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DVDs make me angry

AntonyF

AntonyF

Administrator
Staff member
It gets me so annoyed again and again. Using the UK, or maybe just region 2, as a fund-raising rip off region.

West Wing, season one. We get the episodes, that's it.

The region 1 release, however, will have five audio commentaries, deleted scenes, bloopers and more.

So, how much more do the region 1 purchasers pay for this privelege? 33% less!

Grr.

Or maybe Buffy season five. Same extras in both regions... but 50% -- yes 50% -- more in the UK than it is in the US.

Rant over, for now.
 
Oh, and don't get me started on Buffy seasons one to four.

£80 in the US.

I paid about £270.

£80 - £270.

Rant over for now again... maybe.
 
I must admit that I find Region 4 DVDs to be priced fairly reasonably, but for the majority, I save heaps if I get the Region 2 version (and I'm refering to Boxed Sets here). Yet if I get Region 1, I'm paying a lot more (it's that damned exchange rate).

So B5, Family Guy, Futurama, I have gotten as Region 2.
 
And on the other hand, if you're into martial arts flicks, being in region 1 sucks because the British film companies that produced and own Hong Kong movies often don't release them to region 1, or if they do they're dubbed extra-crappy and edited.

And you guys did get Family Guy way before we did.

It's also my understanding that region-free DVD players are mainstream and much more prevalent in Europe (wereas here we have to find it online) or something, so at least you can import stuff from other regions and play it. So while region 1 is usually the best version of a title, it's also the only thing the vast majority of us can get.

It's the whole region coding thing- absolutely a rip-off. I have yet to see a cotent defense for them. Ok, so they're supposed to prevent people from seeing movies in one area before they come out to theaters there. So why code TV shows and old movies? It's not like they have to- I have region 0 DVDs (music stuff from small labels).
 
There are two valid regions NTSC and PAL. These reflect the coding of the colours (colors) in the TV signal.

Modern European TVs and DVDs carry electronics able to decode both. (The original valve TVs did not.) US TVs normally do not. US computers can play the lot.

The limit on changing DVD regions built into computers is a deliberate act of sabotage committed, for financial reasons, by a cartel of studios bosses. (Note to US police, they may have bribed Congress but the Common Market caught them.)
 
We're not talking about NTSC and PAL. That's different, as it applies to any video. We're talking about region coding, which is a "security feature" specific to DVDs.
 
We're not talking about NTSC and PAL. That's different, as it applies to any video. We're talking about region coding, which is a "security feature" specific to DVDs.
Click to expand...

Both video recorders and DVD players are designed to output via TVs; consequently they have to have PAL/NTSC built into them.

NTSC is basically Region 1. The other regions are PAL (except for places Japan and France).

It was (is) valid for DVDs to contain a PAL/NTSC marker so that the equipment does not play the wrong sort (or automatically adjusts).

PAL DVDs contain movies encoded at 25 frames per second and 625 lines.
NTSC is encoded at 30 frames per second and 525 lines.

Adjusting the frame speed is easy; the additional electronic components cost less than a dollar (trade price). The number of lines is a much bigger problem. When playing NTSC on PAL you can simply black out the bottom 100 lines. Unfortunately "Made in USA" TV tubes only did 525 lines so the manufactures avoided the problems by not changing.

Computer screens frequently contain over a 1000 lines so they can play both formats. As for the number of lines that the new Japanese made TFT LCD monitors display, you will have to ask the manufactures.
 
It's also my understanding that region-free DVD players are mainstream and much more prevalent in Europe (wereas here we have to find it online) or something, so at least you can import stuff from other regions and play it. So while region 1 is usually the best version of a title, it's also the only thing the vast majority of us can get.
Click to expand...

There's a wide variety of reasons for this. Firstly the US way is much more content to be US-only. I don't think it would occur to most people to see anything beyond the US as important, like the other regions. Just see sites like ebay.com, google.com etc. which never give an option for US only or world etc. I think the American public is just in that mindset that the US is sufficent for their needs, whereas those outside get used to having to compensate for our lack of something or other or high prices.

Secondly, is there any wonder those not in region 1 want to import when there's such price differences?

But really, most multi regionables are just remote hacks. Do US players not have these at all?

The only benefit, sometimes, is as you say: quicker releases. Buffy, West Wing, Family Guy etc. we all got before region 1. But in all cases, we've payed through the nose and in the case of Buffy -- we've paid the production costs of the set, so the region 1 market has no costs but the actual disc production.
 
There may be a market for Spanish speaking films from South America and Spain. The USA has Spanish speaking TV and radio channels.
 
Yikes, Antony--you pay a lot for Buffy DVDs! And I thought anime DVDs were expensive.

When will Buffy Season 5 be out? I have Seasons 1-4.

Tammy
 
According to TVShowsOn DVD.com Buffy Season 5 is set for release on 9 December 2003 and Season 6 for 6 July 2004.

I can't wait. I've said many other places that B5 and Buffy were the best and most intelligently written shows (in different ways) on TV.
 
I'll admit that those price differences are unfair, but things were once worse. Back in the 80s, and early 90s, new or rare VHS tapes cost plenty, sometimes over $100 for a single tape! That was so the manufacturer could make a killing from the rental places that had to buy multiple copies of new releases. Rare items never came down in price. I paid $79 for a VHS copy of Peter Weir's The Cars That Ate Paris. That would be well over $100 in today's money.
 
If its any consolation Ant, you are getting a better product in terms of Audio-visual quality. See
PAL vs NTSC

Conclusions
PAL is a higher resolution format for DVD than NTSC. All else being equal, a PAL DVD of a movie should look significantly better than the equivalent NTSC DVD.
Click to expand...

Although I mostly buy R1 from Amazon.ca for price reasons.
 
The PAL vs NTSC thing isn't that noticeable, IMHO. And conversion to pal makes things about 3% quicker, so we have less to watch too. :D

But really... £80 - £270 for the privelege of PAL? No thanks!
 
I would love to watch all the extras but they have for some reason decided to NOT make it subtitled or captioned for persons such as myself.
 
Both video recorders and DVD players are designed to output via TVs; consequently they have to have PAL/NTSC built into them.

NTSC is basically Region 1. The other regions are PAL (except for places Japan and France).
Click to expand...

Regions don't have anything to do with whether a DVD is PAL or NTSC.

I believe this list is correct. It is not however complete. Also, I'm not sure about all of the standards in South America. I think that some of it is NTSC and that some of it is PAL. Also, for areas where I'm pretty sure but not entirely sure, I use a '(probably)' to show my slight hesitation.

All R1 and R3 DVDs are NTSC.
All R6 DVDs are PAL.
Most of R5 is PAL. However, West Africa and North Africa are (probably) SECAM.
R2 DVDs from Japan are in NTSC. DVDs from some parts of the Middle East are (probably) NTSC.
R2 DVDs from Western Europe (except France) and South Africa are in PAL.
R2 DVDs from France are in SECAM, and some parts of the Middle East are (probably) in SECAM.
R4 DVDs from Mexico, some of South America are in NTSC.
R4 DVDs from New Zeland, Australia are in PAL.

What's the moral of all of this? Well, you can get region-breaking DVD players if you care enough. All DVD players can be modified via hardware to play any region; however, newer DVDs can detect hardware modifications and won't play in hardware-modified DVD players. However, these newer DVDs can do nothing if the modification is achieved through a software trick.

Region-breaking (multi-region) DVD players are extremely easy to obtain in Western Europe (which is where I'm guessing the first poster in this thread is from) and some DVD players in Western Europe have PAL/NTSC converters built-in. Also, region-breaking DVD players in general (in the U.S. as well) tend to have PAL/NTSC converters built-in.

I know that there's been effort to outlaw region-breaking DVD players in the US, but, last I heard, no such laws had been passed. It's not like there's any good justification for such a law. Anyway, someone from Western Europe doesn't have to worry about that kind of nonsense. He can just buy a region-breaking DVD player and import R1 DVDs from the US or Canada. Actually, I just did a quick search. Some region-breaking DVD players sold in Europe don't seem to have a converter built in. One would have to check to do research to make sure that the player one considers buying will convert to PAL (so that it'll work on the TVs over there). Others (at dirt cheap prices even) do contain such converters. Just look for a multi-region DVD player with NTSC/PAL playback.

Apologies if this is unwanted information. I don't know how much it costs in general to ship from US/Canada to Western Europe. It doesn't usually cost me much to have items shipped from Europe to US.
 
Region-breaking (multi-region) DVD players are extremely easy to obtain in Western Europe (which is where I'm guessing the first poster in this thread is from) and some DVD players in Western Europe have PAL/NTSC converters built-in.
Click to expand...

My how the mighty have fallen, Antony - going from the owner of this site to just a poster of a thread! ;)

You need to get out more often, instill some fear into the people around here - get some R-E-S-P-E-C-T!!!
:D
 
Regions don't have anything to do with whether a DVD is PAL or NTSC.
Click to expand...

You are being excessively pessimistic there. About 2/3 of NTSC is in Region 1. The main missing country is Japan. Possibly they thought that Japan would manufacture DVDs at half the price of US companies. The Regions reflect the VHS distribution networks.

{snip}
I know that there's been effort to outlaw region-breaking DVD players in the US, but, last I heard, no such laws had been passed. It's not like there's any good justification for such a law. Anyway, someone from Western Europe doesn't have to worry about that kind of nonsense. He can just buy a region-breaking DVD player and import R1 DVDs from the US or Canada. Actually, I just did a quick search. Some region-breaking DVD players sold in Europe don't seem to have a converter built in. One would have to check to do research to make sure that the player one considers buying will convert to PAL (so that it'll work on the TVs over there). Others (at dirt cheap prices even) do contain such converters. Just look for a multi-region DVD player with NTSC/PAL playback.
Click to expand...
It costs one dollar to make a European TV automatically receive NTSC, PAL and SECAM. Consequently many VHS players and DVD players do not need to convert NTSC to PAL, the TV will just show them.

Modern US TVs also contain PAL and SECAM electronics. They are short of the second crystal needed to control the display speed. The screen itself may be short of the 100 lines.


Keep checking about the ban on US equipment non-region 1 DVDs. It may be hidden as a licensing condition for DVD or MPEG formats. Such a condition could only be imposed by a cartel. By claiming that the Region settings are an anti-illegal copying feature US law is bent to protect the feature.

My Hyundai DVD player can run in the USA (power supply AC 100-240V, 50-60 Hz). In the UK it comes as a Region 2 player. As well as the main user manual it comes with a sheet of paper that says how to convert to a multi region player. Officially the shop adds the sheet of paper.
 
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