Help Pages
REGION CODES:
The DVD world is divided into six major geographical regions,
with two additional regions reserved for specialized use.
This means that DVD players and DVDs are labeled for operation on within a
specific geographical region in the world. For example, the U.S. is in region 1.
This means that all DVD players sold in the U.S. are made to region 1 specifications.
As a result, region 1 players can only play region 1 discs, they are encoded for a specific region,
look at the back of each DVD package, you will a find a region number (1 thru 6).
The geographical regions are as follows:
REGION 1 -- USA, Canada
REGION 2 -- Japan, Europe, South Africa, Middle East, Greenland
REGION 3 -- S.Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Parts of South East Asia
REGION 4 -- Australia, New Zealand, Latin America (including Mexico)
REGION 5 -- Eastern Europe, Russia, India, Africa
REGION 6 -- China
REGION 7 -- Reserved for Unspecified Special Use
REGION 8 -- Reserved for Cruise Ships, Airlines, etc...
REGION 0 or REGION ALL -- Discs are uncoded and can be played Worldwide.
However, PAL (Phase Alternating Line) discs must be played in a PAL-compatible unit
and NTSC (National Television System Committee) discs must be played in an NTSC-compatible unit.
NTSC is the broadcast standard used in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Japan.
PAL is the broadcast standard for Australia, United Kingdom,
Germany, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
While many DVDs are now shipped with both "Full Screen" or "Widescreen" formats on a single DVD,
there are still several DVDs that are sold with only one or the other in the box.
This forces the consumer to make a decision of which format to buy
which can be confusing to the average person.
If you play a full screen DVD on a widescreen TV, the picture can either be
stretched to fit the screen (making people look fatter than they are),
or it can be shown with in the full screen format with 2 black bars on the
right and the left of the screen.
If you play a widescreen DVD on a full screen TV, the picture will be shown
with black bars on the top and the bottom of the screen.
The size of the bars will vary based on the aspect ratio of the DVD.
Wide-Screen
Wide-Screen presentations mirror a film's original, theatrical height-to-width ratio,
with thin black strips across the top and bottom of a traditional television screen.
The plus side of this is that you view the film pretty much as the filmmakers intended you to see it.
The minus side, though, is that the image itself could be smaller,
a drawback when viewing the film on a 20-inch or smaller TV or computer monitor.
With a Wide-screen DVD, viewers watching on newer Wide-Screen TVs
(with 16:9 height-to-width ratio, as opposed to the standard 4:3) can enjoy
the picture as it was originally presented in theaters.
Full-Screen (a.k.a. Pan-and-Scan)
Full-Screen presentations adapt a movie to fill a TV screen's contours,
eliminating portions of the picture deemed expendable by the producers.
This means the film has been cropped to provide maximum impact for your TV or computer.
As a result of the pan-and-scan presentation -- created by panning around the
film image and scanning the crucial characters and action --
less of the filmmakers' original vision appears on your screen
Cleaning and repairing DVDs / CDs
If you notice problems when playing a disc, you may be able to correct them with a simple cleaning.
* Do not use strong cleaners, abrasives, solvents, or acids.
* With a soft, lint-free cloth, wipe gently in only a radial direction
(a straight line between the hub and the rim).
Since the data is arranged circularly on the disc, the micro scratches you create
when cleaning the disc (or the nasty gouge you make with the dirt you didn't see
on your cleaning cloth) will cross more error correction blocks and be less likely
to cause unrecoverable errors.
* Don't use canned or compressed air, which can be very cold and may thermally stress the disc.
* For stubborn dirt or gummy adhesive, use water, water with mild soap, or isopropyl alcohol.
* There are commercial products that clean discs and provide some protection from dust,
fingerprints, and scratches.
CD cleaning products work as well as DVD cleaning products.
If you continue to have problems after cleaning the disc, you may need to attempt
to repair one or more scratches. Sometimes even hairline scratches can cause
errors if they just happen to cover an entire error correction (ECC) block.
Examine the disc to find scratches, keeping in mind that the laser reads from the bottom.
There are essentially two methods of repairing scratches:
1) fill or coat the scratch with an optical material;
2) polish down the scratch. There are many commercial products that do one or both of these,
or you may wish to do it yourself with polishing compounds or toothpaste.
The trick is to polish out the scratch without causing new ones.
A mess of small polishing scratches may cause more damage than a big scratch.
As with cleaning, polish only in the radial direction.
Windex IS NOT a good idea! It will CLOUD THE PLASTIC after a while.
Maybe NOT on the first cleaning, but after a few times it WILL cloud.
You should use a WEAK alcohol solution, and a SOFT cloth, like a chamois.
Any kind of ammonia is NOT good.
SEARCHING eBay:
If you are looking for a particular movie, please first try the
SEARCH box on the top right of a eBay page.
eBay Search
You can always do a search on Ebay for the film (actual title and/or artist) you want to sell and check
the "completed auctions" for a very rough idea of what that movie or one similar to it went for.
MOVIE POSTERS:
Movie Poster Sizes:
* One-sheet -- 27" x 41"
* Insert -- 14" x 36"
* Half-sheet -- 22" x 28"
* Three-sheet -- 41" x 81"
* Six-sheet -- 81" x 81"
* Window Card -- 14" x 22"
* Title Card -- 11" x 14" (The first card in a set of 8 that is set up like a small movie poster)
* Scene Card -- 11" x 14" (One of the other 7 cards in a set that shows scenes from the film)
* Lobby Set -- 11" x 14" (The complete set of lobby cards which includes Title Card and 7
Scene Cards)
* Still -- 8" x 10" photo, showing actors either in scenes from the movie or posed shots - usually in B&W.
The difference between an original, a reprint and a re-issue (re-release):
An original is the first poster released when the movie first came out.
A re-release, also known as a re-issue, is a poster made when the movie was brought back years later.
A reprint is either an exact reproduction of the original or re-release poster, or a new style design
that was never issued for a theatre showing. Originals and re-releases generally increase in value over time.
Reprints do not. Originals cost more than re-releases.
And reprints generally will cost less than originals and re-releases
Want to Research Prints or Find Posters and Slides?
Check out .. Smithsonian American Art Museum
Looking for that special out of print or hard to find movie?
Try these:
Movies Unlimited
Video Beat
Movie Hunter
Cinema Classics
Critics Choice
World Wide Videos
Fatt Videos
Film Vault UK
eBay's Adult dvd/video category:
Everything Else - Mature Audiences
What is Public Domain?
Anything which legally has no owner is said to be in the public domain.
Once there was even public domain land, but now public domain is pretty much
limited to intellectual property where copyright protection has expired or the
creator has formally given his work to the public.
There is no "official" list of public domain property because something becomes
public domain due to the absence of any law giving anyone claim to ownership.
In effect, if no one on this entire planet can find any law which gives them legal claim
to a property, then that property is in the public domain.
Public Domain Movie Database
Internet Archive Movies
Entertainment Magazine Free Movies
Our Favorite Web Sites
