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DVDs, compatibility and tech stuff
DVDs and compatibility
Most of the time, our DVDs work in all DVD players, and you do not need to look at this page. In fact we deliberately leave out all sorts of complicated gubbins which might look fancy but which might not play on your machine. But sometimes (less than 1% of cases) the DVDs do not play in certain players. This is a fact of technical life, and we do all we can to avoid it. However, this problem is unpredictable and can affect any maker of DVDs. It seems to strike at random and nothing "wrong" can be found with the discs or the players.
DVDs (Digital Versatile Discs) are the video equivalent of the Compact Disc (CD). Just like CDs did for the audio world, DVD has revolutionised the video world. Unlike VHS tapes, which contain the picture and sound information in analogue form on iron oxide (rust) coated tape, DVDs hold all the information in clear digital format on a plastic disc. The information is read by a laser, and so there is no physical contact between the read head and the disc - and therefore nothing to wear out. Not only is the picture and sound better than on VHS tape (due to being held in digital form) but in theory it should last much longer. At Markle all of our editing and most of our pictures are in digital format already, so DVD allows the sharpest of images to be sent direct to you the viewer, and in a format which is easier for you to store.
Now, if all this is sounding too good to be true, it probably is. Markle is constantly plagued by the fact that, because we specialise in Irish and French railway videos in the English language, our market is very small. This makes our duplicating runs very small, and therefore our titles tend to be more expensive than mass produced subjects. Feature films and big-selling DVD titles on British or US railways can be made by multiple disc pressing techniques which just cannot be afforded for the size of our market. So. like many small scale video producers, Markle has gone in for DVD-R discs. This process is widely used and is similar to making data discs for a computer. Unfortunately, despite what we were all promised by the DVD industry not all discs made this way can play in all DVD players. Even worse, it is impossible to predict which discs will not play in which players. As time goes on, more and more players can play all types of discs, but older players are not always 100% compatible.
So why, you may well ask, do we make discs which are not 100% compatible. Well, our experience is that over 99% of the discs we make will play in all players. Secondly, we have invested in a multi-format duplicator, so we can make the widest range of compatible discs. The formats we can make are DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R and DVD+RW. In our experience, if you have a player which will not play a DVD-R disc it will almost certainly play one of the other disc formats. And finally, our customers who can play these discs satisfactorily, and that is almost everyone, do want to be able to buy DVDs.
How do you know if your DVD will play DVD-Rs? The official advice is to consult your DVD player handbook. In our experience, your handbook may say that you can play DVD-R, indeed you may already have a Markle DVD-R which does play, and then you can find that another title will not play. There is no technical answer to this, and our only advice is to contact Markle if your new disc will not play and we will try to provide you with one which does play on your machine. There are also sites on the World Wide Web with compatibility information, but we cannot validate their accuracy either.
Our advice on this is simple. Some players do not play some discs - for reasons which are hard to identify. If you have a disc cleaning kit try cleaning the disc - DON'T JUST GIVE IT A RUB!!. If your new disc still will not play, contact Markle and we will try to sort it out. If all else fails we may have to resort to a VHS tape, but that would be a pity as we hope to be able to sort these problems out.
If you wish to carry out a trial, just let us know and we will send you out a DVD-R disc with a trailer on it to see if it works in your DVD player.This is not a very scientific test, but it should prove if we have some compatibility, and if not we can change the format for you.
By the way, it is not just DVD-Rs which are not 100% compatible, neither are some of the big-label feature films. Many of us feel let down by the electronics industry who seem to have launched the DVD without an industry-wide standard. Why do we need 5 video formats (DVD, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD+RW and DVD-ROM), plus at least two new ones (dual-layer and blueray???), anyway?
Other tech stuff
These days Markle images are made on 3-CCD digital camcorders, mostly Sony DV type, but also a few scenes are sometimes shot on Sony Digital 8 single CCD machines. We now have a Sony high-definition widescreen camcorder with a CMOS imaging chip - but although we can shoot images in high definition we have no way of publishing them at the moment. All our editing has been done entirely on digital equipment. Editing has been done over the years on various versions of Adobe Premiere 6.0, 6.5 and Premiere Pro 1.5. We currently use a Matrox RT.X100 Xtreme Plus capture board. DVD masters are made on Sony drives using Adobe Media Encoder and Adobe Encore DVD software.
In the past we used Pinnacle Impression software to make DVDs. This worked well, but it produced that funny effect when played on some computers. You had to stop playing the disc and go to the index manually. Anyway, Encore DVD does not do that, so gradually the problem is disappearing
We can accept contributions in just about all formats. We have a GTH Electronics ACE standards convertor and enhancer has allowed all sorts of tape to be input, and it can do funny stuff like correcting wonky colour balance, fixing damaged time coding and of course do PAL/NTSC/SECAM conversions.
Early tapes, pre 2001, were made using an older editing system using a Raptor capture card and Ulead software. The sound was generally balanced for mono VHS reproduction, which sometimes converts to rough sound on DVD. Some early narration was done in 8-bit mono and this falls short of modern standards of reproduction. We have now remastered almost all of this material for DVD listeners. The problem only applies to the narration - the trains still sound good!
Even though we have the most up to date technical equipment, we do not go in for very complex titling as we feel that the finished product should really feature the trains rather than the gizmos.
Click the page you wish to see from the table below.
| Irish Railway Review Nos 5 to 8 | ||
| Northern Ireland Railways DVDs | ||
If you wish to contact Markle Associates Video:
Markle Associates,
7 Welltower Park,
Ayton,
Berwickshire,Scotland,
TD14 5RR
Telephone: 0189 07 81991