forget how lucky I am being able to build my own PCs and tend to take it for granted that everyone can.
I wish I could make my girlfriend see sense, however in the limited space we share it seems anything to do with a pc should be pushed away into a dark corner, quite frustrating for me as everything she wants from all the grey boxes in the living room can be done on one PC, and can be done cheaper. Until PC's become mainstream for home entertainment I've got to put up with the 'PC is for internet shopping and microsoft word' attitude. There is a good side to all of this however, I don't have any episodes of eastenders or corrie wasting space on my hard disk drives.
My mother is just the same around pc's. She doesn't have a clue about them, and wouldn't even know how to switch the thing off properly. But yes, computers are becoming more popular these days, whether it's a pc or mac, more people are starting to know a lot more about them.
Comments
The vast majority of people buy their DVD player from Argos and their disks from Tescos. We are not typical!
But most dvd players will play NTSC as NTSC,so no quality is lost.
Many will convert to PAL 60 which is nowhere near as bad as PAL 50.
Usually the el cheapo players will either be preset to output NTSC as PAL 50 or 60,or may not even offer pure NTSC playback at all.
But quality players will give you the choice,and while NTSC is never as good as PAL(it is 100 lines less after all),results are nevertheless ,satisfactory.
Before someone says it,NTSC plays back at 24fps after pulldown,rather than 30fps,so it does not make up for the loss of those 100 lines.
But many will buy R1 purely because they get a better deal,or because you get more extras,no cuts,and also as certain titles are simply unavailable in the UK.
The knowledgeable punter who's bothered about the contents of a disc will already be aware of R1.The majority of the quality unconscious British public could not care less whether their dvd looks better than VHS anyway.They only bought a dvd player because everyone else has one
Can't argue with any of that. Guess I've just become a fussy sod since moving over to a 60" screen DLP projector system. LOL!
I'd been saving my pennies for ages to build this setup and I get amazing results with good source material, but anything even remotely sub-standard makes my eyes ache.
VHS? Bring back Philips v2000 I say. Still have 2 machines in full working order circa 1983. Awesome beasties!
Cheers, Slipstreem.
So where did you find this out then??
What's your make of DVD player?
Cheap DVD players usually have three picture format settings:
PAL - 525/60 converted to 625/50
NTSC - 625/50 converted to 525/60
AUTO - 525/60 and 625/50 output as is
If you use AUTO and change the colour setting from composite to RGB you will get the best possible quality.
One of the reasons some of us like to buy region 1 discs is that 24fps sources (feature films, US TV shows) do not run 4% fast. Some people like to pretend that playing back 24fps sources at 25fps makes no difference, but actually it makes quite a lot of difference; Lost for example is far more atmospheric when not speeded up.
Hopefully 24fps content on Blu-ray and HD-DVD will be encoded at 1080p24 even in Europe. Not everyone believes this though, and it's possible next gen UK DVD releases will also be speeded up.
Most people don't get the opportunity.
And as the great British public have been watching movies and US imports at the wrong speed for almost 40 years,its a bit late to worry about it now
I don't use a standalone DVD player since setting up the projection system. Tried a few and they all looked pretty ropey by my standards on a 60inch screen.
My source signal comes from the SVGA(high quality RGB) output on a home-brewed PC multimedia centre. I use PowerDVD as the playback software and the image quality is truly awesome!
Had to make a few sacrifices in order to save up the dosh to build this setup, but worth every penny.
The total cost of the PC and DLP projector came to just over a grand, which I could have spent easily on a plasma or LCD setup and then spent forever whinging about. I'm VERY happy with what I have!
Cheers, Slipstreem.
I use component progressive with my projector and get beautifully clean artifact free images up to 80" with both PAL and NTSC sources.
We seem to be comparing apples to oranges here. I'm not slating standalone DVD players, but the video bandwidth of the best standalone player is significantly worse than the output of any PC graphics card.
From memory, the video bandwidth of a theoretically perfect standalone machine will be in the region of 7MHz. The video bandwidth (using RGB) of even the worst modern projectors comes in at around 60MHz. Modern PC graphics cards have a bandwidth well in excess of what can be displayed by even the best projector.
My run-of-the-mill graphics card provides :-
Seamless integration of pixel shaders with video,
FullStream™ video de-blocking technology,
Noise removal filtering for captured video,
MPEG-2 decoding with motion compensation, iDCT and color space conversion,
All-format DTV/HDTV decoding,
Adaptive de-interlacing and frame rate conversion,
Dual integrated display controllers,
Dual integrated 10-bit per channel 400 MHz DACs.
In layman's terms, the PC route gives at least 8 times the crispness of any standalone! This is probably why I notice artifacts on all but the best of source material. Swings and roundabouts.
I'm not sure what the maximum recoverable video bandwidth is from a DVD disc, but currently, a PC is theoretically the only way of recovering this much bandwidth.
I rest my case. LOL!
Cheers, Slipstreem. :cool:
With a high performance DVD player, projector and high quality connections, you don't need all that PC guff. You can't improve on the source material.
Crispness? Sounds awful.
Ive tried being nice to you.
Guess it's just time to ignore you from now on if your answer to a well constructed argument is "bunch of arse!"
See ya!
At the moment, if you're using various media with different resolutions like HD. A PC is the only way to go just now. I'd be very curious to see a set up like yours in action.
Apologies if I over-reacted a bit there. So many people seem to have a deep-seated fear or hatred of seeing PCs taking over and I feared that you may be one of them.
I'd also like to make it clear that I'm not bragging about my system, just trying to be a good samaritan and spread the word.
I currently watch MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and DVB streams grabbed from a PC Freeview card, as well as listening to MP3 files via jukebox-style software. The audio goes out via optical digital to a 5.1 surround amp. Nothing I could buy off-the-shelf comes close to this setup for performance.
One day, everyone will have a system like this, but sometimes I forget how lucky I am being able to build my own PCs and tend to take it for granted that everyone can.
BTW I like both apples and oranges. LOL!
Cheers, Slipstreem. :cool:
Another BIG blow to Toshiba's war effort!
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20051020006021&newsLang=en
If they were both of the same size, then they might have had equal chances at being picked, but with one considerably larger storage that the other, this gives so much more advantage to the bigger storage disc.
I really don't know why Toshiba only decided to make theirs with just 25GB, when BlueRay discs came with a whopping 50GB of storage. Unless Toshiba had no idea how big BlueRay's were going to be, and came into the race blindly. But anyway, i would definitely go for BlueRay's. More content can only mean much better for the customer. It will keep them entertained for far longer than what was on the 25GB versions.
I wish I could make my girlfriend see sense, however in the limited space we share it seems anything to do with a pc should be pushed away into a dark corner, quite frustrating for me as everything she wants from all the grey boxes in the living room can be done on one PC, and can be done cheaper. Until PC's become mainstream for home entertainment I've got to put up with the 'PC is for internet shopping and microsoft word' attitude. There is a good side to all of this however, I don't have any episodes of eastenders or corrie wasting space on my hard disk drives.
There is a thread over in the 'Home Entertainment Equipment' forum about using PCs to do it all.
I know... 'cos I started it. LOL!
Cheers, Slipstreem. :cool:
http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=293080
Cheers, Slipstreem. :cool:
thanks for all your posts