‘DUALDISC’ HYBRID DVD/CD SHOWS BUGS, OUR TESTS FIND
Inconsistent performance across a variety of playback platforms and a lack of user-friendliness in some was the preliminary finding from our first evaluation of the “DualDisc” dual-sided DVD/CD hybrid now being test marketed by the 5 major record labels. In Windows PCs specifically, the DVD side of the flipper didn’t deliver DVD-Video or DVD-Audio content, depending on the title -- and promised online links to Web sites for value- added content were quirky and difficult to access, we found.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
The hands-on evaluation remains in an early stage, but copies of Sony’s AC/DC: Back in Black and Warner’s Donald Fagen: The Nightfly we obtained exhibited different playability issues in PC-based DVD drives we used, as well as CE-type DVD players. The problems were more profound in PCs, on the CD side as well as the DVD portion of the flippers. But the hybrids performed erratically in DVD players too, with no apparent pattern between the DVD and Red Book CD sides.
The worst problems encountered were CD skipping in one PC drive -- and the failure to even recognize the presence of a CD. With home DVD players, some couldn’t access the CD content, others had the same problem with the DVD side. In no cases so far has any disc-jamming or other mechanical issue cropped up, although we've yet to use the hard-to-acquire samples in slot- loading players. The DualDiscs obviously are slightly thicker than conventional CDs or DVDs, although their makers claim the hybrids are within the 1.5 mm maximum thickness spec for either format.
Whether the PC playability issues are related to copy protection or some form of digital rights management hadn’t been determined at our deadline. Also not determined was whether the apparently-limited Red Book playtime is attributable to so called “2nd session” or compressed content on the discs, or to the optical properties of the admittedly slimmer CD layer. One source so far has told us it’s an optical issue. Another said the CD side of some hybrids was supposed to be copy protected.