Author: Rick

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DVD Regions & Formats

An Annandale, VA client is moving to France for a year assignment with his family. He wants to be able to play his kids’ favorite DVDs for them on a French TV when he is there. Will this work?

Not easily, for two reasons:

  1. NTSC/PAL: The video on DVDs from the US & Canada is in the NTSC format which uses 720X480 resolution and displays 30 frames per second. European video is in the PAL format which uses 720X576 resolution and displays 25 frames per second.
  2. DVD Regions: DVDs have region codes so that they only play in DVD players sold in that region. The US is Region 1, while Europe is in Region 2. See the Wikipedia DVD Region information.

Work Arounds

There are a couple of ways to address these limitations:

Get a friendly DVD player

Several DVD players can be set up to be region-free by unlocking them with an unlock code entered with the remote control. This code simply allows the user to change the factory-set configuration flag to another region, or to the special region “0” which can play any region.  See the videohelp.com/dvdhacks site to find codes to make DVD players region free and to find out if a particular player can be set to region free.

Many DVD players can play both NTSC/PAL standards. You will need to check the manufacturer information or search online to determine if a particular DVD player can read and display both formats.

Oppo makes my favorite DVD players which have high quality upscalers (also knowns as scalers or upconverters) to make the video appear closer to high definition. Home theater aficionados typically compare the Oppo upscalers to those used on $1000+ DVD players. Oppos can read and play NTSC and PAL formats, and can be changed to region free.

There are many brands of DVD players including dirt-cheap DVD players which should work. The AVS Forum DVD Section also has a lively discussion of the best DVD players available.

Most of these DVD players are rated for 110-240 volts, meaning that they can be plugged into a US (110 volt) or European (220 volt) outlet, with only an adapter needed for the plug to fit. Otherwise, a larger transformer will be needed to step up or step down the voltage.

Play Video Files created from Handbrake

Most DVD players will also play back individual backed-up or ripped video files, as we described how to make with Handbrake. You can burn these files to a CD or DVD. This will get rid of the DVD region issue because the Handbrake-created files are not region specific. It will also allow you to put more video on a disk because the files are compressed with Handbrake. Cartoons, because they have few colors, can be highly compressed without a noticeable impact on quality. That allows you to burn many cartoons onto one disk.

While it’s not made to work out of the box, the limitations of format and region encoding can be overcome with a little work.

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Make Palm-sized Paper Booklets

Many D.C. area organizations do not allow people to bring in cell phones, PDAs, laptops, or any other electronic devices for security reasons. A great solution is to make a paper booklet for your information. There are two Flash-based websites that do a great job at this for free:

PocketMod

PocketMod includes lots of built-in templates: calendars, organizers, lists, references, games, RSS fees, and more. You can edit several of these to include your information. Creating a booklet is as simple as dragging the pages you want into your booklet and clicking Print PocketMod!

BookletCreator

BookletCreator prints any PDF (Adobe Acrobat file) file in a booklet form. If you have a long list of contacts that you want to print out, this works well. First you will need to turn your content into a PDF, as we explained how to do earlier.

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Backup your DVDs with HandBrake

HandBrake Rips DVDs

HandBrake is free open source software that can rip DVDs, meaning that it can make a backup of the video to your computer. HandBrake works very slickly and has multiple encryption options and presets for popular formats (ipod, PSP, Apple TV, etc.).

Originally just on Max OS X, HandBrake is now available on Windows.

You can keep your backup on your computer, on a small media device like an iPod, or burn it to CD or DVD.

MetaX adds Artwork

MetaX, also free, adds an image, description, and other info to the video. This allows you to, for example, see all your movies with associated artwork from within iTunes. Unfortunately, MetaX is only available for Mac OS X.

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National Cyber Alert System from US-CERT

For system administrators or those just interested in computer security, a great resource is the Cyber Security Alert system from US-CERT.

US-CERT formed in September 2003 as a partnership between the Department of Homeland Security and the public and private sectors, intended to coordinate the response to security threats from the Internet. US-CERT is the Federal Incident Management Center for the Federal Government and serves as the focal point for cybersecurity issues.

You can get their Cyber Security Alerts by email or add them to your RSS feed.

Here is an example of a recent Cyber Security Alert, warning of a particular security threat to Microsoft software and what actions to take:

Overview

Microsoft has released updates that address vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, Word, Excel, SharePoint Server, Visual Basic 6 and related components.

I. Description

As part of the Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for November 2008, Microsoft released updates to address vulnerabilities that affect Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, Word, Excel, SharePoint Server, Visual Basic 6 and other related components.

II. Impact

A remote, unauthenticated attacker could gain elevated privileges, execute arbitrary code or cause a vulnerable application to crash.

III. Solution

Microsoft has provided updates for these vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for December 2008. The security bulletin describes any known issues related to the updates. Administrators are encouraged to note these issues and test for any potentially adverse effects. Administrators should consider using an automated update distribution system such as Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).

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Acer Aspire One #1 Netbook

Our current favorite small netbook, the Acer Aspire One, is now the #1 selling netbook according to 3Q sales numbers as reported by DisplaySearch.

We expect competition to become only more fierce with companies continuing to flood the market with new models. Over the past week we just saw major price reductions from Lenovo whose IdeaPad S10 is now going for $349. HP similarly cut prices.

At some point, there could also be a response to the netbook market from Apple, either in a smaller screen laptop, a lower cost MacBook Air, or a tablet (a large iPod Touch?). While Apple has historically stayed away from cheaper products, this is the fastest growing part of the computer market.

Despite Acer’s loads of new netbook models released over 2008 (such as the recent Eee PC 1002HA), Asus gained market share with its simpler lineup with the Aspire One. See the full results below.