Purists gripes with Russian DVD marketa tiny bit of statistics collected by Vadim Makarov in 20052007 |
Having discovered in 2005 that my PC could playback movies recorded on DVDs, I started buying some discs in the shops in St. Petersburg. To my surprise, it turned out that a significant fraction of DVDs present on the shelves had some sort of visible technical problem on my monitor.
Like spelling errors in a literary work can distract the reader from its content, substandard or inconsistent display quality can distract the viewer from being absorbed in a motion picture. Unfortunately the latter appeared to be the case with me.
My definition of a nice, trouble-free watching experience for movies on personal computer is this:
It turned out that whenever I had to buy a more expensive licensed disc, it only increased the chances of my watching experience being soaked or ruined by technical problems. The charts based on the 49 discs I bought and watched illustrate this. First, lets see if there is a correlation between the licensing status of a disc and the probability of encountering problems during playback:
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Now, lets see what disks I got versus the price paid. On the following two bar charts, each colored square represents a disc; the horizonal axis is the price paid for the disc:
Quite useless but funny statistics, isnt it? By the way, all the half-hearted measures to curb piracy during this time period only increased the average street price of DVDs in St. Petersburg by 20–30%, in my estimate. (You remember the threats: USA wont let Russia enter WTO unless the piracy is stopped, and stuff like that.)
I moved out of Russia in early 2007, which closed this study.
Please note that Russia is firmly a PAL country. There is, in my view, no point to sell non-widescreen movies in NTSC format here, let alone DVDs mastered with fixed NTSC optimization (e.g., irremovable pulldown). Yet many DVDs with films I wanted were just this.
Title | Price |
Licensed or pirated copy? | Format |
Problems during playback? | What problems? |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
The Great Dictator | $14.40 | Licensed |
| Yes |
I dont quite get what has happened to the image, but it looks like irremovable 24 to 30 fps conversion.
Instead of encoding |
War and Peace | $12.60 | Licensed |
| Yes |
For some reason, it displays with |
Cinderella | $10.80 | Licensed |
| No | Nit-picking: altough excellently mastered, the bitrate on this disc is still slightly insufficient. Some frames show visible compression artefacts. Additionally, a piece of the movie ten or so seconds long (just when the clock starts ringing midnight) exhibits comb-like aliasing in my player this probably wont be visible on a TV set, but is disastrous for a progressive display. |
War & Victory Songs; The Victory Parade | $10.80 | Licensed |
| Yes | The main title on the disc, 18-minute color footage of the Victory Parade in Moscow on June 24, 1945, has an irremovable frame rate conversion problem. For some reason, every video frame has double contours (i.e. appears to be a blend of two adjacent film frames). The result: any motion looks very blurred. |
Tchaikovsky (RUSCICO two-disc edition) | $9.00 | Licensed |
| No | |
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (two-disc extended edition) | $8.90 |
|
| No | |
A King in New York | $8.50 | Licensed |
| Yes | Frame rate conversion (some video frames are a superposition of two adjacent film frames). All motion, especially camera pans, visibly stutter and shimmer. |
Troy | $5.70 |
|
| No | |
2001: A Space Odyssey | $5.50 | Licensed |
| No | |
City Lights | $5.50 | Licensed |
| No | |
The Matrix | $5.40 |
|
| No | |
Pinocchio (Master Tape) | $5.40 | Licensed |
| Yes | Image becomes slightly unsharp and has visible compression artefacts after the first fifteen minutes of film. Insufficient bitrate. |
The Hunt for Red October | $5.40 | Pirated |
| No | |
The AristoCats (Svetla) | $5.20 | ? |
| Yes | Manufacturers logo (Svetla) is obtrusively displayed in the corner of the image for a couple minutes every half hour. Video is slightly overcompressed: small artefacts around lines are constantly visible. |
The Humpbacked Horse (USSR, 1947) | $4.80 | Licensed |
| No | |
The Snow Maiden (USSR, 1952) When (Christmas) trees light (USSR, 1950) New Years night (USSR, 1948) | $4.80 | Licensed |
| Yes | The last short title is poor quality, with interpolated frames. The other two are fine. |
Air Force One | $4.80 | Pirated |
| No | |
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs | $4.70 | Pirated |
| Yes |
This is the first disc with this movie Ive bought. Starting ca. ten minutes into the movie and throughout the rest of it, image goes slightly but very annoyingly unsharp for few seconds at a time many times. Insufficient bitrate (movie only takes two thirds of the disc, the rest is additional material). My watching experience of this wonderful movie was totally ruined: I got angry at the end of viewing. I actually tried to return this disc. The store gave me a merry-go-round with me calling them several times, getting two empty promises they replace my disc with a good edition if only I wait a week, and visiting them two times. Probably after a couple more visits I could get back my $4.70, but what the hell. Why should I be calling to arrange a meeting with the manager, coming at a specified time, providing my passport details and filling a complaint form, waiting, calling again, and coming once more to get my money back? They did not need all these formalities when they sold me this lemon. So I gave them the disc with a note saying this was my last purchase ever in this store chain, and left (this was Айсберг/Iceberg media store chain in St. Petersburg). |
Eyes Wide Shut | $4.70 | Pirated |
| Yes | Image unsharp, pixelated in places. Insufficient bitrate. |
Cartoons by Garry Bardin 3: Grey Wolf & Little Red Riding Hood; etc. | $4.60 | Licensed |
| No | |
Mickey Mouse (series from 19361938) | $4.60 | Licensed |
| Yes |
Insufficient bitrate. Moderately visible compression artefacts all through. Weird title structure that makes it impossible to start watching cartoons in sequence not from the first one. |
Peter Pan | $4.60 | ? |
| Yes | Frame rate conversion (all video frames are a varying superposition of two adjacent film frames). All motion blurred. Additionally, the image itself is a bit unsharp. |
Bambi, Make Mine Music | $4.60 | ? |
| Yes | Mastering of the second title (Make Mine Music) is just awful: image area smaller than the frame, skewed and blinking lines at the top, frames interpolated (botched fps conversion). |
Fantasia | $4.60 | Pirated |
| Yes | Disc unreadable at the very end of the movie (at the credits). Incorrect movie length listed on the cover. Otherwise fine. |
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Twic Lyrec) | $4.60 | Probably licensed |
| No |
This is the third disc with this movie Ive bought. Now the compression artefacts are mostly gone. The unsharpness of some scenes turned out to be the condition of the original footage (on this disc, this can be clearly seen). |
Alice in Wonderland, Melody Time | $4.30 | Licensed |
| Yes |
The cover says PAL. The movies are NTSC, and one of them (Melody Time) displays with |
Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone (Extrabit Russian edition) | $4.30 | Pirated |
| No | Shadow details sink into solid black on my screen. Not sure if this is my problem or bad mastering. |
Dumbo, The Three Caballeros | $4.30 | Licensed |
| Yes |
The cover says PAL. The movies are NTSC, and one of them (Dumbo) displays with |
The Nutcracker (Russia, 2004) | $4.30 | Licensed |
| Yes | Forces three-minute unskippable advertising before the film (UOP). Otherwise fine. |
Star Wars Episode III (from Collectors Edition set) | $4.30 | Pirated |
| No | |
Star Wars Episode I (Superbit Russian edition) | $4.30 | Pirated |
| No | |
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs | $4.30 | Pirated |
| Yes |
This is the second disc with this movie Ive bought. Motion looks not as smooth as it should be (fixed NTSC optimization made by Disney), image more or less uniformly unsharp. Besides, why make an NTSC disc of a 4:3 aspect movie if you can sell PAL in Russia? |
Lola rennt | $4.30 | Pirated |
| No | |
Clockwork Orange (Extrabit Russian edition) | $4.30 | Pirated |
| Yes | Forces Russian subtitles when user chooses English soundtrack (UOP). |
La Marche de lempereur | $3.60 | Pirated |
| No | |
Alexander Nevsky (Master Tape) | $3.60 | Licensed |
| No | Nit-picking: image is apparently cropped too much. |
Lady and the Tramp, Lady and the Tramp II | $3.60 | Pirated |
| No | Nit-picking: my player doesnt deinterlace correctly some frames in the second title. |
Robin Hood | $3.60 | Pirated |
| No | |
Mulan | $3.60 | Pirated |
| No | |
Alice in Wonderland (USSR, 1981) Through the Looking-Glass (USSR, 1982) | $3.60 | Licensed |
| No | Transfer from VHS, poor quality (oversharpened, drab colors). No problem here though, because the quality of what I am getting on this disc has been more or less clear from the images printed on its cover. |
Apocalypse Now Redux | $3.60 | Pirated |
| No | |
Saving Private Ryan (Superbit Russian edition) | $3.60 | Pirated |
| No | |
Star Wars Episode II (Superbit Russian edition) | $3.60 | Pirated |
| No | |
Star Wars Episode VI (Superbit Russian edition) | $3.60 | Pirated |
| No | |
Star Wars Episode V (Superbit Russian edition) | $3.60 | Pirated |
| No | |
Star Wars Episode IV (Superbit Russian edition) | $3.60 | Pirated |
| No | |
Modern Times | $3.60 | Pirated |
| Yes | Disc unreadable at the end of the movie. Getting a replacement disc didnt help (recordable media probably incompatible with my drive). Otherwise fine. |
Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV
| $3.60 | Pirated |
| Yes |
Seems to be mastered from a VHS tape or from a broadcast. Double contours present in all frames (poor source or defective conversion equipment). There are a lot of |
Cartoons by Garry Bardin 2: Choo-Choo | $3.00 | Licensed |
| No |
The software player I used was neoPlayer 6.00 on Windows XP.
The rate of discs I was satisfied with grew with time, as I was getting more experienced and picky in what to buy. However, the beginning was frustrating: out of the fourteen first purchased discs, only five were trouble-free; out of the five first purchased licensed discs only one was trouble-free.