Dream Plan Build Series


Highiron2003ar

New Member
I recieved a DVD from Kalmbach, titled "Dream Plan Build" with an offer to either remit $9.00 for the disk or return it with no obligation.

I spent some time watching the DVD on the GE DVD Player attached to the TV set last night. I must say that when I was done, it was no problem paying the 9.00 for the quality that was on the DVD Production.

I did encounter problems viewing the disk.

The video production depends on fading from one scene while fading in the next scene. That caused the DVD player to "Lag" and fall seriously behind on the show. Entire sections were lost especially the audio.

I do have a powerful computer that is slated to recieve a DVD Combo drive capable of burning virtually all DVD formats availible. I hope with this new drive coupled to the computer I will not see the "Lag" on the DVD.

I feel that production was a very good one and despite problems with the DCVD player I will seriously consider purchasing future additions to this series.
 
Apparently future editions will be in the $21 + shipping range. Remember, if you get sent something of value unsolicited, you can keep it. USPS regulations...
 
Highiron, I was one of the lucky ones to receive the DVD as part of their survey. I also had problems playing it on my computer, but it turned out to be my DVD player. The computer is only 3 years old, but apparently couldn't play that format. I bought another player and all works fine now.

Have you tried playing the DVD on a home player or another computer? This might isolate the problem a little better for you. It is an excellent piece of work by MR mag and I would suggest you hang in there and try to find a solution. I enjoy viewing mine quite often and can't wait for more.

I forgot to mention that I was told by MR that the 2nd DVD would be released in about 6 months (4 months now).
 
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I was able to play mine on a PC/Mac and the home DVD player, but my home player is one of those fancy pants ones that plays CD's and all that other stuff.

Is it possible that you got one that was returned and not cleaned properly?

I too was part of the test group. I hope they are going to keep the level of production up. I can see buying the series. They are pretty good.
 
You make a good point David, about the possibility of it being a returned disc and maybe a good cleaning would fix it. That would explain why it at least plays...just not quite right. I'm not sure how "fading" would make a difference since you still have a video signal present...its just blank.

Highiron, I apologize for not reading your post correctly and seeing that you did run it on your TV/DVD player. If I understand you, you are getting a new DVD drive for your computer?? If so, you should be in good shape. MR will replace that DVD disc if necessary and if you can isolate it to being the problem after you have the new drive.
 
My girlfriens son, he has down syndrome and he is terrible with his DVD's and they will do the same think, when they hit a scene change or I guess where the chapter breaks are it will start to lag or get the audio and video out of sync. I have to clean them real well and they will then play again. I have a rule on his DVD's, they never go in my player. After enough muck on them, they can foul up the DVD player.
 
Some "Modern" movie DVDs have an enhanced play mode. That is, you can play it as in theater or with some of the deleted scenes in tact.. When playing in the enhanced mode on my Sony DVD player (4 years old) it will pause for a few seconds with a black TV screen and then continue with the added information. They warn, on the DVD, when you select this mode that this may happen on some players. I suspect that may be what is happening to your Kalmbach DVDs, the player doesn't quite know how to handle the chapter transitions.

Jeff
:D
 
Let me clarify...

During the 4x8 railroad scene with the bachmann ez-track (Bonus section.. first model railroad)

Every time the camera closes on one part of the action such as the person placing the foam hill in the corner and becomes a shot of the person sprinkling the woodlands scenics material around the hill... it's bad.

When we go to the gravel plant and fiddle with it building up the cork foundation to raise the structure to the level of the rails.. the entire thing freezes and stutters several seconds while whole sentences are broken up into maybe one word out of the entire scene.

It seemed to me that the scene was edited and built to show one area of the layout with one specific task and fades into another part of the same layout with another task.. you get freezes really bad where you can see a shadow of the scene fading in underneath of the scene you are just finishing up.

Kinda like reminds me of gaming on the 33k modem in the dailup days. I remember lag very similar to what I saw here. You would move your soldier thru the door into the building and be shot. The connection would be so slow that you will approach the door and freeze up for a few seconds until you were presented with the death screen and who shot ya. It was really bad on dailup and slower machines back in the old days of online gaming.

I did not expect the DVD player on the TV to lag on this production. You can pop in "Saving Pvt Ryan" on DVD into that thing and war reigns for 2 hours without a hitch. And that film is really huge and hard on imaging.

I will be installing a Sony Disk DVD burner in my computer as I do some media processing for my church. (Just converting Hi-8 Digital tape onto CD with firewire and Roxio 7) I look forward to seeing if the DVD scene runs good on it.

The Disk was in pristine condition and most of the content ran nicely. I did not know you can shoot that close to a railroad in a night time scene and get away with it.

The first hint of trouble came when the intro was being played with all the little pictures being manupilated to the theme song and narrated intro. There was some small freezes here and there but nothing like the major glacial action that I would see in the bonus section.
 
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Rolleiman said:
Some "Modern" movie DVDs have an enhanced play mode. That is, you can play it as in theater or with some of the deleted scenes in tact.. When playing in the enhanced mode on my Sony DVD player (4 years old) it will pause for a few seconds with a black TV screen and then continue with the added information. They warn, on the DVD, when you select this mode that this may happen on some players. I suspect that may be what is happening to your Kalmbach DVDs, the player doesn't quite know how to handle the chapter transitions.

Jeff
:D

That's interesting Jeff. When I finally broke down and switched to DVD for home entertainment, I read the book just enough to get it going. Seems like I do remember reading something about enhanced play, but I obviously didn't pay any attention to it:eek:.
 
I found a way to make the DVD work.

On my GE DVD player in the menu shows a play option of displaying a standard 3x4 screen (Format for TV) A letter box 4x4 which apparently works the image to make it fit. and a 16x9 widescreen.

I chose the 4x4 option and then replayed the troublesome Bonus section first railroad.

Voila! everything ran much smoother. Im am a happy customer. I did not even know there was a lake that was built on that layout.
 
Way to go! Don't you love the way technology simplifies our lives :rolleyes:.

I can hardly wait until they come out with the next one.
 
I just read over at MR that the video's in the DVD are reruns of the "Tracks Ahead" or something like that? I have never bought any of the Kalmbach videos, Railfan or Model railroad ones. Anybody know if that's the case? I have the DVD and I am very happy with it, even for future releases I will probably want to take them, but would be nice to know if they are rehashed Kalmbach videos. Don't want to go to a train show and think I am stocking up the libary only to find I am duplicating my movies :(

For some reason this seems to be their ways anymore. Alot of the books are re-runs of past MR articles, except maybe the FreightCars one.
 
Video production is more costly and more complex than magazine production, and I bet 90% of the MR subscribers have never seen the other videos so this makes sense as a test market item.

I suspect that if the market is decent, they'll start producing more new video material.

As a video producer of hobby how-tos, Kalmbach has approached me about producing material for them, so here's at least one guy who can tell you there will new video footage from me at least -- assuming we get out of the just talking stage, that is.

Can't rightly say exactly what MR will do with my video footage because I also know there are a lot of video media discussions going on over there, and the DPB DVD is only one such project. There's more, lots more.
 
Thank does make sense Joe, whew! So if they feel it is sucessful then they will hopefuly be doing new stuff. In watching the video, I honestly thought from the products they used, the way they talked and the cars and engines on the layout, it looked current. I imagine there will be a small storm at the MR forums over the post I read...

Oh! So if they use some of your material, we won't see a duplication from your offerings will we? :confused:
 
I have seen train videos in the past 20 years that were availible.. but the money went into the trains instead of videos.

Chances are the material they release in the future will be new to me.

I am recalling that MR has to do alot of thinking because technology has made it possible for one person with a camcorder or camera to literally run a train, film it, process it and post on the net by dinner time.

I never did like the text articles saying you do this and then do that. Watching people actually do it on the video really sets up one's idea of how to do things.
 
Highiron2003ar said:
Chances are the material they release in the future will be new to me.
Same here, so even if it's rerun material, it will be new to me.

never did like the text articles saying you do this and then do that. Watching people actually do it on the video really sets up one's idea of how to do things.

Agreed! The painting a backdrop section was great, I can almost see myself doing it, but then again he made it look so simple, same with Jeff Wilson's water one, I wish they would have done some close ups and a little more detail on it though.
 
dthurman said:
Oh! So if they use some of your material, we won't see a duplication from your offerings will we? :confused:

A bit of both. Like I said, video production is costly, and given the sales of my DVDs compared to MRs marketing reach, they'd be lucky to have 1% of their subscribers who've seen my videos already.

But I will be producing new material as well. They've even mentioned flying some of their staff out to have me shoot new how-tos, so they are treating this as serious stuff.
 
We just got our copy today. From what I've seen of it so far, it's a well done production. Thinking ahead, I wonder if we'll ever get to the point where you order a DVD subscription rather than a magazine. Joe, is that possible? Could they ever be produced fast enough to be a monthly issue?
 



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