h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I wonder how many of the great british public acting with their normal herd instincts this Christmas got home to find their new DVD players couldn't record?

I bet it is a fair few trend jumpers who thought they could lose the VHS

Comments?

CHawke

When the spearcarrying one was visiting HK I bought a combined DVD/VCD and confidently expected to be able to play my old video tapes on it.
DVD's are the best thing for language teaching since the dictaphone. Five minute chunks withe subtitles on or off in your own or the target language. Phase out the boring old teachers, I say

Dur! I also wonder how many people have bought music DVDs believing that they could play them on CD players...

Doesn't any one read computer magazines? CDR-RW burners are readily available, DVDROM CDR-RW burner combos are readily available, but DVD burners are NOT yet. At this point in time a DVD burner would cost about US$7000, give it a couple of years they will be the norm(and much cheaper). People who use computers should keep up with the state of play. It never ceases to amaze me just how ill informed most users are about the technologies that they use.
Sorry about the rant, but living in a remote area I tend to assume that those in the techno-hubs of the world would have better info than I do.
Rocket

My point exactly, we have in this country a population that acts on herd instincts, some blond dies, nation mourns as a herd, some ill informed peasant blockade petrol station, the herd follow, some papers say you must get a DVD for this christmas, the herd go out and buy one, not that they have the TV or sound system to do it justice, and the few times they get pre-recorded films to watch they are to drunk to notice any difference. And then are anoyed when they cannot replace their VHS so they no have 3 boxes plugged in to their TVs (as as a herd they all rushed out and got digital TV last year)

I feel an entry coming on - Herd behaviour of the great un-washed british public.

CHawke

Hey calm down Mr. Hawke, just chill man. Dont let it bother you so much....

As for DVD, I have the sound system, and my mate has the TV, so together we do it justice And no, I didnt expect to be able to write to it, D'OH, I'm sure not that many people did actually.

Hooloovoo

As I said I'm sorry for ranting, but all I get here is analog(free to air)TV. And a 56k modem for internet(at a cost)that usually runs at 36k is a bloody luxury. That said, I also have a local news agent to provide the magazines that I need to keep reasonably up to date. Due to having to work for a living, I've had to build my own computer over a period of time, learning as I go. But then, I drive a 4x4, and out here if you can't fix it, don't leave town. The nearest town being over 200km away, the distance to Perth(state capital)about 2000km, it just gets on my goat when I hear those in the more populated areas complaining about lack of service/technology
Rocket

Though I do agree with you on the herd behaviour, quite sad to watch sometimes. Lets just wallow in the knowledge that at least you and I can act as individuals even if no one else can. Nothing as good as a bit of ego-masturbation is there?

Hooloovoo

Argh someone else being an individual, can't cope, stop following me

I'm not to sure about this still, some relatively sane frineds of mine didn't realise DVDs couldn't record until they asked the sensible questions, they just saw that the herd were all buying them.

Many years ago when the herd were just rushing out to buy mobile phones I saw a member of the herd in traditional clothing (shell suit) in, lets say a downmarket shop, complete with plastic childs toy phone on his waist, anything to look the part. Baaaaaa, perhaps we should burn them and save the sheep

CHawke - Not Mr or Miss or Mrs.

Even though DVD *burners* (DVD-R) are horribly expensive, as are DVD-R blank discs, the various computer-based DVD *rewriter* drives are much cheaper, as is the media. (for example, DVD-RAM drives are currently in the £300-700 range, as opposed to £4000 for DVD-R drives)

Disk-based consumer digital video recorders will use one of the rewritable formats, the problem is that there currently seem to be three competing formats, so we're in something like a VHS/Betamax/V2000 situation, though given that the physical format is the same does open the door to multi-format players or recorders.
However, given that it's likely that one or two formats may fall by the wayside, it'd be really nice if the manufacturers could get their collective a***s in gear and come to some kind of arrangement.

One problem is that some rewriteable formats will be incompatible with most/all current DVD players. I think one format does claim compatibility, but even if that is true, it's possibly only partially true.

BTW.

You can say arse if you want, I've not had it moderated yet

[tempting fate here I know]



CHawke

It's amazing how much cheaper they've got isn't it.

So how do you record from DVD to VHS? (ie How do you beat the Macrovision thing?)

Can you get a VCR with no macrovision component, or do you need to get a descrambler? I know you can tape onto a camcorder and then onto VHS, but that kind of defeats the object quality wise.

As I understand it, all VCRs are flummoxed by Macrovision - you'd have to find a way of stopping the DVD player from Macrovisioning the output. Assuming you have permission from the copyright owner to make a copy, of course.

So how come the video is flummoxed but not the TV? How does the DVD know what it's flummoxing? Is there an anti-flummoxing cable available?

*coughs*

It depends on the DVD player & it's firmware

Fancy elaborating any further?

some of them can circumvent macrovision style flumoxing. Buy a good hifi-videomag and it'll tell ya.

So these 'ere DVD recorders then. I know there is a bit of a format war going on (ala betamax/vhs it seems) BUT do they actuall record 'DVD' format then? If so, what region do they record in and does that eman that your mate in China can;t play a DVD you have recorded in france? Surely all the DVD encrypting stuff isn't used in a DVD recorder?

*coughs*
If I might divert you all to a little site I know...
http://www.vcdhelp.com/
It explains all about DVD and other similar formats, and the recording, copying and general fiddling with thereof. *bows*

There's a lot of *cough* ing going on here...

Is there a cold going round or something?

Or a virus?

Shhh! Don't shout or they'll all want one.

Anyway, I don't think home recorded DVDs have any of the region coding that pre-recorded discs have, but I assume there's still the old problem of incompatible TV systems in different countries. The main problem though is that they haven't settled on a definitive recordable DVD format yet - different recorders use different types of disc.