December 2004 Archives

I've done some research into backing up DVDs. The motivation was my observation that my daughter is sure to destroy at least a few DVDs in the coming months while she's toddling around the house. Here's the summary:

• Buy a Philips DVP642 DVD player, which costs about $65 and plays MPEG-4 CDs and DVDs.
• Get a DVD burner. This step is optional, but at a minimum you will need a DVD reader.
• Download DVD Decrypter and AutoGK (Auto Gordian Knot), or buy Dr. Divx. (I did both.)
• Make either 700MB backups using AutoGK's default settings, or 1400MB backups using Dr. Divx.
• Get a whole bunch of blanks and backup to DVD or CD-R.
• All done.

Notes:

• The DVP642 is not perfect, but it's ideal for this application. The playback quality is not on par with some other players I've seen, as MPEGs seem a little too dark. But it's good enough for people who aren't videophiles like me.
• Dr. Divx and DivX5 are not good enough for 700MB compression. Xvid definitely is.
• I may change my advice to drop Dr. Divx entirely and back up with AutoGK and Xvid for both 700MB and 1400MB profiles. The only reason I wanted Dr. Divx was so I could produce files that were "DivX Home Theater Profile certified," whatever that means. But I've decided that larger backups might as well include AC3 audio, to avoid lossy transformation from AC3 to MP3. Yet the DivX Home Theater Profile apparently doesn't allow for AC3. I don't know why this is the case, because I can't imagine a Home Theater playback device that could play MP3 but not AC3 (since regular DVDs require AC3 for playback). If I'm willing to deviate from the profile by including AC3, then Dr. Divx offers me neither better encoding quality nor assurance of compatibility, so there's no point in using it at all.

I wish DVD players and TVs came with a "childproof" mode, where you had to do something special to turn it on, like press the power button three times in a row. Until my daughter learns that the DVD tray is not a convenient toy holder, this would be a nice feature.

I think the U.S. drug industry is betting that the government will never allow Americans to import Canadian drugs.

I base this belief on a simple application of game theory. There are two possible cases: either the government will never allow imports, or it eventually will.

Start with the first case. If the government does not allow imports, then U.S. drug companies will continue to have a collective monopoly on the U.S. drug market and can continue to keep prices higher than import prices. Same as always.

But consider the second case. If the government eventually does allow imports, then U.S. drug companies will have to compete with import drugs, and thus will have to quickly reduce their prices in order to be competitive.

The second case would be a terrible situation for U.S. drug companies. If the drug companies honestly believed it might happen, then they'd do everything they could to prevent it. One effective way would be to reduce drug prices now, ostensibly to placate Americans, but really to quell the movement toward allowing imports. This would allow them to choose the lesser of two evils: having to charge lower prices for drugs but maintaining a collective monopoly, or having to charge lower prices because they're competing with imported drugs.

If this reasoning is correct, then the drug companies are predicting importation won't happen. Otherwise they'd begin lowering their prices now. Indeed, given the outcome of the presidential election, it seems that the prediction was correct.