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A few people wrote me to say they didn't notice the slight stutter I did on the Triax BD 2004 DVD.

So I took the discs to a store that sold DVD players and played them on over a dozen different machines.

On two I noticed the flicker, but on the rest it played just great, so it is machine sensitive and not a fault of the discs.

In the end it doesn't matter much, as even on a lesser machine not everybody will notice it.

BTW, a store employee plugged one player into a big screen and we drew quite the crowd . . .

The original review is here:

http://www.dropzone.com/...ost=1567326;#1567326

NickD
BASE 194

Some useless technical information.

There is variation in both the quality of DVD recordings and the quality of DVD machine playbacks.

r.e. PLAYBACK

Expensive / high quality DVD players tend to have higher quality output pictures than cheaper machines. If coupled with professionally produced DVD footage, they look outstanding, especially on large screens. The reason is that the player is able to detect the slightest variation in information produced on the DVD. This literally translates to a better resolution. And if the DVD is produced at higher resolutions. . . Beautiful . . .

When you have a high quality DVD machine coupled with a cheaply produced DVD, the player picks up all the imperfections of the DVD. This translates to degradation in viewing quality ranging from pixelation, to striping, other glitches, to total inability to playback a DVD. You will especially notice these problems on pirate DVD copies on high quality players and the reason is simply that the cheaper burners are not as accurate when recording. This is even more important when recording at higher speeds (high speed means high data transfer rate).

If you have a cheaper DVD player, you are more likely to be able to play the full range of DVD's from original/professional quality recordings to cheap/amateur home based burns. The laser on the cheaper player just does not pick up as much information as the high quality players and hence they miss most of the stuff ups (pixelation, lines, freeze frame, etc).

It is almost like the cheaper players have a forward feedback smoothing function. They look at the future DVD data (a few seconds ahead), detect data variations, and then average out the scenes to avoid the technical glitches. They don't actually have this but that is the result.

Morals of this story:
- given that many people either pirate DVD's or produce DVD's on home machines, you are probably better off buying a cheaper player.
- don't pirate stuff in the first place.
- digital is not as perfect as people think. When its good its excellent, when its crap, its really crap. The pixelations you see on MiniDV tapes is an example of this.

So Nick, you are probably not senile after all. What you saw is more common than people realise.

This is my experience anyway. What do others think?

thanks for the follow-up Nick..
and the tech info TVPB.
pope