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SPRM 13 can be useful in several ways. In some cases there may be more than one version
of a single movie on a single DVD disc. Larger discs such as DVD-9s can contain both the
R- and PG-rated versions of the same movie. By reading the value of SPRM 13, you could
determine which version of the movie to play.
Another use for SPRM 13 is to check the DVD players current parental setting. If the disc
is rated higher than the DVD player is currently set for, you could have a script that jumps
to a menu explaining that the disc cannot be played unless the players parental setting
is changed.
Important: DVD Studio Pro does not include a parental rating in its projects, so all DVD
players that support parental management will set SPRM 13 to 15 when playing a
DVD Studio Pro authored disc.
Below is a list of the numeric values of SPRM 13.
SPRM 13 valueMPAA rating
1G
2
3PG
4PG-13
5
6R
7NC-17
8
15Disc not rated
SPRM 14: Player Video Configuration
Every DVD player has several modes of video display. These are divided into the display
mode and the aspect ratio. By reading SPRM 14 you can tell what modes the player is
currently in. Bits 8 and 9 of SPRM 14 are used to determine the current display mode
(whether the video needs processing for display on a 4:3 monitor) and bits 10 and 11 are
used to determine the aspect ratio of the monitor (4:3 or 16:9). The first eight bits in SPRM
14 are not used.
The following table shows the combinations for the display mode bits.
TotalBit 9Bit 8Display mode
000Normal (no processing)
2560256Pan-scan
5125120Letterbox
768512256Reserved
507Chapter 20 Creating Scripts