The Bluffer's Guide to DVD
by Derek Maher

Got a new DVD player or are thinking of getting one ? Blinded by all the tech talk ? Well, look no further. Below are listed some of the more common terms used in the wonderful world of DVD. Jump in!

ASPECT RATIOS

While TVs usually have an aspect ratio of 4:3 (4 units wide, 3 units high), movies vary from 185:1 to 2.35:1 and almost anything in between. The result is that on a regular TV set, the movie must either be letterboxed, which creates black bars at the top and bottom of your screen to house the whole image, or the image is cropped on the left and right hand side to use the TV’s full height. Usually, when an important piece of the image drops out of the visible screen, the picture is panned to the side to show this piece, hence the term pan & scan. If you want to enjoy all the details of a movie, you should definitely prefer the widescreen letterboxed versions to the Pan & Scan alternative, because this is the way the filmmakers originally intended you to see the movie. As a rule of thumb to properly enjoy a widescreen image, use a widescreen monitor.

16x9 / ANAMORPHIC
One of the most confusing terms of DVD has to be the anamorphic 16x9 enhancement. DVD has the capability to store a lot more image information than your regular TV set can display, even though not all discs actually support this feature. So called 16x9 anamorphic TV sets can use this additional information to create a higher resolution image, resulting in a much sharper and more detailed picture. Since 16x9 screens have a widescreen ratio themselves, they do not have to bother about the black bars at the top and bottom of a widescreen movie and can thus stretch the image to use the full height of the display. If your TV does not support 16x9 enhancements, the movie will simply be displayed in widescreen.

REGIONAL CODES

The world has been divided up into seven zones. This was originally to do with copyright protection. Most players that you see in the shops are region 2 meaning you can’t play imported discs on them. However if you wish to import DVD’s (and save money by buying online) you will need a multi-region player. If you already have a Region 2 player you can modify it by getting an engineer to do this. Some players can be made multi-region by a code you enter from the remote control and some can be bought already multi-region equipped. If you are considering importing DVD’s make sure that your TV can handle them (Region 2 are PAL , Region 1 (US) are NTSC). Also, you might be hit with import charges by Customs. The regions are as follows :

1: U.S., Canada, U.S. Territories
2: Japan, Europe, South Africa, and Middle East (including Egypt)
3: Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong)
4: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean
5: Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union), Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia
6: China
7: Reserved
8: Special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.)

REGIONAL CODE ENHANCEMENT (RCE)
This is new development by Hollywood to counter multi-region hacking. This consists of a code that checks what region your player is set to and if it sees anything other than the code it’s programmed to recognise, the disc won’t play. If you can manually set the region on your player, there is a way around this.

COMMON FEATURES OF DVD

There is a minimum specification that all players have to have. Some of the features included are :

ZOOM: This allows you to expand an image (quality drops a little).

MULTI-ANGLE: Some discs allow you to view the same scene from different angles.

MULTI-LANGUAGE SUBTITLES: Most discs allow you to choose different language sub-titles.

MULTIPLE AUDIO CHANNELS: This means (software allowing) that you can choose between sound formats, different language dubs and different commentary tracks (if available).

CHAPTER SKIP: DVD’s are generally divided up into chapters so you can go straight to a favourite scene (And loop it if you want).

COMMENTARY TRACKS: These are where the Director or Crew talk over the film, giving you information about how the film was made. Useful if you are a big fan of a particular film. You can turn this track off at will and return to the film at any time.

AUDIO GLOSSARY

Dolby Surround Pro-Logic
This is an older format that extracts the surround information from a stereo source (VHS, CD or DVD). You need a suitably equipped amp and five speakers (Left, Right, Centre and two rears). The rear speakers do not have to be of the same quality as the fronts as the rear surround information is in mono only. Dolby Surround amps can be picked up very cheap these days. It works quite well though it is limited.

Dolby Surround Pro-Logic II
A fresh tweak for Pro-Logic. What this does is extract something more like a proper 5.1 sound from a two-channel source like VHS. A lot of amps feature this these days and it works quite well.

Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital is a sound format that allows you to have up to six different channels of sound, making for a full surround experience of your movies. Whereas Pro-Logic had mono surrounds, Dolby Digital caters for full stereo surrounds and therefore you need full range speakers at the rear. When speaking of movie surround sound, the term 5.1 channels comes up quite a lot. It simply means that the audio consists of 5 fully implemented channels and one channel that holds a bass signal only. This channel is used to drive subwoofers and since it is not making full use of the audio spectrum, it is called the .1 channel. The setup for a 5.1 channel system would generally consist of two front speakers, one centre speaker for the dialogue (also located in the front), two surround speakers in the back plus the above mentioned subwoofer.

Dolby Digital-EX
This is a slightly different flavour of Dolby Digital. The main difference is an extra rear channel for a wider audio soundstage at the rear. You will need an extra speaker for this and a suitable amp.

DTS
DTS stands for “Digital Theatre Systems” and is yet another sound format supported by DVD. Unlike the Dolby Digital format however, it is not part of the DVD standard specifications and as such represents only an optional addition to the format. As a result, every disc that contains a DTS soundtrack also has to feature an alternative Dolby Digital track.

DTS, like Dolby Digital, is a multichannel surround format that uses compressed information for its 5.1 discrete channels, however it uses much less compression to achieve its goal and as result uses up substantially more space on the disc, while at the same time offering a better representation of the original material. Whether you can truly hear this difference is a matter of opinion. DTS soundtracks require DTS capable equipment for playback,.

DTS-ES
This is similar to Dolby Digital EX in that it supports an extra channel for the rears.

THX
A lot of confusion is surrounding THX. It is not a sound format and it is not a special image format. THX is a Lucasfilm company that is certifying films, software and hardware, and as such making sure the presentation quality meets certain standards. THX certified films or equipment are not necessarily better than parts that do not carry THX’s seal of approval, but at least you have some kind of a guarantee that it meets certain quality aspects.

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