Dvd Decoder
DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs, and is currently the dominant consumer video format in North America, Europe, and Australia. Discs using the DVD-Video specification require a DVD drive and a MPEG-2 decoder (e.g., a DVD player, or a DVD computer drive with a software DVD player). Commercial DVD movies are encoded using a combination of MPEG-2 compressed video and audio of varying formats (often multi-channel formats as described below). Typically, data rate for DVD movies range from 3 Mbit/s to 9.5 Mbit/s, and the bit rate is usually adaptive.
The DVD-Video specification was created by DVD Forum and can be obtained from DVD Format/Logo Licensing Corporation for a fee of $5000. The specification is not publicly available, because every subscriber must sign a non-disclosure agreement. Certain information in the DVD Book is proprietary and confidential.
Frame size and frame rate
To record moving pictures DVD-Video utilizes either MPEG-2 compression at up to 9.8 Mbit/s (9800 kbit/s) or MPEG-1 compression at up to 1.856 Mbit/s (1856 kbit/s).
The following formats are allowed for MPEG-2 video:
- At 25 frame/s, interlaced (used in regions with 50 Hz image scanning frequency):
- At 29.97, interlaced (used in regions with 60 Hz image scanning frequency):
The following formats are allowed for MPEG-1 video:
- 352 × 288 pixels MPEG-1 at 25 frame/s, progressive (Same as the VCD Standard)
- 352 × 240 pixels MPEG-1 at 29.97 frame/s, progressive (Same as the VCD Standard)
All resolutions support video with 4:3 frame aspect ratio. Only full D1 resolutions support widescreen (16:9) video.
MPEG-1 formats do not support interlaced video. MPEG-2 formats support both interlaced and progressive-scan content, with the latter being encoded within interlaced stream using pulldown. In particular, 25 frames/s progressive-scan content is encoded with 2:2 pulldown, 23.976 frames/s progressive-scan content is encoded with 2:3 pulldown.
MPEG-2 encoder allows using flags to indicate scanning type, field order and field repeating. A DVD player uses these flags to convert progressive content into interlaced video suitable for most consumer TV equipment. These flags also help reproducing progressive content on "film-scan" television sets (with 48 Hz or 72 Hz vertical scan rate) without using pulldown.
Audio data
The audio data on a DVD movie can be PCM, DTS, MPEG-1 Audio Layer II (MP2), or Dolby Digital (AC-3) format. In countries using the PAL system standard DVD-Video releases must contain at least one audio track using the PCM, MP2, or AC-3 format, and all standard PAL players must support all three of these formats. A similar standard exists in countries using the NTSC system, though with no requirement mandating the use of or support for the MP2 format. DTS audio is optional for all players, as DTS was not part of the initial draft standard and was added later; thus, many early players are unable to play DTS audio tracks. The vast majority of commercial DVD-Video releases today employ AC-3 audio. The official allowed formats for the audio tracks on a DVD Video are:
- PCM: 48 kHz or 96 kHz sampling rate, 16 bit or 24 bit L-PCM, 2 to 6 channels, up to 6144 kbit/s. N.B. 16-bit 48 kHz 8 channel PCM is allowed by the DVD-Video specification but is not well-supported by authoring applications or players.
- AC-3: 48 kHz sampling rate, 1 to 5.1 (6) channels, up to 448 kbit/s
- DTS: 48 kHz or 96 kHz sampling rate, 2 to 6.1 channels, Half Rate (768 kbit/s) or Full Rate (1536 kbit/s)
- MP2: 48 kHz sampling rate, 1 to 7.1 channels, up to 912 kbit/s
DVDs can contain more than one channel of audio to go together with the video content, supporting a maximum of 8 simultaneous audio tracks per video. This is most commonly used for different audio formats—DTS 5.1, AC-3 2.0 etc.—as well as for commentary and audio tracks in different languages.
Data rate
DVD-Video discs have a raw bitrate of 11.08 Mbit/s, with a 1.0 Mbit/s overhead, leaving a payload bitrate of 10.08 Mbit/s. Of this, up to 3.36 Mbit/s can be used for subtitles and a maximum of 9.80 Mbit/s can be split amongst audio and video. In the case of multiple angles the data is stored interleaved, and so there's a bitrate penalty leading to a max bitrate of 8 Mbit/s per angle to compensate for additional seek time. This limit is not cumulative, so each additional angle can still have up to 8 Mbit/s of bitrate available.
Professionally encoded videos average a bitrate of 4-5 Mbit/s with a maximum of 7–8 Mbit/s in high-action scenes. This is typically done to allow greater compatibility amongst players, and to help prevent buffer underruns in the case of dirty or scratched discs.
Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment has created a line of DVDs (dubbed "Superbit") aiming to maximize picture quality by eliminating multiple languages, angles, and audio tracks. This allows average bitrates closer to 6 Mbit/s.
Connection issues
Due to multiple audio (and video) output devices, a consumer has many outputs on a DVD player, and may become confused with connecting a player to a TV or amplifier. Most systems include an optional digital audio connector for this task, which is then paired with a similar input on the amplifier. The physical connection is typically RCA connectors or TOSLINK, which transmits a S/PDIF stream carrying either uncompressed digital audio (PCM) or the original compressed audio data (Dolby Digital, DTS, MPEG audio) to be decoded by the audio equipment.
Video is another issue which continues to present most problems. Current players typically output analog video only, both composite video on an RCA jack as well as S-Video in the standard connector. However, neither of these connectors was intended to be used for progressive video, so yet another set of connectors has started to appear, to carry a form of component video, which keeps the three components of the video, one luminance signal and two color difference signal, as stored on the DVD itself, on fully separate wires (whereas S-Video uses two wires, uniting and degrading the two color signals, and composite uses only one, uniting and degrading all three signals). The connectors are further confused by using a number of different physical connectors on different player models, RCA or BNC, as well as using VGA cables in a non-standard way (VGA is normally analog RGB—a different, incompatible form of component video). Even worse, there are often two sets of component outputs, one carrying interlaced video, and the other progressive, or an interlaced/progressive switch (either a physical switch or a menu setting).
In Europe (but not most other PAL areas), SCART connectors are typically used, which can carry composite and analog RGB interlaced video signals (RGB can be progressive, but not all DVD players and displays support this mode) or Y/C (S-Video), as well as analog two-channel sound and automatic 4:3 or 16:9 (widescreen) switching on a single convenient multi-wire cable. The analog RGB component signal offers video quality which is superior to S-Video and identical to YPbPr component video. However, analog RGB and S-Video signals can not be carried simultaneously, due to each using the same pins for different uses, and displays often must be manually configured as to the input signal, since no switching mode exists for S-Video. (A switching mode does exist to indicate whether composite or RGB is being used.) Some DVD players and set-top boxes offer YPbPr component video signals over the wires in the SCART connector intended for RGB, though this violates the official specification and manual configuration is again necessary. (Hypothetically, unlike RGB component, YPbPr component signals and S-Video Y/C signals could both be sent over the wire simultaneously, since they share the luminance (Y) component.)
HDMI is a new digital connection similar to DVI; it carries High Definition, Enhanced Definition and Standard Definition video. Along with video, HDMI also supports up to eight-channel digital audio. Some HDMI-equipped DVD players can upconvert the video to higher definition formats such as 720p and 1080i, and sometimes to 1080p.
Other features
Some DVD hardware or software players may play discs whose MPEG files do not conform to the above standards; commonly this is used to support DVD discs authored with formats such as VCD and SVCD. While VCD and CVD video is supported by the DVD standard, neither SVCD video nor VCD, CVD, or SVCD audio is compatible with the DVD standard.
Some hardware players will also play DVD-ROMs or CD-ROMs containing "raw" .mpg MPEG video files; these are "unauthored" and lack the file and header structure that defines DVD-Video. Standard DVD-Video files contain extra information (such as the number of video tracks, chapters and links to extra features) that DVD players use to navigate the disc.
The maximum chapters allowed per title is 99 and the maximum titles allowed per DVD is 99.
Container
Main article: VOBVideo, audio and subtitle streams are multiplexed and stored on a DVD-Video disc in the VOB container format (Video Object). VOB is based on the MPEG program stream format, but with additional limitations and specifications in the private streams. The MPEG pro
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