DVDPedia: Corrections and additions to formats under "S

[zombieflanders]

First off, I'd like to thank the Bruji folks for making a damn good program. I'm a switcher (well, mostly) coming from DVD Profiler on the PC side, and DVDPedia seems like pretty much what I needed from the Mac side. I've only been testing it out for one day, and I'm ready to plonk down the registration fee.

Okay, effusive praise aside, I do have one big nitpick. Basically, the audio formats that are listed under "Sound" are both incorrect and incomplete. As far as I can tell, the list currently only includes the following:

• Dolby Digital
• AC-3
• DTS
• THX

The problem is, only Dolby Digital and DTS really apply. AC-3 is essentially another name for Dolby Digital, and THX is a certification for mastering a title according to certain audio and video standards, not an audio format. The audio formats for DVD actually break down like so:

• Dolby Digital
• Dolby Digital EX (allows for matrixed 6.1 sound, with "phantom" rear channel)
• DTS
• DTS-ES Matrixed (same functionality as DD EX)
• DTS-ES Discrete (allows for actual rear channel instead of "phantom")
• MPEG Audio (a simple MPEG Layer 2 track)
• PCM (uncompressed 2-channel sound)

It gets even more complicated when you throw in Blu-ray and HD DVD, which support the above and more. Here's the full list, with additional descriptions (hi-def only formats in bold):

• Dolby Digital (with higher bitrates for Blu-ray)
• Dolby Digital EX
• Dolby Digital Plus (allows higher bitrates for HD DVD)
• Dolby TrueHD (lossless audio compression with support up to 7.1 channels)
• DTS
• DTS-ES Matrixed
• DTS-ES Discrete
• DTS-HD (allows higher bitrates for Blu-ray and HD DVD and supports up to 7.1 channels)
• DTS-HD Master Audio (lossless audio compression with support up to 7.1 channels)
• MPEG Audio
• PCM (lossless uncompressed audio with support for hi-def formats up to 7.1 channels)

So, I know it's a long and most likely boring first post. Like I said before, I'm pretty much an instant convert to DVDPedia, but this is the first thing that jumped out at me. Once again, thanks for such an easy-to-use program.

[Rigido]

Hi Zombie,
really interesting and well done post. Right now I used the "Sound" field just as a "general audio format" (i.e. Dolby Digital) and I used the "Languages" field to deepen (I hope the online dictionary worked ) and I'm using:
Italiano: DTS 5.1 - Inglese: Dolby Digital 5.1
I just asked developers to use multi-rows fields.
BTW, what would you use in the Sound field for a multi-language DVD/HDDVD/BD with (i.e.) English DTS audio and Italian Dolby 2.0?

[zombieflanders]

Hi Zombie,
really interesting and well done post. Right now I used the "Sound" field just as a "general audio format" (i.e. Dolby Digital) and I used the "Languages" field to deepen (I hope the online dictionary worked ) and I'm using:
Italiano: DTS 5.1 - Inglese: Dolby Digital 5.1
I just asked developers to use multi-rows fields.

BTW, what would you use in the Sound field for a multi-language DVD/HDDVD/BD with (i.e.) English DTS audio and Italian Dolby 2.0?

That was going to be my second request, actually. It can get a little unwieldy, but with most DVDs and hi-def formats now using multiple soundtracks, it's pretty important IMO. Basically, it would be smoother (again, IMO) to combine the "Sound" and "Languages" into a format like what you have, named something like "Language Tracks" or even just "Audio".

A multi-language example would be the DVD of "Carlito's Way" which should read like so:

English Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish Dolby Digital Mono
French Dolby Digital 5.1

A multi-format example would be the DVD of "Fellowship of the Ring: EE" which has:

English Dolby Digital Surround EX 5.1
English DTS-ES Discrete 6.1
English Dolby Digital 2.0
Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0
Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0
Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0
Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0

And both formats and languages are in the Blu-ray of "Bram Stoker's Dracula":

English PCM 5.1
English Dolby Digital 5.1
French Dolby Digital 5.1
Czech Dolby Digital 5.1
Hungarian Dolby Digital 5.1
Polish Dolby Digital 5.1
Russian Other
Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0

[Rigido]

So, your feature request would be to join "Sound" and "Languages" fields into "Audio" so we can add more details on which language is present and the right audio format for that language.
(Non strictly programming talking...)
I would think to a list (so user can add as many fields as the tracks on the media) of "Audio" field but this should be formed by two auto-fill sub-fields (language and format) something like:

Code: Select all

+-----------+----------------------------+
| English   | DTS-ES Discrete 6.1        |
+-----------+----------------------------+
| Italian   | Dolby Digital 2.0          |
+-----------+----------------------------+

I would like that way and I think that it would put order on the audio format!

PS: I'm sorry if I used ancient ASCII representation instead of some image manipulation software...

[zombieflanders]

Exactly!

PS - Ah, ASCII. Reminds me of the good ol' days. I guess that means I'm ancient...

[Rigido]

PS - Ah, ASCII. Reminds me of the good ol' days. I guess that means I'm ancient...

If talking about ascii makes you feel ancient, just try to image how I felt listening to some guys talking about their wihses to see the "never-saw" Windows 3.1 when I started with a 8088 booting DOS 3.3 from a 5,25" floppy and then loading TurboPascal from another one.

[Rigido]

While Conor and other developers think on this I come to a an Italian site I'm writing a plugin for and they put this for the Audio Format:

Code: Select all

Formato audio: 5.1 Dolby Digital: Italiano Inglese Tedesco
5.1 DTS: Italiano Tedesco
5.1 PCM: Inglese

Now I have to think how to put this on DVDpedia, writing plugins (well, Conor writes plugins and I just put data on them) I found that I can put CarriageReturns to split values.
Do you think that something like the following could be a nice solution:

Code: Select all

Inglese: 5.1 Dolby Digital, 5.1 PCM
Italiano: 5.1 Dolby Digital, 5.1 DTS
Tedesco: 5.1 Dolby Digital, 5.1 DTS

The question is: where should I put these info? Languages or Audio field?
Coooooooooonor?!