MiniDVD / Sharp 740 / REOC A5

[Wormtail]

Anyone got any experience of MiniDVD compatibility on players available in UK. Apparently Sharp 740 and REOC A5 might play them?

(MiniDVD is Mpeg2 written on CDR, they generally play ok in PC DVDrom drives but not on most set-tops)

I am editting DV camcorder film and writing with Ulead DVD Factory. Authoring is easy, menus are good and you get about 12+ minutes on one CDR. Quality is, well, DVD!

[hockeyshooter]

I would think players would have to be specially engineered to be able to play them. The machine's laser would see the disc as a CD rather than a DVD because the data density and rate would be lower. It would therefore expect the data it contains to be either music or video CD (MPEG-1 at lower resolution) format and not therefore think to decode it as MPEG-2.

Chris.

[hockeyshooter]

I've just spoken to a friend who has a DVD writer in his home PC and he's found that his Thompson machine can play these miniDVDs - he specifically asked for that ability when he bought the player.

Chris.

[clayts]

Almost all Sampo built players (as the Reoc A5 and Sharp DV740H both are) can handle the format.

I've had confirmation that the US version of the Sharp deck definitely doesand I can see no reason why either the Reoc or UK Sharp player will not handle the format, as they are both based on the same Sampo unit, the DVE611, which definitely does handle the format.

Sadly, the majority of Wharfedale M5 owners (another Sampo player) can't, unless they have Version 2.0 firmware (and yes, we're still trying to get a copy of it...)

[Wormtail]

Clayts,

Thanks for your replies. I thought that the Sharp would be ok from your area 450 articles but in miniDVDguide 2, under 'what will it play on', it lists lots of sampos but not the 611 which the 740 is based on.

See you on the 450 forum.

[clayts]

My apologies - there's been a fair few new players released this year, and that article was originally written in June !

Thanks for bringing that to my attention !