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Author Topic: DVD pauses after the 3rd reel Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 03-12-2003 10:14 AM                        You would have thought that the pause could easily be avoided by building a small memory into the player (50mb should do it easily) that can store 10-20 seconds of video, like the buffer in a CD writer or the memory in a CD walkman that enables it to be 'jog proof'. The video would simply play from memory during the layer change, after which the player would read ahead to restore the full buffer.  |  IP: Logged Jesse Skeen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1517 From: Sacramento, CA Registered: Aug 2000 posted 03-12-2003 01:37 PM                     It IS possible to do pauseless layer changes- Universal did this on some of their earlier titles. I watched "The Deer Hunter", which runs 3 hours, with no pause whatsoever- I even looked inside the player while it was running and could tell it went through a layer change but did not pause. Of course, the only reason I was watching it was because a customer had returned it saying it wouldn't play on her player, so that's probably why they do it the other way now. If they are going to have it pause, they should only do it at reel changes. I've seen some where it pauses mid-sentence, very annoying.  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 03-12-2003 01:50 PM                        They may have drastically dropped the bit-rate before and after the layer change so as not to have a buffer under-run. Some players can't handle that, become unstable and crash. OR they could have done something else. Like Leo said, if there was a larger buffer the transition delay could be avoided on more players. At an 8Mbit datarate you would only need 0.76MB of buffer space per second. So an 8MB buffer would likely be more than sufficient. The problem is the larger a buffer used, the harder timing becomes, which makes it harder to maintain stability without increasing component cost. Since the average consumer wants to buy a DVD player for $100 and probably doesn't notice and/or care about layer transition delay, you're probably not going to see a player than incorporates a larger buffer. That and manufactureres avoid using much ram in their systems at all costs due to the volatile and price gouging nature of the memory industry. Besides, a dual laser player will already do seemless changes and not too many of those players are purchased.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-12-2003 01:54 PM                        Who needs a dual-layer player? Wouldn't it be easier just to get two players, two copies of the disk, and Steve Guttag to do the changeover?  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 03-12-2003 02:29 PM                     I do believe I remember having a conversation with Steve regarding him doing this with Laserdiscs.  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 03-12-2003 02:41 PM                        All movies on laserdiscs in the CLV mode under two hours were easy to fit on a sincle discs compared to the required two in CAV because of the limited 30 minute playing time per side. All three of my laserdisc players can play both sided of a disc so having to get up and filp a disc has not been too much of a problem for me. Whenever I have to change a disc after two hours is a blessing because of the need to go to the bathroom or get more snacks. The layer change on RSDL DVDs had never bothered me at all since I started to buy and watch them when they were first introduced in March 1997. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 03-12-2003 03:47 PM                        Yeah but Steve used two video projectors for that, he'd want you to have two televisions.  |  IP: Logged John Westlund Expert Film Handler Posts: 204 From: Burney, CA, USA Registered: Jun 2001 posted 03-12-2003 05:49 PM                     Its funny that sometimes you can overlook something that is so obvious until someone points it out. Today I was watching a DVD and noticed the pause. I had never noticed it until I read this thread.  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 03-12-2003 06:41 PM                        Let me spoil movies for you even more. Go to 'the movies' and watch the upper right hand corner of the screen... you'll see some cue marks once in a while. Later when watching the movie outside of a theatre you'll be able to tell everyone you're watching it with that 'this shot' had the cue marks right, wait, right here.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 03-12-2003 07:39 PM                        We used to do LaserDisc changeovers at my old theater for old shows and special programs. We'd get two copies of each disc and program the machine with the out and in frames of each side. We'd have to change the disc on one player while the other was playing, but to the audience it was 100% seemless. You can see pictures of this machine in the UA Greenwood Plaza 12 updated pictures which are not in the Picture Warehouse yet. But you can get to them if you scroll waaaaaaay down on the main page. The pics in the Picture Warehouse are all messed up for UA Greenwood, so don't bother.  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 03-13-2003 11:01 AM                    What would be even better than adding the memory buffer just for the layer change would be for the multidisk players to cue up the 2nd disk in the movie (like LOTR, Dances With Wolves DTS, etc), or the second side of the disk for the rest of the movie (like The Stand), and keep playing without a hitch. That would of course require software changes on the disks too. Just thinking ahead to what the next gripe would be if they work out the layer change pause.  |  IP: Logged Dave Michelsen Film Handler Posts: 8 From: Yorba Linda, CA, USA Registered: Feb 2003 posted 03-13-2003 02:08 PM                     Most of the DVD authoring houses nowadays are being very creative in where they code the layer change. Sometimes they even get past me unnoticed. (The momentary audio void usually gives it away even when the change happens on a motionless scene.) Here’s a little history on layer change. In the beginning there were two dual layer disc formats, one invented by Sony/Phillips called MMCD (Multi Media Compact Disc) and one invented by Toshiba/Warner called SDD (Super Density Disc). The two formats worked in similar ways but were totally incompatible with each other. (Remember VHS vs. Betamax?) In order to ensure public acceptance of the new home video technology, it was realized that only one format could succeed. Two formats simultaneously introduced would only confuse and turn off the market. To prevent dooming the new technology to a Beta/VHS type war the two sides ultimately agreed to share royalties and create a combination of MMCD and SD that became DVD. One of the pluses of the MMCD that didn’t transition into DVD was a seamless layer change that was accomplished by buffer memory in the player. (I saw the MMCD prototype go through a layer change and there was no hint of the event happening.) In the day, RAM was expensive and would have considerably added to the player cost making them less likely to sell even to early adapters. It was a sacrifice to make what happened happen—DVD is the fastest growing consumer product ever introduced. In their first year 10 times more DVD players were sold than CD player sold in their first year! DM [ 03-13-2003, 03:52 PM: Message edited by: Dave Michelsen ]  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 03-14-2003 08:22 AM                        Here is a link to MediaLine, a trade publication of the optical media industry: http://www.medialinenews.com  |  IP: Logged Manny Knowles "What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???" Posts: 4247 From: Bloomington, IN, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 03-14-2003 09:40 AM                     Are there any machines that are immune to the layer change?  |  IP: Logged Jesse Skeen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1517 From: Sacramento, CA Registered: Aug 2000 posted 03-14-2003 01:42 PM                     Another interesting tidbit is when laserdiscs were first being developed, they considered making them dual-layered so instead of turning over the laser would just focus on the 2nd side from the bottom, but they couldn't quite get it to work then.  |  IP: Logged

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