Film Festivals and DVD Questions

Kirk Gillock

Kirk Gillock

Rebel with a cause
I'm about to begin submitting a short video to some film festivals. The festivals are located in a variety of countries. How do you create a Region Free DVD so everyone can watch it? The person making the DVDs only has Nero software. Also, how should I handle the NTSC and PAL thing?

I'm just worried the DVD will travel 10,000 miles and the festival coordinators won't be able to play it. :(

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!
-pk
 
I'm guessing if the format is not specified you can send either PAL or NTSC, they should be able to play it. Besides, you would have to deal with converting and all the artifacts. From what I understand, you are in a PAL country, so send PAL dvd. But if the conversion isn't too much a hassle, send NTSC, because then you can be sure it'll play fine, because ALL DVD players play NTSC discs np.
Never dealt with Nero, but it must have an option to record redion free discs.

Soo, yeah... guess I didn't help much =|
 
xl70e3 - No, you did help. The discs will be made by my Dad in America. So he will make them all in NTSC. Knowing that PAL players also play NTSC discs helps a lot. Thanks!
 
i dont know if its true, i send mine short to europe and they were asking for pal
and anytime i submitt my short to american ffestivals they ask ONLY NTSC

some festival can watch both formats but not everyone and i am not sure that PAL players can play NTSC...hmm i got to send NTSC dvd to my parents in Poland to check if they will be able to play it....but of course if someone in europe has multisystem dvd player it will play both PAL and NTSC or SECAM (France) but most of the people dont have those newest mulitistystem players,,,,maybe some of the festivals have those but some are just lazy and use those old ones...MAKE SURE THEY WILL BE ABLE TO READ YOUR NTSC DISCS...
 
I bought a $49.00 blowout, lost leader, crappy Curtis DVD player for testing my burns and it does pal and ntsc. All the DVD players I own do both, secam is not represented however. I made a pal dvd from vegas and it played fine. I can't think of a good reason why DVD players in pal zones cant also play NTSC. I always assumed from looking in the menu area where it allows you to switch from pal to ntsc default, that the machines would all play either way. I am also assuming this would apply to 110 nd 220 volt systems as well. A little surfing research should put most questiond to bed eh?
 
Voytek - Thanks for the reply.

Mino - You find the best deals! VCD players in dumpsters and dirt cheap DVD players. Prior to posting I tried searching for "Region Free" stuff on Google and got a lot of "how to play", not "how to make." I wanted to get actual first hand experience from people who have submitted DVD screeners to overseas festivals.
 
In regards to making your DVD-R "Region Free" you have no choice. The only way I know of to make a region encoded disc is to ouput the authored project to DLT and send it to a replicator for glass mastering. This is also the only way to get CSS encryption and Macrovision AFAIK. That said, don't worry about the region issue. You'll have a "Region 0" or "All Region" disc if it's authored to DVD-R.

The NTSC / PAL video standard issue is another thing altogether, as explained by the folks above.
 
Some older DVD players can't play discs encoded with VBR (variable bit rate), so I always encode with CBR (constant bit rate). Can't really see any difference in quality. I use Adobe Encore DVD at 8Mbps CBR.
 
Sumfun - Thanks for the info. I used Adobe Media Encoder to make an MPEG2-DVD file . Can't remember if it was VBR or CBR. Pretty sure VBR is the default. D'oh! Thanks for the info.

Thanks to everyone who replied. I've got all the info I need now. DVXuser saves the day again.
 
PK Gillock said:
Owen - The DVD discs are DVD+R. Is that going to cause problems? Thanks.
Click to expand...


Just from getting off of the fest circuit in 2004 & 2002, I'd advise against DVD+R's. Several times, in many festivals, a film would start to play and the DVD player chewed it up, which pissed off the staff and the audience. Each time, I asked the filmmaker (if they were present) & projectionist what kind of disc it was... take a wild guess. DVD+R's.

From what many of the festival directors have told me, they have been pulling their hair out with how many DVD's won't play (all formats), screeners or exhibition copies.

After seeing that happen to a couple of devastated filmmakers, I tried to carry a BetaSP, DVCam, DVD, MiniDV & VHS copy of my film to the festivals. I never had a problem with DVD-R screeners, but had been requested to send VHS to a lot of fests. In the end, I sent both VHS & DVD-R.

In short, the tech-side of fests is a mess. I'm sure 9/10 times DVD+R's play fine, but the risk can cost you exposure or an award. This has just been my experience, all over the States.

-CJ
 
Voytek_Stitko said:
i dont know if its true, i send mine short to europe and they were asking for pal
and anytime i submitt my short to american ffestivals they ask ONLY NTSC

some festival can watch both formats but not everyone and i am not sure that PAL players can play NTSC...hmm i got to send NTSC dvd to my parents in Poland to check if they will be able to play it....but of course if someone in europe has multisystem dvd player it will play both PAL and NTSC or SECAM (France) but most of the people dont have those newest mulitistystem players,,,,maybe some of the festivals have those but some are just lazy and use those old ones...MAKE SURE THEY WILL BE ABLE TO READ YOUR NTSC DISCS...
Click to expand...

Once again, EVERY PAL DVD player will play NTSC discs fine. And if someones has a DVD player, you can be sure that his TV is multisystem (who would buy one and then connect it to a 30-year old piece of junk?). Take it from someone who lives in PAL country and has half of his discs Region 1. On the other hand, most of the NTSC players don't play PAL discs.
 
Owen said:
In regards to making your DVD-R "Region Free" you have no choice. The only way I know of to make a region encoded disc is to ouput the authored project to DLT and send it to a replicator for glass mastering. This is also the only way to get CSS encryption and Macrovision AFAIK. That said, don't worry about the region issue. You'll have a "Region 0" or "All Region" disc if it's authored to DVD-R.

The NTSC / PAL video standard issue is another thing altogether, as explained by the folks above.
Click to expand...


..well, ..just to note here... most DVD authoring programs will let you do this as well. IE: encore DVD lets you assign a region or regions for the disc. or keep it region free. it also lets you apply CSS encryption and macrovision I - III ..of course this is burning to a DVD - or + R or RW. you can also output to DLT for mastering, but it would be the same thing.. only masterd for replication.



but hey PK,

how big is the project your sending.. are you sending it on HDD? and what do you need for a menu system. i was going to offer to just put it together for you. pending how much work is involved.. ive got a coupe heavy projects coming up, but if its something i can just plug in and author in a couple hours it be no prob. then i could make a disc image for NERO (ver. 6 ultra edition) so that your dad coupl make copies just by burning the image. ...anyway just pm me if this is something youd youd want to do.
 
iamloser - that's very nice of you. It's only a 5 minute short video. I'm going to give my dad a chance. He's retired and is enjoying this little project. He even has a printer that prints directly to DVDs. What he has so far looks great, I just hope it plays great. Once he's burned the final copy I'm going to have him go to a variety of different DVD players in town and check how it plays. There's only about 3-4 festivals that are in PAL country. If I have problems with my old man I'll definitely PM you. Thanks again for the offer. Good luck on your big projects.
 
Interesting. I was talking on the phone yesterday with DiscMakers about a DVD project. However, their DVD-9s (dual layer) require a minimum order of 1,000. Unfortunately, that's about 500 - 700 more than I need (or want to pay for).

btw, Barry Green used http://www.cdtechnical.com for his DVX100 DVD.
 
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