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Dodgy DVDs?

CP/M User

Veteran Member
Joined
May 2, 2003
Messages
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Location
Back of Burke (Guday!), Australia
Sorry if this is a rant - please move there if it turns out ugly! ;-)

Has anybody here experienced purchasing Dodgy DVDs? I brought one a few weeks ago, which was discounted, but seemed to have significant value to it. This was from what you American's would call a variety store (bit like K Mart - exect it was from another simular shop).

We (Aussies) seem to be getting heaps of rubbish when it comes to DVDs (well the movies I've got are good - but prices vary from store to store). Yesturday I brought two new movies for $19, nothing wrong with them, they looked good, they weren't in 5.1, but you don't really need an ol' movie in 5.1 (unless it's got some brillant musical theme to it). The slightly dodgy movie I brought the other day was in 5.1 (that's okay - so's heaps of other movies under $30), which was marked down to $24 originally $35, some other places I've seen the same movie go for as high as $39.

I kinda wonder sometimes if particular movies are marked up in price, because of what you're getting & if indeed it was discounted because it was slightly faulty.

Any thoughts, Suggestions, ideas?

Cheers,
CP/M User.
 
Aren't old movies often released in several different DVD versions, depending on how dodgy you want to pay for? It sounds strange if it works like that, but I have a faint memory that at least some movie companies prefer to rework it every 2nd year to get a new, improved release of a 20-30 year old movie.

I suppose $24, $30, $39 are AUD. Personally I don't yet own a DVD player, but probably wouldn't pay even the lowest amount if I had the slightest suspicion it is a 2nd degree production. Compare to a noisy CD re-release, which sounds like it is sampled directly from vinyl rather than master tape and no mixing at all. That's the kind of record I might buy if the price is $5-6, but not more.
 
"carlsson" wrote:

> Aren't old movies often released in several different DVD
> versions, depending on how dodgy you want to pay for?
> It sounds strange if it works like that, but I have a faint
> memory that at least some movie companies prefer to
> rework it every 2nd year to get a new, improved release
> of a 20-30 year old movie.

Usually I've seen movies from the 30s & 40s & even before
that since I've seen the classic Metropolis has arrived in a
new box with more features (compared to the one I brought)
which is a few years old.

The issue with those I think is copyright status, they have
none (or so I believe), which mean's anyone can bring it
out on DVD. Early Hitchcock movies from the 20s & 30s I've
seen in many shapes & forms on DVD (especally el' cheapo
DVDs - which I've heard were nasty, at the time I brought
mine for a little under $20, they weren't too bad).

> I suppose $24, $30, $39 are AUD. Personally I don't yet
> own a DVD player, but probably wouldn't pay even the
> lowest amount if I had the slightest suspicion it is a 2nd
> degree production. Compare to a noisy CD re-release,
> which sounds like it is sampled directly from vinyl rather
> than master tape and no mixing at all. That's the kind of
> record I might buy if the price is $5-6, but not more.

Yes those are AUD, but we also have even cheaper DVDs for
under just under $19, the movies they have for that price are
usually in very good quality, which is why I thought $24 for
price of a movie marked down from $35 would have been okay.

Movies under $20 generally aren't in 5.1, but do sound good
since they use the original sound the movie used & I couldn't
be any happier with the picture, it looks just as good as a high
priced DVD would - of course I don't have a digital telly, so
perhaps the "tell tell" signs would show up, but in any case my
telly uses a High quality Component Video Output which improves
the picture dramically from a standard AV connection! ;-)

I know what you mean about CDs. I was listen to some the other
night & boy do they sound terrible, static here there & everywhere,
because I listen to stuff from the 1960s more than anything, I guess
that's what happens when they misplace the master, don't know if
Digital Remasterning has anything to do with it.

Insidently, I was listen to my Peter, Paul & Mary In Concert album
(hence the reason for the Blowin' in the Wind thread!), which was
taken from the master. This album came out in 1964 & ironically
it states in the remixing process, extraneous noises were
discovered on the original 3-track master tape. Which goes on to
say that no attempt has been made to eliminate or alter any of
those noises to perserve the integrity of the recording.

Some albums I've found sound very good though & in fact they
sound better than the version I first heard on a couple of
Compilation albums I first brought.

Somebody here (besides myself) was looking for groups weren't
they, I've taken a bit of a swing & 'am looking into Fokey Pop
type stuff!

Cheers,
CP/M User.
 
If I'm not mistaken, copyright still holds for 70 years after the author's death, whoever the author is in a movie production. These days the copyright holders also take the opportunity to extend copyright by periods of 20 years or so, so I wonder if 1920's movies legally are out of copyright. More likely that someone who are protective about giving details about themselves bypasses the current copyrights and puts out their own dodgy production, sold through cheap stores.

On the subject of CDs, the marking should tell what it is about: AAD means analogue source and mastering, digital production. ADD is a digitaly mastered/improved version and DDD is digital all the way for new recordings.
 
"carlsson" wrote:

> If I'm not mistaken, copyright still holds for 70 years after
> the author's death, whoever the author is in a movie
> production. These days the copyright holders also take the
> opportunity to extend copyright by periods of 20 years or
> so, so I wonder if 1920's movies legally are out of copyright.
> More likely that someone who are protective about giving
> details about themselves bypasses the current copyrights
> and puts out their own dodgy production, sold through cheap
> stores.

Oh okay, you could be right about that, since I know extermely
little about Copyright. I thought anything that's older than 50
years looses it's copyright status, but that could easily be
something else. Another thing (which I forgot to add earlier) is
some movies I have on DVD say when they were originally
done & also have a year for which they were Renewed. This
is my understanding that lots of those ol' movies are still looking
good because of this (by updating the media or simply a print
before it's degraded into a poor state - something which DVDs
under $7 or $8 dollars might use).

> On the subject of CDs, the marking should tell what it is
> about: AAD means analogue source and mastering, digital
> production. ADD is a digitaly mastered/improved version
> and DDD is digital all the way for new recordings.

I said this once before somewhere (I can't remember where),
but most of my new CDs don't have this sort of information.
Course, lots of my ol' CDs mostly have AAD, I've got the odd
ADD (a Monkey's CD in my collection has this), no DDD becuase
most of my stuff -is- of ol' groups. Nowdays my CDs have
Digitally Remastered or Super Bit Mapping or Digital 24Bit HDCD
of of them seem to sound pretty good with little Static.

Unfortunately, one of the CDs I brought a few years ago of an
Aussie group has lots of their songs full of static. It's quite sad to
say the least that such a well reconised group of that time has
been neglected.
Course the CD's quite old 1989, few CDs I have from that period
have been digitally remastered, though it doesn't look to have
been an option. Would a digitally remastered CD make a
difference with Static? I've got stuff done in the 1950s which has
been remastered & sounds great. Course a lot of stuff done in
the 1950s is in Mono, any ideas as to if that makes a difference?
Actually, I don't think it would, since my Aussie group which is full
of Static is mostly mono. The tracks which perhaps sound better
on that CD sound like Stereo, so maybe the Mono songs were
processed as Stereo - hence too much info & static perhaps?

Sorry, if you can't answer all of that, I'll see if I can post it to
a record company or something which does all of this! :)

Cheers,
CP/M User.
 
Maybe the copyright rules I know only applies in the US, although I think most "civilized" countries around the world have applied the same rules. In short, it is like this:

* A work created on or after January 1, 1978 is protected until 70 years after the author's death. If more than one author is involved, the copyright lasts until 70 years after the last death. Anonymous works will be protected 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter.

* A work created before 1978, but not published until then, will apply to the same rules as above, but the copyright will in all cases remain at least until December 31, 2002 or December 31, 2047 (a little tricky).

* A work created and published before 1978, was copyrighted for 28 years starting on the day of registration or publication. On the 28th year, it could be renewed for another 28 years, or 47 years starting from 1976, which gave it a total protection of 75 years. Since 1998, a such work can be extended by another 20 years for a total of 95 years. A work copyrighted between 1964 and 1977 will automatically be extended to 95 years without need of renewal.

Ok, then there are people who claim that copyright does not exist and wholeheartedly ignores existing copyrights, but that's another discussion that normally leads to a lawsuit anyway.

I don't know about how to professionally improve sound or picture quality, but I assume to remove static, make sound clear etc needs a fair deal of hand work, which not always is cost effective. The biggest groups like Beatles of course makes sense to improve studio recordings, but not so many smaller bands.
 
So, from what I understand, only movies, recordings (?), notation, books etc published before 1909 are "safe" to reproduce. However, you can not use a revised edition of an old work - classical music company Naxos was recently sued by an orchestral arranger for recording some 1800's music where they had used the arranger's newer, revised edition of the notes that itself had some copyrightable value.
 
"CP/M User" wrote:

>> On the subject of CDs, the marking should tell what it is
>> about: AAD means analogue source and mastering, digital
>> production. ADD is a digitaly mastered/improved version
>> and DDD is digital all the way for new recordings.

> I said this once before somewhere (I can't remember where),
> but most of my new CDs don't have this sort of information.
> Course, lots of my ol' CDs mostly have AAD, I've got the odd
> ADD (a Monkey's CD in my collection has this), no DDD becuase
> most of my stuff -is- of ol' groups. Nowdays my CDs have
> Digitally Remastered or Super Bit Mapping or Digital 24Bit HDCD
> of of them seem to sound pretty good with little Static.

Just revising my discussions about this, my recent Del Shannon CDs are
a classic example of one being an AAD & the other Using Sony's Super Bit
Mapping. The AAD CD includes an album released in the late 70s which
has all the song Shannon did with Andrew Loog Oldham. The Super Bit
Mapping CD is a collection of -all- of his stuff between 1961-1990
(basically upto his death). Though the songs from the Super Bit Mapping
CD really blow away the ones found on the AAD, it's strange though that
the stuff put on the Super Bit Mapping CD seemed to be the songs which
most effected on the AAD CD - with noise & static. The clarity is
unbeliable, I'm guessing it's the Super Bit Mapping which has done the
trick here.

Also on the subject of HDCD - I just recently got a computer which can
play these CDs. The CD I've got in particular sounds great on an ordinary
CD player, but when I turn the enhancement on - I could find little
difference in quality of sound. Strange that - still sounds Great though.

> Unfortunately, one of the CDs I brought a few years ago of an
> Aussie group has lots of their songs full of static. It's quite sad to
> say the least that such a well reconised group of that time has
> been neglected.

I've played this CD a couple of times since, but what I've done is change
the setup of the sound system. On a 5 speaker system, I've worked out a
way to set the sound to the centre speaker - keeping the sound virtually
off on the others (hence Mono), which has improved the sound, but some
of the songs still have static. The ones in particualar which seem to be the
worst are songs which sound like their've been taken from a vinyl record -
due to some crackling. A master tape would probably have offered better
results, but we're talking about some Aussie group from the 1960s with a
handful of hits (probably localised to our region of the world - even
though they went to the UK & produced a couple of hits for us there).

CP/M User.
 
Wow! You guys take all this audio/video stuff seriously. All I know is that if I like something, I'll buy it and listen to it, including all of it's "warts". (I play a lot of stuff recorded in the 1920s & '30s, which are p'ticularly susceptible to extraneous noise). Of course, I was raised with a 6-transistor radio (high-technology, back then) stashed under my pillow every night, so distortion, etc. is less bothersome to me than to some of you younger (digital-era) folks with higher expectations.

--T
 
"Terry Yager" wrote:

> Wow! You guys take all this audio/video stuff seriously.

> All I know is that if I like something, I'll buy it and listen to it, including
> all of it's "warts". (I play a lot of stuff recorded in the 1920s & '30s,
> which are p'ticularly susceptible to extraneous noise). Of course, I was
> raised with a 6-transistor radio (high-technology, back then) stashed
> under my pillow every night, so distortion, etc. is less bothersome to
> me than to some of you younger (digital-era) folks with higher
> expectations.

It depends on what you mean by "seriously". I try to respect the age of
the material as well. I mean it's been such a short space of time since
Digital Media became the in thing (hence in the 80s), but music has been
recorded in some shape or form for much longer than that. It's perfectly
normal that there's stuff out there which has aged & can only get obtained
from media such as Vinyl. This isn't mean't to be an attack against Vinyl
though - or anything which predates it. In fact I think it gives the age of
the song Authenticity & in which shouldn't be opened to critism.

For some reason though, Static is of more concern to me & seems to spoil
my enjoyment to a song. I think this more of a transferning process from
one media to another & as a result - all kinds of processes have been
brought in to improve the quality of a sound. Which is when you go into
the process of Digital Remasterning, Super Bit Mapping, HDCD in regards
to the 3 I know of, to a stock standard AAD, ADD, or DDD (I've got one
recent album which does this - in which case have found no flaws with).

But what puzzles me is CD's seem to be comming down in price - perhaps
it's because of these other formats which want to improve the sound even
further. To me this has little meaning to older music cause it's not going
to capture anything else - what else is there to listen for?

What this leads me into is what I noticed at the local music shop a few
weeks ago, when I saw two copies (side by side) of The Byrds Greatest
Hits album (from 1967). You have the regular CD (which I might add has
been Super Bit Mapped), Vs. The SACD copy. The SACD copy was $20
more than the CD - all the same songs & bonus tracks. Course you can
play it on a regular CD player, but it's just another trick to get out there &
get SACD players perhaps - but is the songs on the SACD going to be
that much better anyway?

It kinda goes back on what I heard from my HDCD. I've got a computer
which can play it normally or in enhanced mode (improving the sound
according to the manufacturer), I don't know, I didn't notice much
difference again.

It's these issues which I most serious about, becuase I'm questioning
really if the price difference is going to enhance by hearing abilitys!

CP/M User.
 
A lot of stuff just isn't "visible" to the nakid ear...it's only detectible by o'scope or sum'n. I remember seeing an interview with Dr. John a few years ago, where the interviewer asked him about some recent lawsuit that he'd won against someone for "sampling" his music. He reported that he'd listened over and over to the sampled tracks, and couldn't tell his music from any other. It could only be detected by comparing waveforms on a 'scope.

--T
 
There's a nice audio program I use to view wave forms and clean up some "noisy" mp3 files. Its called Audacity. It can export to mp3 and OGG Vorbis formats.


-Vlad
 
"vlad" wrote:

> There's a nice audio program I use to view wave forms and clean up
> some "noisy" mp3 files. Its called Audacity. It can export to mp3 and
> OGG Vorbis formats.

Looks interesting - can it handle WAV files, OTOH how can I convert a file
to MP3? And covert it back to ordinary CD?

Another alternative I found was by tweaking with the Graphic Equaliser you can get rid of some minor static. Unfortunately the program I'm using AvRack needs more definitions for it's Graphic Equaliser - anyone here know anything about that?

CP/M User.
 
"Terry Yager" wrote:

> IMHO, some of that early jazz & bluez stuff just don't sound "authentic"
> without a certain amount of snap, crackle, & pop.

Yeah, but Static?!? A equaliser doesn't quite remove that snap, crackle & pop - which is good!

CP/M User.
 
Audacity can convert back and forth between formats and can handle .wav files. I have used it for years. It is cross platform, it comes on linux, Windows, and Mac OSX but the OSX version has some problems yet... It can be found here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Its really worth a look.

-Vlad

I also have this program that will rip cd tracks and encode to mp3 with a bit rate of up to 320K!
 
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