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

SO FAR I AM AWARE OF FOUR FORMATS WHICH ARE: SINGLE SIDED SINGLE LAYER
SINGLE SIDED DOUBLE LAYER
DOUBLE SIDED SINGLE LAYER
DOUBLE SIDED DOUBLE LAYER

IF THERE IS ANYONE OUT THERE THAT COULD ENLIGHTEN ME AS TO WHY WE NEED FOUR FORMATS WHEN THE DOUBLE SIDED DOUBLE LAYER SEEMS TO BE THE BEST CHOICE, THEN PLEASE LET ME KNOW.

...is because the European, American and Japanese regions can't make their freakin' minds up about which
format to use (obviously the better the format, the more expensive a disc is to cut) and so the stabalisation
of the format is still in progress. One thing that really, REALLY annoys me is that the Americans are getting
the best of everything, with one sided, dual screen ratio, Dolby Digital encoded discs whereas we, in Europe
are getting stiffed with the crappy double sided (if youre lucky enough to get it 16:9, and you can *forget* about
ever getting the cool 2.85:1 Bladerunner copy in Region 2) THX encoded versions which cost about 50% more
in sterling than the yanks pay in dollars. In fact, I hate Europe and I'm moving as soon as I can to the west
side of the Yanklantic. Rant over.

Fare comment. We in the UK get a duff deal on just about everything. Sorry to get heavy but that just tick me off.

Fare comment. We in the UK get a duff deal on just about everything. Sorry to get heavy but that just ticks me off.

And we always labout the point by repeating ourselves.

And spelling incorctly.

Yeah - but at least we don't all go running around with handguns here in the UK...

what's this got to do with tequila slammers?

read you rules Stupid American..

1. You agree not to use the forum to transmit material that
- promotes bigotry, racism, hatred, or harm of any kind against any group or
individual;

go back to America(home of the trench coat mafia)..

The various formats denote the amount of information that can be stored on a single disk.

Single sided, Single Layer means that the disk has 1 data storeage layer (as with a conventional CD).

Double Sided, Single Layer as above but with 2 data storage layers each located on either side of the disk (such as an audio casette or LP) the DVD drive has two lasers one reading the top of the disk while the other reads from the bottom (twice the storage).

The other options: Single sided, double layer and double sided, double layer are extensions of the above, the two layers are physically located on the same side of the disk and are read by a laser focused using a lense (imagine a short sited person who takes of their glasses, without them this person can clearly see things at one distance, while with them on the individual can clearly see objects at another distance).

More lasers are employed each focused to a different focal length thus one laser reads information on the first layer, while the other is focused differently, thus it can not see the information seen by the first laser but can read from the other layer etc.

Currently double sided, double layer is very expensive to produce and is not very fault tolerant, time will only reduce the costs involved and at that point these are the disk of choice.

Right.

Bit dull, but thank you.

I'm going to sit over here now.

I have nothing against DVD's, I have a drive myself, but I really don't see how it is related to my article on tequila slammers, oh well.
And can you all stop getting so agressive, americans may be stupid and fat, but don't tell them that in my forum.

What about Dunblane, Hungerford and the shots fired into a classroom in Gloucester last week?

You will make an ideal American if you are prepared to shift countries on the basis of which movie formats are available. Having seen blade runner in all available formats I can assure you that the difference between VHS and DVD is so imperceptible that only the most finnicky pedant would possibly care. There is also the phenomenon (prevalent in America) of people who think that because they use the latest technological gizmetry they somehow attain some kind of staturre amongst other representatives of the species. I might submit that as a user page entitled techno-wankery.

Read them yourself American-hater (although that is understandable, it's still a bit hypocritical).

Why's the resolution so bad on DVD's??? 740*480 is that some kind of joke?

Why do the UK get such badly made DVD's? is this some form of racism, or are they getting back at us for banning their hormone treated beef?

Why have they now introduced DTS when hardly anyone owns an AC3 decoder - Can't they make up their minds?

Why's the quality of realmagic 2 cards so bad?

And what DOES this have to do with tequilla???

The UK gets f***ed over at absolutely everything. This is so we can say "at least we are not American/French/German/Martian etc". We were created so we could have converstions like this :-

American - I am better than you. I am American. Americans are the best at everything.
British - No you are not. Irony, sarcasm, television ( American TV is 99% crap).
American - OK not everything. But we are the best country in the world.
British - No you're not you ponce.
American - Yes we are. And what is a ponce.
British - We used to have an empire dont you know.
American - You dont any more though.
British - Ahh!
American - What?
British - AhhHhHhhhhH!
American - What??
British - Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
This continues until either the British person has a heart attack or the American gets killed by a three year old going postal with a rocket launcher.

If you cant see the link between Tequila and DVDs then you are most silly.

The answer is simple: find a nice American (and, yes Virginia they do exist), feed him/her/it a lot of Tequila/Whisky/PGGB depending on preference/species/sexual orientation, lie back and think nice thoughts, then screw each other until your brains drop out. Enough aggro - if you want to blow off your feelings visit 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where they blow all sorts of things.

An Eskimo is driving when his car starts to make a noise. He takes it to the garage and the mechanic looks at it.

"Hmm, looks like you've blown a seal."

"No," says the Eskimo," it's just frost on my moustache."