Posted by Adrian on 09/22/55 11:38

Temsonic wrote:
> "Mik F" <mik.foggin@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1138357931.177107.301080@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>> Folks,
>>
>> As a long time lurker (few lunchtimes are complete without a quick
>> visit to u.m.d and u.m.h-c,) I've noticed that there's a huge
>> drop-off
>> in requests for region comparisons.
>>
>> I was curious as to whether this was down to people googling for the
>> results or whether it was more to do with the studios 'wising up' and
>> releasing virtually identical discs worldwide in order to 'protect
>> their territorial markets' hem hem.
>>
>> At the risk of reopening a can of worms, if price were the only real
>> differential between US R1 and UK R2 on any given disc, would you be
>> prepared to wait a week extra for delivery in order to save a quid or
>> two?
>>
>> This is essentially the situation I'm facing with regard to a few
>> films and TV series I've been meaning to get for a while now, and
>> the only thing that keeps nagging at me is the old issue of NTSC vs
>> PAL.
>>
>> Putting aside the 'PAL speedup' and 'NTSC pulldown' arguments, I
>> think it's true to say that regardless of this NTSC and PAL differ
>> in the number of scan lines available in the vertical axis of the
>> screen; NTSC has 480, PAL has 576.
>>
>> This would seem to suggest that PAL has more information / detail in
>> a 'screen' than the equivalent NTSC frame, or is this just true for
>> broadcast images?
>>
>> If the R2 PAL film has better resolution in this respect it would
>> seem
>> to be a better bet but I suppose this might also be affected by the
>> overall compression / bit rate of the disc itself.
>>
>> Thoughts and opinions?
>>
>> Mik
>
> After the initial novelty of extras wore off a few years ago, I now
> often just go for the best release of the _film_ for my needs and
> treat the bonus material as just that - a bonus. For example, I buy a
> lot of world cinema stuff 'blind' just because I like the sound of
> them from reviews. In these cases I often go for R3 releases because
> they're cheap and tend to feature DTS, though they often have no
> extras. This way I don't feel I've blown too much money if the film
> turns out to be so-so.
>
> For films where I actually am interested in the extra material, it'll
> depend on balancing up price, possible cuts, what the extras actually
> are, whether the release is anamorphic, has 5.1 sound, DTS etc. The
> Rewind website is invaluable for checking on this stuff and can save
> quite a bit of Googling: http://www.dvdcompare.net
>
> As to NTSC vs. PAL, I still prefer PAL mainly because 3:2 pulldown
> annoys me more than PAL speedup. Though technically there _is_ more
> information and detail in a PAL picture, I find a decent anamorphic
> NTSC DVD looks as good as PAL one. It's only on non-anamorphic NTSC
> when you begin to see the scan lines that it really starts to look
> ropey. Mainly though it comes down to price - if there's a decent
> presentation of the film with no extras available for �7 vs. an
> edition with extras for �15, I'll go for the �7 one regardless of
> what region/standard it is.

My main reason for importing these days is release dates, it's still common
to be able to buy a R1 or R3 disc before the cinema release in the UK. As
for the difference between PAL & NTSC, I soon don't notice it if I'm
enjoying what I'm watching.
--
Adrian A

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