Forums > Specific Focus > Technical Mexico

kirkswig

Nov 29, 2004, 7:37 PM

Post #1 of 12 (1433 views)

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DVD quality in Mexico

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Sigh. I hope I'm wrong about this, but I don't think I am...

Just rented what may be my last DVD movie here in Mexico. The problem? The quality. By that I mean, the quality of picture, sound... everything.

I guess I should feel tickled pink that I can rent movies here that are in English and that don't have sub-titles. It is nice to be able to do that. And I guess asking for DTS when the movie was recorded in DTS is maybe asking for too much... Dolby Digital Surround isn't all that bad I suppose.

But I've just now experienced the third movie in a row that had what I can only call MISERABLE video quality. I mean, it's the kind of quality you'd expect when pointing RealPlayer at C-SPAN, heavily encoded, artifacts all over the place, and a resolution that honestly looked to be somewhere around 320X240. Just awful. This last movie was Troy. I consulted some reviews stateside about the DVD edition of Troy there and everybody seems to just rave about the quality. It is, after all, a big-budget movie with stellar effects (supposedly), so normally they do take the time and care to make sure the DVD version is as high quality as possible.

What I'm learning however is that when they produce the DVD's for Mexico, they just don't give a damn.

Anyways, I turned it off only five minutes into the movie.

I should say that *some* DVD's have been superb. Well, the movie may be rot, but the DVD encoding was superb. For instance, not too long ago I rented Bourne Supremacy, and that was very good.

Is this perchance related to which studio or distributor produces the DVD? Does anybody know of a way I can tell in advance whether the DVD quality is going to be crap before I hand over my 25 pesos?

To boldly go where no wig has gone before.

Marlene

Nov 29, 2004, 7:56 PM

Post #2 of 12 (1427 views)

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Re: [kirkswig] DVD quality in Mexico

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Quote

I guess I should feel tickled pink that I can rent movies here that are in English and that don't have sub-titles.

This is a little clue that you have fallen victim to renting a pirated copy hence the horrible quality. The legit ones done for Mexico have sub-titles.

Cynthia7

Nov 29, 2004, 8:26 PM

Post #3 of 12 (1422 views)

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Re: [Marlene] DVD quality in Mexico

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I was told that they go to the first run movie with a recorder and record the movie and make copies from that. I wondered how dvd's were being sold at the market the second day Spiderman came out in the movie theaters.

Marlene

Nov 29, 2004, 8:31 PM

Post #4 of 12 (1418 views)

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Re: [Cynthia7] DVD quality in Mexico

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Actually that is exactly what I heard too. That is why you can hear the munching of popcorn and the audience noises in the background! (The speed with which they make it to Mexico after release in the US is another clue they are pirated) If only our mail could get here that fast.

Papirex

Nov 29, 2004, 8:57 PM

Post #5 of 12 (1415 views)

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Re: [kirkswig] DVD quality in Mexico

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Kirk, Besides the possibility that the disks you rented are pirated, there is the possibility that they are in the wrong format for the zone your DVD player was designed for. You may already be aware that the world is divided in to six zones with different formats for DVD disks, and players.

The United States is Zone 1, Mexico is zone 4. A DVD recorded for one zone will not play in a player Designed for a different zone. Some DVD disks sold in Mexico are multi zone disks, that are marked for zone 1 or 4, they will play on a DVD player from the US, or Mexico. As I have looked at DVD disks in stores, it appears that not many of them are multi zone disks, maybe 5 % of them are.

There are also multi zone DVD players sold here. I have seen some at Costco here in Cuernavaca for around $1500 Pesos. I have also seen some at other stores for $4000 to $5000 Pesos. I have no idea if there is any great difference between them. If your problem turns out to be a difference in the zones the disks were recorded for, and the zone your player was designed for, it might be cheaper to simply buy a DVD player here that was designed to play zone 4 disks. You could always switch between players for different formatted disks.

I hope this info helps, if your problem is with the zones the disks were recorded for.

Rex
"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved" - Victor Hugo

kirkswig

Nov 29, 2004, 9:16 PM

Post #6 of 12 (1410 views)

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Re: [Marlene] DVD quality in Mexico

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I think you're thinking of VHS. DVD is different in that it lets you go to a setup menu and choose how the movie is to be played, i.e., you can pick which language is spoken (e.g., Spanish or English) as well as choose whether there are sub-titles and in which language. So, merely because the DVD doesn't have sub-titles (or more correctly, because I choose not to use them) doesn't let us infer the authenticity of the DVD.

I want to say that these aren't pirated DVD's, but you know, I can't be sure. I know what you're talking about... there are any number of places around the mercado that sell DVD's of movies that were just released to the theaters NOB. Those are *obviously* pirated.

But you know which rental store I go to. I think they run a legit operation. And I've yet to see a title that shouldn't be there, i.e., that is still in the theaters. Besides, many of the DVD's they have to rent are legit, or at least, don't have this problem. Why would they offer legit movies if they were going to risk offering pirates wares as well?

To boldly go where no wig has gone before.

kirkswig

Nov 29, 2004, 9:29 PM

Post #7 of 12 (1408 views)

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Re: [RexC] DVD quality in Mexico

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I watch DVD's on my computer. I have a great big 21" CRT monitor so I get a really good experience that way. And I'm aware of the region issue you talk about, and it is a factor for my Macs but not on my Windows PC, which is where I view most DVD's. I don't understand why, but I can freely watch any region of DVD on this thing and it doesn't complain... the DVD drive is made by Pioneer, and it's pretty old I guess so maybe it was put out before the region encoding requirement? I don't know. It isn't that old, since it has SPDIF out, which lets me listen to AD3 using my surround-sound headphones. It's very nice when everything is working right.

But even supposing it was a region issue, wouldn't it simply refuse to play? I can't believe that they have it worked out so that the quality is deliberately downgraded; that sounds like it would be awfully complicated to do. And besides, I'm able to watch other DVD's from the same rental store that are perfectly fine (well, mostly fine... I haven't yet had one that supported DTS, which is the best sound available on DVD.)

I really do think it's a question of how much money the studios choose to put in to the DVD's destined for Mexico (and maybe other regions as well.) On a lot of them you can tell that the DVD was created just for Mexico because of the way the menus appear and the choices available (Spanish being given prominence over English for example.) But I don't understand why that has to mean a loss in video quality. Audio quality kind of makes sense, I mean, after all you're adding another audio track to support that different language so maybe you have to sacrifice the DTS soundtrack (which takes a lot of space) to make room for the English and Spanish Digitial Surround soundtracks.

But then, why do I remember all of the DVD's I used to rent NOB as having both DTS soundtracks in English and Digital Surround in Spanish? If they can do it there, then why not here?

You know, I can understand if the DVD market here in Mexico isn't big enough to justify the expense of putting out the equivalent quality. But what I can't understand is why that even matters when Spanish is a language they routinely support for the NOB market! Why not just release the exact same DVD for Mexico?!?

To boldly go where no wig has gone before.

NickP

Nov 30, 2004, 7:28 AM

Post #8 of 12 (1394 views)

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Re: [kirkswig] DVD quality in Mexico

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I hate to break it to you Captain, but two of the DVD's you say you rented (Troy and The Bourne Supremacy) are yet to be released for Region 1.
They are nothing more then worthless pirated crap and you should boycott the video store you rent from. Shame on them.

Now not all DVD titles are released in DTS sound, in fact there are only about 1800 DVD titles that have this great feature and there's less then 50 titles that have DTS-ES sound.
You can read about all the boring tech. details to any movie at www.imdb.com

Also here's a site that lists Region 1 DVD release dates
http://www.joblo.com/releases.php?mode=dvd

Rent or buy only original titles, not the pirated stuff because once you've viewed the DVD the fun stuff begins with DVD's that have hidden gems within the DVD called Easter Egg's.
DVD's with easter eggs will have hidden outtakes, deleted scenes and lots of other fun things.
Did you know that there's yet a 3rd hidden version of T2??

Google DVD easter eggs and see for yourself

Happy hunting

kirkswig

Nov 30, 2004, 3:19 PM

Post #9 of 12 (1379 views)

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Re: [NickP] DVD quality in Mexico

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I checked the review I read on the Troy DVD and it turns out it was done in the UK. So that explains that.

I'm still not convinced these are pirated DVD's though. If they were pirated, they'd be exact copies of DVD's already on market (like in the UK above) or they'd be the kind of crap where it's some guy in a theater with his camcorder. The DVD's in question here are neither. In the case of Troy, the video quality was crap, so clearly it wasn't an exact copy of the DVD already released in the UK. But at the same time, it has both a Spanish and English soundtrack in Digital Surround Sound, so it isn't some guy with a camcorder either. Somebody obviously took the time to produce this DVD and had access to the source material (as well as translators to do the voice-overs in Spanish.) The problem is that they didn't take enough time... they just ran the video through what I guess is the easiest encoder available and produced a crappy DVD.

Just because it hasn't been released in Region 1 doesn't mean it isn't released in Region 5 for Mexico.

I still think these are legit DVD's. Crappy, but legit nontheless.

And I think we should also remember that there are crappy but legitimate region 1 DVD's too. The one I still can't get over is the special edition of 2001: A Space Odyssey. My five-year-old nephew with a box of crayolas could have done more justice to that movie than this DVD did.

It's just that NOB, these duds are few and far between. Here I'm thinking it's one out of two.

As for T2, I'm disappointed I didn't look for those Easter eggs when I rented the Extreme Edition. *That* was a great DVD if you're looking for DTS, but I remember being disappointed that the director's cut scene weren't in there (esp. the one where they yank Arnie's CPU.) The only one I've come across with a better DTS soundtrack is Master and Commander. Unbelievable. I kept having to take off my headphones because I couldn't believe the sound was that good.

To boldly go where no wig has gone before.

ignacio

Feb 28, 2005, 9:23 AM

Post #10 of 12 (1306 views)

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Re: [kirkswig] DVD quality in Mexico

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I read someplace on internet that all players are manufactured with the capability to sell on any region (makes sense) and after their destination is determined, these are then programmed to work correctly for that specific region.

They also mention that you can make any player a 'multi-region' (region 0) if you know the correct button pushing sequence and 'code number' for that model player. This button pushing I am talking about is via your front panel buttons or remote control.

If you check with Goggle, there are people selling these codes on internet (and EBAY).

I don't own a DVD player so I do not know for certain if this is for real.

NickP

Mar 1, 2005, 8:37 AM

Post #11 of 12 (1277 views)

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Re: [ignacio] DVD quality in Mexico

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When I bought my DVD player on Ebay about 4+ years ago it was a Region 1 player.
At the time I was not really interested in renting or purchasing Region 4 DVD's and figured I'll add to my collection by purchasing region 1 dvd's from Mixup in Guad, Amazon and when friends and family would travel too and from the states and Canada.

It quickly became $$$$ hobby buying Region 1 DVD's, so I thought I would convert my Toshiba Region 1 into a multi-region player by searching for a hack code on line....none of the free codes online worked and I did not feel like shelling out greenbacks online for a hack code.
It also didn't help a friend who's Sony player does not have a numeric keypad on the remote.

Then one day while walking the wednesday market in Ajijic I noticed the video pirate had a switch on the back of his DVD player and asked what it was?
He said it was a multi-region set switch and he sold them for 180pesos +/-. not taking him serious I passed on the offer to buy on the spot.
A couple of weeks latrer I hooked up with my friend who had the Sony player and told him about the switch I saw and he said one like this as he pointed to his player.

He said it works great.

In the end I ended up buying a Multi-region 1-4 player at Costco for 1600-1800 pesos.

hoyafb95

Mar 7, 2005, 9:10 AM

Post #12 of 12 (1227 views)

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Re: [NickP] DVD quality in Mexico

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Sam's Club was selling some Sony Multiregion DVD players for about 2500 Pesos. They could be positioned vertically. We bought one for a friend as a gift so they did not have to plug into DVD players for different regions. No complaints and it has played everyting.