So I finally got around to watching one of the Alfred Hitchcock films that we previously checked out, called "The Lady Vanishes". The plot is pretty intense, but the ending was pretty lame. I also just finished an audiobook that Gene lent me, called "Without Fail" by Lee Child. It's a pretty good book, if you like FBI and Secret Service-type of books.

You know, DVDs really suck. DVD technology is unrefined and simply not ready for the marketplace. For those not aware, DVDs are really, really sensitive. Unlike the more robust VHS movies to which we're all accustomed, any given DVD movie will only play in certain players. The majority of DVDs we've checked out from the library and rented from Hollywood Video haven't played on our player. Some do, some don't - usually new ones straight from the store work just fine, but scratched rentals don't. The video store staff have confirmed this as being a overwhelming problem: most people that rent DVDs can't get the stupid things to play on their machines and end up bringing them back and getting the VHS format instead, as we did just had to do a couple of days ago with the movie "Shallow Hal" (hilarious film, by the way). Most DVD players also have problems playing CD-Rs. This is caused because of the change in wavelength on the playback laser of DVD players. This is a known problem, but of course you won't hear this fact in any sales pitch. Speaking of sales pitches, most players proudly display the DTS-compatible logo (DTS stands for Digital Theatre Sound), which is odd because many consider DTS to be inferior to Dolby Digital. (Of course, there are conflicting opinions on this point.) Another problem with DVDs is that since they're fundamentally just like CDs, they get scratched really easily, and once they're scratched they're unusable. Fingerprints, dust, etc. are all enemies of the DVD. In fact, DVDs are even worse than CDs because the "pits" on DVDs are smaller than on CDs, so the same fingerprint that might not bother a CD player might still adversely affect a DVD video. In addition, there is an issue with the ink and the reflectivity of some manufacturers' DVD-R and DVD+RW media. This causes their discs not to play in certain players.

When most people hear about the problems we've experienced, they say "...well, it's because you bought a cheap player." Well, yourself. The first player we got *was* a cheap player, an Apex for around $60 US, which simply wouldn't play anything. It couldn't decode the signal fast enough to maintain smooth motion - it would jump and skip, even on a brand new copy of Harry Potter. That one was returned promptly. The second one we got is an Emerson for about $110 US. It plays Harry Potter quite nicely, but still can't play the rentals we get. [UPDATE: we finally solved this problem - see 08/25/2002 for how we got around this.] A friend of mine at work is a member of Netflix, and he plays dozens of DVDs on his computer DVD drive (which, by the way, most computer DVD drives only cost around $60... so much for the cheap argument) and claims he's never had a problem. When I probed further, however, he admitted that there was this once where the picture wasn't getting drawn to the screen fast enough, but he attributed this to his computer being slow. That's probably right, seeing as how many DVD drives for computers use software-based decompression instead of the more costly hardware-based solution. By the way, I've heard that the really cheap drives like Apex are so cheap because they only use an on-board software decoder instead of real hardware decompression. If that's true, that would then account for me experiencing the same phenomonon on our first standalone player that he did on his computer. The whole point is, however (as my friend Brad so wisely pointed out): if you buy a cassette player no matter how inexpensive, it should play tapes. If you buy a CD player no matter how inexpensive, it should play CDs. Of course, you may miss out on a few cool features because of the low price point, but it should still play the goofy things on a basic level. Why should DVDs be any different?

The following companies list DVD players that are not 100%-compliant with the DVD standards. Using any of these DVD players may cause you problems with both off-the-shelf movies (DVD Videos), DVD+RWs, DVD-Rs, CD-Rs, CD-RWs, etc. Check these out: AppleHome MovieZDNetTele-PrintGo Asia MajorHewlett-PackardImpress 4UVideo PerfectDVD Video SolutionsOmni VideoSanyo If there wasn't a real problem, why would these lists even exist? Furthermore, please also note that on some of these lists there are three distinct categories for player compatibility: yes (compatible), marginal (only works sometimes, or always "works", but not very well), and no (not compatible at all). Very interesting. Please also note that it's not just the "cheap" brands (i.e., Apex, Emerson, Go! Video, Sylvania, Sharp, Sampo, RCA, Samsung, Sanyo, JVC, Aiwa, Pioneer, Fisher, G.E., etc.) that have problems, but also the "name" brands (such as Sony, Denon, Hitachi, Toshiba, Technics, Marantz, Yamaha, Phillips, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, etc.) Just because you spend a lot of money on one doesn't necessarily mean it'll work.   =(

Another fundamental problem with DVDs is that they simply can't store enough information. DVDs are limited to 15.9 GB of information (DVD-18, dual-layered, double-sided) at their best, but really only 4.38 GB on a normal DVD (DVD-5, single-layer, single side - who really wants to have to flip their movie over right in the middle of it?), which really isn't a lot of information, especially when you're talking about high quality video and audio. In fact, in order to fit a 2 hour movie onto a DVD, the movie has to be compressed by a factor of 40:1 (forty to one)! I don't care what anyone tries to tell you, but when you compress (take out redundant information) something that much, you're just asking for a loss of quality. If you were to try and put *uncompressed* video onto a regular CD it would only hold 23.5 *seconds*, and a DVD is only slightly better at 3 minutes (uncompressed video, 640x480, 24 bits/pixel, 30 fps)! That's how big video really is, and how little a DVD can really hold. A super huge DVD that could actually hold 2 hours of raw uncompressed high quality video would have to hold 144 GB just for the video alone (not counting audio). As it turns out (duh!), some really long movies simply can't fit on DVD-5 at all, despite compression. These have to be placed on more costly DVD-9 discs, which are annoying because even though they're just the one side, because of the second layer there is an obnoxious pause in playback when the player switches to the next layer. In case you're wondering, there are several different manufacturing processes for making DVDs, and hence different capacity DVDs: DVD-5 (4.38 GB), DVD-9 (7.92 GB), DVD-10 (8.76 GB), DVD-14 (12.29 GB), DVD-17 (an old term, now called DVD-18), and DVD-18 (15.9 GB). Both DVD-14s and DVD-18s are extremely hard to manufacture and are for all practical purposes not available commercially. Since both sides of these discs contain data, printing can only be done on the hub ring, not on the general surface of the disc. Today's DVD-Rs are the skimpy 4.38 GB version, with one side and only one layer. (Please also note that the recordable format underwent a change in 1999, and previous DVD-Rs had less storage capacity than the current ones.)

Speaking of quality, another problem with DVDs is that playback quality is defined by what the actual content of the movie is. If it's a slow scene with little action, then the quality will be very good, but if it's a fast scene with tons of changing movement, then the quality declines. This is because of the "bit rate". DVDs can only handle bit rates up to a maximum of 9.8 Mbps (mega bits per second). If a movie were recorded onto DVD at the highest quality (i.e., highest bit rate) possible, there would only be room for 45 minutes of it. Because of this, DVDs use what is called "variable bit rate encoding". This is where they reduce the bit rate (i.e, the quality) in parts of the action where you "won't notice it". Thus, they can extend the playing time on these puny discs to hold longer movies.

In terms of audio, most people don't know that there are several types of "DVDs": regular DVD (DVD Video), DVD Audio, DVD AudioV, DVD-ROM, DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD+RW, and so on. The recently approved DVD Audio standard is such that these discs are incompatible (i.e., will not play) with regular DVD (DVD video) players. Hybrid machines will appear in the next few months, but will be more expensive than your average $200 player (or your goofy $60 computer DVD drive). Some of these recent players, such as Panasonic's new line, do claim to support both DVD Video and DVD Audio (as well as DVD-R, DVD-RAM, CD-R, CD-RW, etc.), but with the clearly stated caveat that some discs won't play "due to the condition of the recording" and "depending on contents and discs", and "for Panasonic DVD-R discs recorded with a Panasonic DVD video recorder" only. So much for copying a DVD and viewing it at a friend's house.

At work I deal with Jim Parker from Reno-Sparks Video Productions (he films and then records our conference videos onto DVD for us), and he has confirmed that there is a noticable degradation in picture quality when trying to put more than 60 minutes of video onto a DVD. DVDs will, of course, hold more than that (usually about 2 hours), but the more information (data) you try to squeeze onto a DVD is just that much more compression that needs to happen. DVDs use the MPEG-2 compression format. While pretty good, it's not perfect. Digital artifacts such as compression rings, halo effects, etc. plague today's DVD releases. If you're familiar with JPEG compression for still images, you know that with JPEG compression you can specify the amount (percentage) of compression you'd like to use. The less you compress it, the better the quality. If you compress it too much, the quality goes down the drain fairly quickly. A photo of a beautiful sunset with all it's well-blended shades of blues, yellows, and ambers when compressed using JPEG turned into a rainbow-looking set of bands, with distinct separations between the colors. The same thing happens on DVDs that use too much compression.

Another problem with compression levels is that some low to mid-range players can only play DVDs that use lower compression, but not higher compression. The compression modes on a DVD burner are just like a VCR: SP, LP, and EP (SLP) (in VCR terms). If you're familiar with recording with a VCR, you already now that any given tape can hold 3 different lengths of video, based upon which recording mode you select. "SP" is standard play, and typically gives you only 2 hours of recording time (on a T-120 tape, or 2.66 hours on a T-160), because the tape rolls by the head at a faster speed which means that more tape is used per second which affords you better recorded quality. "LP" is long play, which usually gives you 4 hours (on a T-120, 5.33 hours on a T-160). The quality isn't quite as good, but you double your recording time. "EP" or "SLP" is extended (or super long) play, and once again, the quality diminishes a bit, but the recording time jumps up to 6 hours per tape (T-120, 8 hours for a T-160, 9 hours for a T-180). (Try fitting 9 hours of video onto a DVD, you weirdo DVD supporters!) The same thing goes for DVD burners. There are different compression levels, which give you various quality levels and recording capacities. In theory, there's no problem if you're okay with the loss of quality, but in reality, not all players (for whatever reason - let's blame the manufacturers for ineptitude) can play DVDs recorded at high compression. Therein lies my primary beef.

My secondary beef lies in the fact that DVD players can't do a decent rewind or fast-forward. "What?" you're saying... Well, let me explain. Most DVD players (but not all) offer several different speeds of rewind/fast-forward: 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x, 32x, 48x, 60x, 200x, etc. Everyone is tempted to hit the 60x button, but in doing so the player doesn't actually run through all the movie frames at sixty times normal speed, what it actually does is only display every 60th frame. In other words, it drops information and presents you, the unwitting consumer, with a series of choppy disjointed images in quick secession. The DVD players simply aren't fast enough to decode the video at 60 times the normal speed, so they have opted to go the easy route and just make it seem like it's faster. What typically happens is that you speed right by the part you're looking for, so you end up toggling back and forth between rewind and fast-forward to get to the scene in question. Because of the disjointed (unconnected) nature of the scenes whilst rewinding/fast-forwarding, it looks like a scene from Max Headroom (gotta love the '80s) - truly digitized, not smooth analog motion. It's truly disturbing. Harumph.

Another issue is that standalone DVD players aren't computers, so (as in the case with our copy of Harry Potter) when there are games and other computer-related executable code, the DVD player cannot play/run it. In Harry Potter when we try to go to the "Extra Credit" portion of the disc, it tells us to place the disc in a computer's DVD-ROM drive. I have still yet to see it, but I'm assuming that it's a game or something. Speaking of computers and DVD-ROM drives, and the reason I'll never get a DVD-ROM drive for either of our computers at home, is because they are just plain too slow. At work we've got a 2001 Power Mac G4 (it's slow - only 733 MHz) with a built-in DVD player/burner (SuperDrive). It, like was previously discussed (above), cannot play a regular ol' DVD movie without stuttering. The video will be going along just fine every 10 or 15 seconds and then it will hang and just "pause" for a second, then resume and repeat. It's a joke.

Does anyone still remember Sony's MiniDisc format about a decade ago? It never caught on because of two reasons (in my opinion): data compression (MiniDisc's ATRAC compression was only a 5-to-1 compression and people could tell the difference, whereas DVD's MPEG-2 compression is 40-to-1, which is completely absurd), and too rapid of a change in media formats (which DVDs are doing within the next year). Remember Circuit City's stupid DivX fiasco a few years back? Yet another blunder that can be attributed to the too rapid change in media formats and conflicting formats. No one likes conflicting (incompatible) formats, as the consumers at large are confused by them. These two reasons, I believe, are what will doom the DVD in the next year or so. When both the upcoming "SuperDVD" (Blu-Ray) (which can hold 27 GB of information, but yet again is a fragmented standard [not all manufacturers are playing the compatibility game]) and DVD Audio formats debut in the next year (both of which are not compatible with current DVD players), these will only create confusion in the marketplace, and cause consumers at large to resist switching formats yet again. If the media and standards industries don't account for backward-compatibility in future players, this will spell the demise of the DVD as we know it. (Of course, even backward-compatibility wasn't a strong enough selling point for Phillip's Digital Compact Cassette [DCC] to catch on, and realistically the companies have their hands way too full with *current* compatibility to even start worrying about *backward* compatibility.)

Please note that I haven't even mentioned regional coding in this article (until now), as although many people see it as yet another flaw of DVDs, I really don't care about it. I will, in all likelihood, never be affected by it, so it's not an issue to me. All in all, DVDs suck, and it's just nice to have a different viewpoint out there to balance out all the "oh, they're so wonderful" crap that everyone spouts. There are some real issues with this technology, and someone somewhere needs to address them.