Will Your DVD Movies Last?

If you think your valued collection of DVD movies will last a lifetime, think again - some are already starting to wear away while others are falling apart.

Unofficial estimates put the number of affected DVDs at between 1 and 10%. Yet some of the main distributors for Hollywood Studios are accused of rejecting to accept the problem exists and replace defective products.

The technology, sold as a replacement for VHS, with added interactive contents, is now five years old and the DVD industry claims it is the most triumphant packaged media in consumer electronics history. The failures are a combination of corrosion - known as "DVD rot" - and delamination, where the layers of the disc separate.

Last year Australians spent $398 million buying 13.3 million DVD movie titles - a three-fold increase on the 4.3 million sold in 2001, according to research firm GFK.

Symptoms of the rot include picture break-up and freezing at a specific place on the dvd. The major cause is believed to be poorly planned cases. Delamination shows up as a coffee-like stain that inhibits the disc from playing. Among those worst affected are video movie rental stores, which buy millions of titles per year.

Rohan Byrnes, 34-year-old science fiction fanatic who owns 350 DVD movies, has spent a lot of time glaring at DVD rot. He works as a failure analysis engineer, with access to an optical microscope.

Mr Byrnes has studied five cases of DVD rot - four in his own compilation - and suspects the microscopic decay spots on the aluminium layer inside the disc could be caused by a "chemical attack", possibly linked to the glue used.

"Some stores have reported they only get two or three rentals from a DVD before it's unplayable," said Ross Walden, director of the Australian Video Retailers Association. Distributors "are washing their hands of it", he said. "Once a DVD has been rented out [distributors] will not take them back."

One DVD movie website lists 18 titles known to have at least one bad batch, among them Planet of the Apes (1968), Men in Black: Collectors Edition , Independence Day and the Alien Legacy box set.

Mr Byrnes returned his discs to the distributors, 20th Century Fox and Columbia TriStar, including his analysis, and got replacements, but other victims were not so fortunate. Peter Longworth, a DVD collector in Newcastle, had an identical problem with Planet of the Apes two years after buying it.

However, 20th Century Fox declined to replace it as it was out of the 90-day warranty.

"The company declined to accept that there was a manufacturing setback," he said. Mr Longworth wrote to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in November, but the movie rental watchdog does not act on consumer warranty problems.

Meanwhile, 20th Century Fox refused to comment on the subject. A spokesman said only: "We always fully compensate our customers for any manufacturing liability found." Warner Home Video's managing director, Stephen Nickerson, said: "If a customer has trouble with a disc and it is obviously a manufacturing problem we will replace it. The question is whether it is caused by a manufacturing problem or consumer abuse."

Unbiased Expert Reviews on the Top Movie Rental Clubs located in the US. http://MovieRentalClubGuide.com/reviews.php

Do You Know How To Copy A DVD?

Many people “burn” copies of their CD’s - Compact Discs - making copies of music, e-books, data files and just about everything else. But what about DVD’s? Do you know how to copy a DVD and is it legal?

Let’s look at the legal issues first, and then we’ll examine how you go about copying a DVD -- a movie, for example, to a writable disc. Many of us are used to copying files to a CD - using “drag and drop” technology, which involves dragging some files across your computer screen and releasing them to the drive where the CD rests. But copying a DVD involves quite a bit more and there are legal problems to consider.

Before we even get started on exactly how to copy a DVD, you need to become familiar with two important terms - encryption and copyright law. LEGAL DISCLAIMER TIME: Now, I am not an attorney and do not play one in real life so make sure you consult one in your area of residence before doing anything on your own with this information. From what I understand it’s perfectly legal to burn a copy of a DVD - if it’s for your private use in your own home as a backup copy. For example - say you have an extensive collection of DVD movies, but you are worried about your DVD’s getting scratched from using them so much - so you may want to make copies of all these DVD’s and keep them in a safe place in case some of them get scratched. That’s fine.

But if your DVD is encrypted (as most movies are) - most software that allows you to make copies won’t get around the encryption. (There are multiple sources that offer this type of software now, but it’s up to you to find them.) Bottom line - if it’s encrypted, you’re not supposed to be able to copy it. Why? Because copyright law says you need to pay a royalty to the person or studio or whoever made the DVD - otherwise you’re guilty of copyright infringement. If you copy only those videos for your own use, you’re probably ok, but start burning them and selling them on eBay you’ll be in trouble with the Hollywood studio system and the government in a hurry.

In the interest of protecting … well, their interests, Hollywood studios came up with a little encryption system known as CSS or Content Scrambling System. This encryption doesn’t have anything to do with free speech issues - it’s all about money! The Hollywood studios figure that if they put all their cash into making the movie, the least you can do is pay them a royalty. It’s amazing how many people aren’t willing to do that, which is why the software was developed that allows you to go around the encryption. Otherwise your DVD copies just would not work.

Now, of course the Hollywood studios and a very few others have the so-called “keys” to this system - after all, they designed it! But the rest of the non-paying public has to depend on those free, independent spirits out there to come up with a way around that encryption, as indeed they did.

Circumventing this encryption is generally known in the biz as “ripping” a DVD (and of course copying the files to your computer hard drive) - see, you’re already well on your way to becoming a computer geek - “geek talk” and all. If you rip the DVD to the hard drive of your computer, you can tell if the size will fit on a regular DVD. If not, you’ll need to make one of the choices available to you - such as compressing the data, removing or splitting part of it so it takes up less space.

When choosing a software package that will allow you to rip DVD‘s you’ll need to choose one that fits your needs. By that I mean there are packages out there that will allow you to do it all - rip, compress, remove or split data, in addition to utilities that will let you play with the settings on your DVD and affect the quality of your final copy. If you’re not a computer geek, you may not need all those extra features - the quality between a typical DVD and one that’s been ripped is usually very slight to the average user. If you plan on going in the geek direction, you may want a higher quality end product - in other words, if you’re picky, choose a program with more features that gives you more control.

Robert Barnard is the Co-Founder & CTO of http://MX123.com. He’s been involved with computers since the early 80’s. He holds / has held many international industry certifications in the computer industry from CompTIA A+ to Microsoft Certified Professional & Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer.

DVD And DVD Players

DVD Player - This is a generic term, since there are DVD-Audio, DVD-ROM, DVD-Video players--while DVD-Recordable and DVD-RAM drives are not yet ready for the market. DVD-Video has complex hardware and firmware requirements on the player, and the DVD Player Reference Model specifies the capabilities for a DVD-compliant player for consumer market--outlining the standard and optional sets of features. DVD-Video displays to a TV monitor, but DVD-ROM players will have the hardware (boards) to play DVD-Video and DVD-Audio titles. But, DVD-Video copy protection and regional code issues further complicated and delayed the marketing of players, precluding the implementation of some otherwise acceptable software options, or external devices. It is expected that newer players will implement the required copy protection and regional codes.

DVD is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for data storage, including movies with high video and sound quality. DVDs resemble compact discs: their physical dimensions are the same—12cm or the mini 8cm—but they are encoded in a different format and at a much higher density. DVDs contain a file system, called UDF, which is an extension of the ISO 9660 Standard used for CD-ROMs.

DVDs are made from a 0.6 mm thick disc of polycarbonate plastic coated with a much thinner (reflective) aluminum layer. Two such discs are glued together to form a 1.2 mm double-sided disc. The substrates are half as thick as a CD to make it possible to use a lens with a higher numerical aperture and therefore use smaller pits and narrower tracks.

A single-layer DVD can store 4.7 Gbyte, which is around seven times as much a standard CD-ROM. By employing a red laser at 650 nm (was 780 nm) wavelength and a numerical aperture of 0.6 (was 0.45), the read-out resolution is increased by a factor 1.65. This holds for two dimensions, so that the actual physical data density increases by a factor of 3.5. DVD uses a more efficient coding method in the physical layer. CD's error correction, CIRC, is replaced by a powerful Reed-Solomon product code, RS-PC; Eight-to-Fourteen Modulation (EFM) is replaced by a more efficient version, EFMPlus, which has the same characteristics as classic EFM. The CD sub code is removed. As a result, the DVD format is 47 percent more efficient with respect to CD-ROM, which uses a 'third' error correction layer.

A DVD can contain:

DVD-Video (containing movies (video and sound))
DVD-Audio (containing high-definition sound)
DVD-Data (containing data)

The disc medium can be:

DVD-ROM (read only, manufactured by a press)
DVD-R/RW (R=Recordable once, RW = Rewritable)
DVD-RAM (random access rewritable)
DVD+R/RW (R=Recordable once, RW = Rewritable)
DVD-R DL (double layer)
DVD+R DL (double layer)

Two DVDs with different bottom sides.

The disc may have one or two sides, and one or two layers of data per side; the number of sides and layers determines the disc capacity.

There are several competing DVD Formats:

DVD-ROM: They are pressed similarly to CDs. The reflective surface is silver or gold colored. They can be single-sided/single-layered, single-sided/double-layered, double-sided/single-layered, or double-sided/double-layered. As of 2004, new double-sided discs have become increasingly rare.

DVD-R for Authoring: Special-purpose DVD-Rs used to record DVD masters, which can then be duplicated to pressed DVDs by a duplication plant. They require a special DVD-R recorder, and are not often used nowadays since many duplicators can now accept ordinary DVD-R masters.

DVD-R discs (strictly DVD-R for General) can record up to 4.7 GB in a similar fashion to a CD-R disc. Once recorded and finalized it can be played by most

DVD-ROM players. This format is supported by the DVD Forum.

DVD-RW discs can record up to 4.7 GB in a similar fashion to a CD-RW drive. Supported by the DVD Forum.

DVD-R DL: Derivate of DVD-R that uses double-layer recordable discs to store up to 8.5 GB of data.

DVD-RAM: (current specification is version 2.1) require a special unit to play 4.7GB or 9.4GB recorded discs (DVD-RAM disc are typically housed in a cartridge). 2.6GB discs can be removed from their caddy and used in DVD-ROM drives. Top capacity is 9.4GB (4.7GB/side). Supported by the DVD Forum.

DVD+R: Can record up to 4.7 GB single-layered/single-sided DVD+R disc, at up to 16x speed. Like DVD-R you can record only once. Supported by the DVD+RW Alliance.

DVD+RW: Can record up to 4.7 GB at up to 16x speed. Since it is rewritable it can be overwritten several times. It does not need special "pre-pits" or finalization to be played in a DVD player. Supported by the DVD+RW Alliance.

DVD+R DL: Derivate of DVD+R that uses double-layer recordable discs to store up to 8.5 GB of data. Supported by the DVD+RW Alliance.

DVD-D is a new self-destructing disposable DVD format. Like the EZ-D, it is sold in an airtight package, and begins to destroy itself by oxidation after several hours.

DVD Plus combines both DVD and CD technologies by providing the CD layer and a DVD layer.

For more information on DVD players please visit the DVD players resource center at http://www.dvd-players-resources.info