dvd formats for international sales?

dhill wrote on 8/24/2002, 12:01 AM

First of all, thank you to all who have answered my questions over the last few months. My vid is done and my dvd is finally mastered and ready for duplication.

I was wondering if anyone knew if there are different formats for dvd's throughout the world (for international sales) and if there is a website I can look at that lists the information for me. With vids it's easy: Pal and NTSC. I just have no idea about dvd's. Thank you!

Comments

kkolbo wrote on 8/24/2002, 11:44 AM

same thing, pal, ntsc. not sure about secam. region codes are a different matter.

k

dhill wrote on 8/25/2002, 10:17 PM

Thanks kkolbo. Actually, after doing some searching, I found a website. It was region codes that I was talking about, I just didn't know the correct term. I think if I have the dup people make it region free (or region 0)then it will play every where right?

wcoxe1 wrote on 8/25/2002, 10:30 PM

Please let us know if the Region Zero will allow all regions to read and use the DVDs. Having the world divided up into 5 regions, just to keep the various different prices stable everywhere makes for nasty marketing if you are not Sony.

kkolbo wrote on 8/26/2002, 9:07 AM

I just do not add a region. Yes you can tell the replicator region zero. The codes are not for pricing. They are for piracy. Discs released in USA were being duped by the thousands in Asia. The codes were an attempt to make that more difficult.

K

John_Beech wrote on 8/26/2002, 2:48 PM

Who is your replicator? What pricing did they give you - for how many copies?

dhill wrote on 8/27/2002, 1:22 AM

Yes, I found out I just had to have them make the master region free. I'm not doing enough volume to have all of the separate regions made. We'll probably sell about 3000 untis or so.

Kind of off the VV3 forums general subjects, but here is the price breakdown for you jbeech:

1,000 DVD's replicated = $1.00 each total = $1,000
2,500 inserts 4-color = $.28 each total = $700.00
1,000 hard DVD cases = $ .60 each total = $600.00
1,000 packaging - place insert and DVD into hard case and shrink = $.15 each total = $150.00
1 plate charge for DVD label print = $40.00 - one time charge
1 film charge for case inserts = $325.00 one time charge
1 film charge for case inserts rework = $225.00 - One time charge

GRAND TOTAL = $3,000.00

They're called Media Management Services in Fullerton, CA. They've been making my VHS copies too. I've had about 50 bad videos out of 2500 so far, but they replaced them.

Let's hope that SF comes out with a DVD authoring program with motion menus etc. next year!

SonyDennis wrote on 8/27/2002, 9:11 AM

Making a disc region free does not guarantee that it will play world-wide!

Region codes can make a disc not play, that's what they are designed for.

Same thing with rating limits (if the disc rating is higher than the player setting, it won't play).

You still have to deal with the NTSC vs. PAL issue. Even though many players (such as my APEX AD-600A at home) can transcode (i.e., play back PAL discs for NTSC output), the results are far from ideal (there are motion artifacts). Also, most players don't have such a feature.

You really need to do two separate encodes, and two disc runs, to sell into both NTSC and PAL markets.

As far as I know, there is no SECAM DVD's, since SECAM is a composite broadcast format, and DVDs are essentially component encoded. I suppose there are SECAM DVD players, but this is likely to only affect the composite (and/or RF) connections, they would play PAL encoded discs. This is conjecture on my part, I've never seen one.

I highly recommend the Second Edition of Jim Taylor's "DVD Demystified" for anyone getting into DVD production.

///d@

dhill wrote on 8/27/2002, 2:20 PM

Thanks Dennis! I am actually passing on the whole PAL market for the dvd since I have to render all of my segments over again in PAL format and then pay the mastering people again for making a PAL master. We didn't sell very many PAL VHS vids of this project, so, I'm just making the NTSC version of the dvd.

I'm assuming by "rating limits" you are talking about VBR...??? Forgive me...I play piano/keyboards for a living! I set my max VBR at 6,500,000 for this project. The DVD plays on my worst dvd player (Sharp DV-740) that has trouble with some major movie DVD's, so, I figured if it played fine on that, it would probably be fine on most other players. I'll check out the book you recommended.

SonyDennis wrote on 8/27/2002, 2:57 PM

No, by rating limits, I mean a "parental lock" type of content rating, like G,PG,R. DVD has a set of these defined, and if your player is set lower than the disc, it won't play (or could have scene-skipping). They are not used much, because most people don't know how to set their player and returned discs that wouldn't play.

I only mentioned it because it's another way for a disc not to play, like region codes.

///d@

vonhosen wrote on 8/27/2002, 4:53 PM

For DVD demystified FAQ see here

http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html

wcoxe1 wrote on 8/27/2002, 6:23 PM

You might think of it as a Piracy control, sure. But the way the Sony reps presented the idea was that, if a disc was selling for $10.00 in Asia, and the exact same disc was selling for $20.00 in the US, what was to prevent people from buying the Asia edition and marketing it in the US. Region Codes, thats what. And sometimes I have seen otherwise identical discs with wider price spreads than that in diffeent parts of the world. To me, that makes it a marketing control mechanism (read price control), not piracy control.