Chapter 1

viii Contents
Can DVDs Have Laser Rot? 36
Which Titles Are Pan and Scan Only? Why?
How Do I Make the Subtitles on My Pioneer
37
Player Go Away? 37
What Is a Layer Change? Where Is It on Specific Discs?
The Disc Says Dolby Digital. Why Do I Get
37
Two-Channel Surround Audio? 38
Why Doesn’t the Repeat A-B Feature Work on Some Discs?
What’s the Difference Between First-, Second-,
38
and Third-Generation DVDs? 38
What’s a Hybrid DVD? 39
What’s the Deal with DTS and DVD? 40
Why Is the Picture Black and White?
Why Are Both Sides Full-Screen when One Side
41
Is Supposed to Be Widescreen? 41
Why Are the Audio and Video out of Sync? 41
Why Does the Picture Alternate Between Light and Dark? 42
How Do I Find Easter Eggs and Other Hidden Features?
How Do I Get Rid of the Black Bars at the Top
43
and Bottom? 43
How Should I Clean and Care for DVDs? 44
What’s a Progressive DVD Player? 46
Why Doesn’t Disc X Work in Player Y?
How Do the Parental Control and Multirating
49
Features Work? 57
Which Discs Include Multiple Camera Angles? 58
Is It Okay to Put Labels or Magnetic Strips on DVDs?
What’s the Difference Between Closed Captions
58
and Subtitles? 59
What Do the “D” Codes on Region 2 DVDs Mean? 60
What’s Firmware and Why Would I Need to Upgrade It?
Can Discs Help Me Test, Optimize, or Show Off
60
My Audio/Video System? 60
What Do Sensormatic and Checkpoint Mean? 61
What Are Superbit, Infinifilm, and Other Variations of DVD?
I Don’t Know the Parental Control Password for My Player.
62
What Do I Do? 62