Customer Services & DVDs - Tiscali Shopping

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All about DVDs

Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) is taking the home viewing world by storm, just as the CD did with the music industry in the early 1980s.

A DVD is neither a glorified coaster nor a form of sexually transmitted disease. DVDs are all about movies. The advent of the silver disc has revolutionised the way in which motion pictures can be enjoyed at home. With heightened sound, digital pictures and no tape to chew up in your video recorder, these discs are far superior to the humble cassette. We can now enjoy seeing films at home in the way they were intended - big, bold and digital.

A DVD looks no different to a conventional music CD. What distinguishes it from an audio CD is the amount of information it can hold. DVDs are designed to hold audio tracks as well as pictures - not only that, they can also hold information on both sides of the disc.

What's So Great About DVDs?

With over 500 lines of horizontal picture resolution, DVD quality is nearly twice that of a VHS tape.

DVD offers superior picture and sound with digital video and multi-channel surround sound

Films are available for sale or rent at prices similar to VHS

DVDs come with a variety of special features, including behind the scenes commentary, trailers, foreign language options, subtitles, deleted scenes and more

DVD offers immediate scene access so you don't need to fast-forward and rewind a tape

Durable (no wear from playing, only from physical damage)

Compact size (easy to handle, store, and ship; players can be portable; replication is cheaper than tapes or laserdiscs)

What's Bad About Them?

You can't record on them (yet)

Titles available on DVD are somewhat limited at the moment

DVDs are regionally coded (see below)

Very few players can play in reverse at normal speed

Have built-in copy protection and regional lockout

Very few players can play in reverse at normal speed.

Divide And Rule - what are region codes?
Region codes on DVD are one of their most unwelcome features. In a perfect world, every new title would be released simultaneously across the globe, but this is not the case. A DVD title will usually be released in the US months before Europe, and will often be jam-packed with more features than the same titles in the UK. This is starting to change with many simulaneous releases, and (slightly) less discrimination against the Region 2 titles! Motion picture studios want to control the home release of movies in different countries because cinema releases aren't simultaneous (a movie may come out on video in the U.S. when it's just hitting screens in Europe). Also, studios sell distribution rights to different foreign distributors and would like to guarantee an exclusive market. Therefore, they have required that the DVD standard includes codes that can be used to prevent playback of certain discs in certain geographical regions.

Each player is given a code for the region in which it's sold. The player will refuse to play discs that are not allowed in that region. This means that discs bought in one country may not play on players bought in another country.

Region Areas
1 USA, Canada

2 Europe, Middle East, Japan, South Africa

3 S.Korea, Taiwan, HK, ASEAN

4 Australia, NZ, Latin America

5 Ex-soviets, Indian sub-continent, Africa

6 China

Chipping
There is nothing you can do to alter the code on a DVD to match that of a differently coded player. If you've bought a Region 2 machine (the UK is Region 2), remember that this machine will only play Region 2 discs. DVD players can be doctored to play differently coded discs. This usually invalidates the manufacturer's warranty, although it is not illegal. The process is called 'chipping': an additional microprocessor is implanted to bust the code limitation.

Thankfully DVD players are now becoming available which don't present you with this particular quandary, and are able to play DVDs from all the regions. If you may be buying discs on the internet, a universal type player is a good bet.

Also: Safe Shopping on Tiscali