Comments by "Neil Forbes" (@neilforbes416) on "The Odd History of the SD Logo" video.

  1. DVDs are NOT universally compatible because they have an embedded region code to ensure that a movie disc with a "Region 1" encoding will not play on a player set to play, for example "Region 4" discs. This was a cynical and deliberate..... despicable, even, move by the movie studios to control where their movies were marketed and which markets got to see these movies.
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  2. The "SD" stands for "Secure Digital" The 'D' in no way stands for "Disc" for obvious reasons. Also, the use of these SD cards in video cameras has eliminated tape drive mechanisms of any type, thus the term "footage" is now utterly redundant and obsolete.
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  3. I referred to the Region locking as the technical reason why DVDs are not universally compatible. The fact that it makes distribution deals easier to enforce is just a side-issue.
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  4. NTSC Vs. PAL had been overcome. DVD players would easily handle either NTSC or PAL, SECAM was deemed not worth bothering with as it was rightly seen as a piece of shit in terms of colour TV systems.
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  5. Multi-region players were a scarce breed but the PAL Vs. NTSC bogie had been well and truly laid to rest with the DVD format. In terms of videocassette players, PAL-system VHS decks with NTSC playback(only) capability, or conversely NTSC-system decks with PAL Playback(only) capability were the beginnings of laying that bogie to rest. SECAM was not included in the playback capabilities as it was seen rightly for what it was, a pile of shit. Why bother with a colour system that the French couldn't even use in their TV studios? That's something those arrogant French never admit to! French TV stations were kitted out with PAL-system cameras, VTRs, Telecine, Vision Switching gear and everything else in studio that was related to the video output, it was only at the transmitter that the signal was transcoded DOWN to the woefully-inferior SECAM system. The reason was that attempt to use SECAM in the studio resulted in a gosh-awful mess on studio monitors when switching from camera to camera, or to VTR or Telecine, or vice-versa, the SECAM system was a dismal failure!
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  6. A lot of "generic" DVD players could, in a PAL-system area, easily handle an NTSC DVD, but the region encoding might cause problems. BUT, you could get around region encoding AND NTSC vs. PAL by dropping the disc into your computer's DVD Rewrite drive! PROBLEM SOLVED!
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  7. If there was a "secret" button on any DVD player I ever had, or seen, the that secret was bloody-well kept! As to computer DVD rewrite drives, I think they just completely ignored the region encoding and let you view any old DVD from anywhere until you've had your fill of DVD movies!
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  8. I'm not exactly sure about "signal interference but as far as stopping people watching stuff from "over the border" in PAL-system colour.....Hmmmmm..... maybe! But I well remember hearing that the French couldn't even use their own system in their own TV studios. So much for French ingenuity!
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  9. A friend of mine got me to duplicate a DVD for him so he could use the duplicate to watch the movie, as the original was, I believe, Region 1, while we are in Region 4. The resultant copy was rendered region-free and thus could be played on any player.
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  10. If you're making the copy for a friend, who would otherwise be unable to play the original, you're not doing any real harm as you're only making a one-off copy for that person who has already forked out the moolah to pay for the disc in the first place, making a "region-free" DVD that his player can handle ain't going to bust anyone's bank balance, it's not any different to making a back-up copy.
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  11. @meetoo594: There may be logic in the practice, but that does not make it right or proper. Funny I've never heard of such a practice applied to Blu-Ray discs. It may well be there but I've not heard of it and I've never actually studied a Blu-Ray package to see if region coding is applied.
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  12. That answers my question on Blu-Ray, but as I don't have Blu-Ray discs or a player, I'm not really missing anything. Watching the Harry Potter saga on Blu-Ray for me, would be no different to watching it on DVD. All talk of Blu-Ray being sharper and clearer than DVD is nothing more than advertising bullshit. If you play the DVD then the Blu-Ray through the same flat-screen LCD TV, the image quality will be that which the LCD TV can deliver, regardless of the type of player hooked to it.
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  13. A lot of those "generic" DVD players had a standards converter to be able to play either PAL or NTSC discs. The only system they did not include was the crappy French SECAM. The intention was, that, in your British market where 25fps PAL colour with 625-line resolution and 50 Hz power supply line frequency was standard(same here in Australia and our neighbours, New Zealand), the players would effectively "step up" the NTSC disc to play at the PAL standard, while a generic player in the USA or Canada would go the opposite direction and "step down" the PAL disc to play on their lesser standard NTSC 24fps with only 525 lines resolution and 60 Hz power supply line frequency. It's what made PAL superior to NTSC, that extra frame per second and a full 100 extra lines of resolution.
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  14. The 'D' in SD is NOT a disc, nor is it intended to symbolise a disc, it is simply a fancy-designed 'D' and nothing more.
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  15. It's because Super Density disc was unsuccessful, and thus unrecognised(unheard of) that would lead many, including myself, to assume that the style of the 'D' was just a fancy pattern. Toshiba, by the way, is the Japanese subsidiary of EMI(Subsidiary being, in familial terms, the infant child member of a family).
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