Page 1 of DVD TECHNOLOGY - STUPID?????

now dont get me wrong i love everything to do with dvd and am glad we finally have a decent format to watch films. however what i do find quite incredible is the problem with certain discs not working on certain players. surely some sort of standard shouldve been set by now so that all machines made will play all discs made (i dont necessarily mean R1 discs on R2 players). i originally had an alba 103 player (w***) but got so sick and tired of worrying whether my latest purchase would in fact play on my machine. imagine if you bought a video cassette and it didnt work on your vcr, or if the latest playstation game didnt work and you had to upgrade your PS. when will all this end? are people who cant afford expensive dvd players going to be screwed all the time just because manufacturers are after a quick-buck by releasing under-specked machines. im surprised someone like watchdog hasnt picked up on more about this..........

true m8,
but dont forget that us british region 2 disc owners arent supposed to be watching region 1 discs cos all the big companys
like mgm,and warner ,and the likes dont like us actually owning these discs cos we can get them mainly b4 they even hit the cinemas .....

No, Gerbil`s right.

The hardware cannot possibly be to blame when it comes to not playing discs. The `Watchdog` report into the Wharfedale fiasco didn`t really do Columbia enough disservice in my opinion.

The fact of the matter is, the American studios are releasing discs that simply don`t meet the original MPEG agreement requirements for DVD in Europe (I`ve been researching this for my website !).

Why should it be down to the hardware manufacturers, e.g. Scan and Encore, to constantly have to issue new firmware to cope with yet another disc that has some added ingredient that was never in the original DVD manifesto (look at DVD-ROM material and all the hassle that caused, e.g The Matrix, etc).

And this is REGION TWO we`re talking about, not Region One.

The studios really are NOT playing ball, and are forcing us budget player - owning people a lot of grief.

But how can it be stopped...?

This item was edited on Monday, 8th January 2001, 20:17

Well when Sony,Philips,Toshiba, put DVD together, they must have based it on certain specs,JVC did it with the VHS format.
Who knows where it went wrong, perhaps theres to many fingers in the pie!

too true clayts,
but i honestly think it will take some time for @ll this sh*t to stop basically when will it or will it
maybe it will take some big ba****d of a dvd player to kick ass but its a big demand for dvd hardware now as more and more familys
are wanting dvd now and ppl are getting budget systems nowadays cos if dvds are made cheap enough now which
basically your average family can pick one up for next to nothing now christ even toys r us are selling them now
i think we are a long way of for now though .........

Well done gerbil for writing the thoughts of many, like many i like dvd as a format to watch movies but the problem discs is crazy, no wonder video cd and svcd is still popular in the far east, at least it`s mostly guaranteed to play on all vcd/dvd players.

As DVD is becoming more mainstream, the player/disc incompatabilty discs will be a major problem for the average person new to dvd, and it`s not just the budget machines which are affected - http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/bugreports/bugreports.cgi

Why don`t companies stop putting 30 different subtitles, stupid dvd-rom links and test their discs out thoroughly prior to release, save us a lot of hassle or do we have to buy a new player every year or so?

>>"JVC did it with the VHS format."

Actually Bear...this isn`t widely known, but VHS was actually invented by Sony at the same time as Betamax...then sold lock/stock & barrell to JVC, including the "invention" rights.
Why? Because Beta was a far suprerior system, Sony thought it would kick ass against VHS, and laughed up their sleeves, but then didn`t allow Beta machines for "Rental" companies, only Retail sales (trying to make an upmarket clientel only)
Why did this go wrong?
Well, most of us couldn`t afford £700 or thereabouts for a video, so we rented it first. Once we knew we liked it and the price came down, we purchased the replacement for the rental.
(average rental contract was 12 to 18 months)
Now, look at the Betamax downspiral..took around 2 to 3 years, right?
I.E.: When people`s rental contracts finished, and they bought the replacement.

What was Sony`s two major screw ups in this deal?

1) Not renting out Betamax (most of us would have preferred this system as it was better quality and smaller tapes)

2) Selling the rights to a company OWNED by ThornEMI, who in turn OWNED the D.E.R. rental chain!!!

(and no, this isn`t waffle, this was given to me a few years back by a Sony rep with evidence to back it up!! I didn`t believe him at first!)

AIWA 370 (officially) ROCKS!!!!!!