Region 1 Dvd: Why Uk R2 Is Pants!!

[howard444]

For twenty years before DVD I collected movies on NTSC Laserdiscs. It was only way to get films etc running at their correct speed ( the advantage of a 60hz video standard )
with rich colour and many letterbox titles with such features as commentary tracks and supplementary programmes. One should note here that the intellectual mindset of commentary tracks has mostly fallen in the mass market DVD age when contrasted to the LD niche market where-in cinema monologue or dialogues tended to be at a higher educated level. Nowadays commentaries are like "Oh yeah! Remember that day when Wardrobe couldn't find the blue socks I needed for the costume?" Okay continuity is relevant for a production but recollections of trivia is not necessarily worth our time listening to.

One great area of exception to dumbed-down discussion on DVD is in the dissident-documentary category. Such titles as THE CORPORATION and CONTROL ROOM and THE FOG OF WAR and LIFE AND DEBT are proof that DVD can in fact go beyond Laserdiscs.

All of these titles are North American produced documentaries. So what type of person would buy them on REGION 2 when the original master is a 60hz NOT a 50hz
master (be it SD or HD) ? The same questions applies to box sets of American TV shows. Why would someone be foolish enough to buy BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER or FIREFLY in REGION 2 ? As American TV shows posted on a 60hz video format (in the case of BUFFY 30fps NTSC in the case of FIREFLY 24fps High Definition / 30fps playback compatible ) are finalized in a standard that is native to Region 1 DVD and NOT native to European 50hz Region 2. Where is the logic in buying more expensive Region 2 editions that are not authentic? As feature films are shot on either film-stock at 24fps or HD at 24fps there is two ways to experience them played back, running at their native running speed in both cases a 60hz video standard does what 50hz cannot do.

If your DVD player is connected to your TV via say a Y/C aka an S-video lead (or composite phono) then you will be viewing as interlaced video. Perfectly good quality from an R1 disc with the frame rate running at 30fps but the running speed correct as they use what is known as the 3-2 Pulldown to make 24frame film-stock run at the correct speed as a 30frame playback. There is no such adjustment for 25frame PAL. The 60hz of NTSC is what gives NTSC a more stable image over PAL 50hz. The horizontal resolution is the same on both systems while the extra vertical lines on PAL are in fact cancelled out as any kind of advantage by the disadvantage of the following R2 typical characteristics.

R2 especially UK issue.

1. Most DVD's authored by London based firms are authored by people with inferior personal and professional standards. You would be amazed at much the general technical ignorance and lazy and conceited mindset permeates and determines the mediocrity of the UK DVD industry. Yes there are exceptions but the bad is the rule when dealing with British DVD's and the people responsible for them.

2. Another problem with R2 is that those extra vertical lines any advantage of which is cancelled out by crap authoring anyway, leaves far less room for colour on R2 discs. Plus big studio titles often have numerous dub tracks for the Euro market on a single disc. The result is that PAL colour which at the best of times is weak compared to NTSC colour is even worse on R2 discs. In fact a REGION 1 DVD carries DOUBLE the amount of COLOR ENCODING on the disc giving a far richer cinematic pallette.

3. Compare artwork and packaging and most R2 issues look cheap and nasty.

4. The English language subtitling on non-English language films is always better from the NTSC/ATSC market. I found this on NTSC Laserdisc and USA theatrical prints also. This is because American universities have a better track record on teaching languages than UK universities and even highschools also. Plus the Americans write very good dialogue. They tend to retain the lyricism and feeling of the original far better than the kind of technical translations we get over here that tend to kill off the heart and soul in the dialogue. A perfectly good example of this is the movie INDOCHINE across all formats theatrical/TV/Laserdisc/DVD the American subtitling of both the French and Vietnamese dialogue is far superior and has a far greater emotional impact than the cold and unfeeling translation on the UK issues. A major reason why some British cinema critics were cold toward this great French epic while American critics received it with raves. I believe that the difference in subtitles and translation made all the difference.

5. Choice and price on R1 is far better.

6. Here is the bottom line. Let's say you are a fan of THE SOPRANOS. Let's say you have only seen the show on C4 and R2 disc. The show which personally I fell-out of like with a long time ago, but never mind, lots of you still love it, uses regional vocal intonations and phrasing as a key part of its actors characterizations. Running 4% speeded up on 50hz PAL you have never really heard how Tony speaks You are missing the fine nuances of the lingo and expression. I remember a friend of mine way back when getting off-air VHS tapes of STAR TREK sent to him from a friend in Canada. He was immediately struck by the realization that for the first time he was hearing Captain Picard's or Captain Janeway's speaking voices as they are and not as they are misrepresented by the PAL speed-up.
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To return to the subject of playing back REGION 1.

The other way to playback REGION 1 is via component 3 phono video lead using a PROGRESSIVE SCAN player.
On appropriate titles you will experience true 24 frame film rate cinema and if you use a projector like TOSHIBA ET1 as I do (with my imported PIONEER DV-656A dvd player moded for multi-region by the nice folks at World Gift Center in Chicago). The results of PROGRESSIVE SCANNING in 24fps/60hz can on a good R1 disc be so breathtaking that I am quite skeptical about what spending the better part of three grand on upgrading to HD is going to do for me. Let me put it this way the planned HD transmissions from SKY in 50hz will NOT be as good as what I have now from REGION 1 SD DVD on my LCD projector. Apart from the speed and colour issues SKY's HD transmissions are going to be subjected to so much compression that they will be self-defeating plus if you watch them on a bloody PLASMA screen it is going to look like mush.

Last but not least here is a tip.

Apart from FIREFLY I have yet to find a TV BOX SET that does not look better and play better with the PROGRESSIVE SCANNING switched OFF!!! This is due to interlaced mastered TV shows being PROG SCAN encoded on disc AFTER the fact. So sometimes one can do better say for example ANGEL by switching the PROG SCAN off (on the front panel of the player if you have a hard switch. Just remember to put it back on before watching a feature film ).

If you want tips on setting up a TOSHIBA ETI projector (and related DVD functions) for best colour results / write me at hsm_melody@hotmail.com

[Mr.D]

I have never read such a load of erroniously explained badly worded drivel in years.

Go take a look at a PAL colour foot print on a chromaticity chart compared with an NTSC one. Then go and research about video standards and see if you can figure out why discussing digital video formats in terms of PAL and NTSC colour is completely irrelevant.

I can only assume that someone who has gone to the lengths you have to post such utter nonsense and display such a complete lack of fundamental video mastering techniques is trolling and or of questionable mental health.

It is blatantly obvious you have no professional involvement with the TV or film industry beyond some delusional belief in your own expertise on the subject.

As for your distinctly US centric attachment to video standards I have many US and Canadian film professionals standing round reading your sorry little rantings with much embarrased murmering.

[howard444]

You have no knowledge of my background and life experience.
Furthermore you are a nasty and hurtful character who despite my cordial recognitions of reasonable points made by you elsewhere you engage in a fascist attack upon me on a personal level. This is due to your inability to deny the facts in my article. Only today Mr Stewart Emmings who works for Ascent Media in London and has two decades as a broadcast engineer under his belt praised my article. Confirming inparticular the low standards in the UK DVD industry that he sees first hand. Furthermore Mr John Bingham a lecturer in physics and mass media at Salford University has repeatedly supported my evaluations and confirmed my analysis as very sound.
For the record I am a film school educated screenwriter among other things but I am not here to justify myself anymore than I have insulted your personal or professional self. It is you and only you Mr D who engages in unjustified, hurtful personal insult. I know my evaluations are sound. If you want to spend your life watching 50hz HD along with provincial minded EU technicrats fine go ahead. Meanwhile South Korea, Japan, North America, most of South America are thinking global and universal with 60hz HD. Even German satellite operators have made provision for pure 60hz HD transmissions from other parts of the world. In fact as real broadband is developed across the world even people in 50hz nations will be able to bypass the official system and access in the years to come 60hz HD on-line. Prior to which 60hz HD discs as now with 60hz SD R1 discs are the defacto world standard with people across the planet voting with their credit cards by buying North American discs regardless of the official standard in their area.

I believe that when DVD first started NTSC was superior in both price and picture quality but recently after renting out many UK region 2 discs ( i used to just buy from America and Japan ) i have found Region 2 discs can look stunning, and generally speaking can have much less edge enhancement on many titles, the speedup for PAL sound is a problem though and i do prefer NTSC sound without any speedup, the thing is though that to the untrained eye a very good PAL and NTSC transfer can look pretty identical on a large screen projection system, i have seen horrendous NTSC and PAL DVD's which have had terrible edge enhancement added and then again i have seen great transfers with little to no edge enhancement, for me the sound speedup is the only issue which has me buying NTSC over PAL as picture quality wise Region 2 UK titles have now caught up and sometimes surpass their Region 1 counterparts.

Choice and price on Regions isn't an issue anymore as Region 2 titles are just as cheap and the choice is huge ( buying on the internet gets you very cheap prices )

[howard444]

Dear FOXYMULDER

Thank you for your civil and reasonable response.
I would say this though. That there are many wonderful titles that are not available on R2 and yes I agree that there are bad examples of both R1 and good examples of R2. But my harshest criticism is aimed at UK R2 as I have had some fine concert discs etc from France and other places.
I also should stress that it is still silly to buy US TV shows on R2. That does not make sense. Plus many non-English language films are either not available in the UK or from some naff label. If your taste is big blockbuster stuff then your evaluation is reasonable but I still find that authoring from such companies as LASER PACIFIC for R1 cannot be beaten. Also I should point out that I use a projector and the difference becomes more apparent than on a bog standard telly. If you are merely comparing interlaced to interlaced on a blockbuster action movie...yes I agree most likely little in it on the surface...but when you watch more intently it becomes apparent...but if you are playing back in progressive scan you can only achieve original film stock 24fps off an R1 DVD.

The way many arthouse titles look on UK R2 is really poor in terms of grading. These titles often get picked up by big labels in the US and get very good treatment. Again yes there are bad examples but they are not the rule. On Japanese discs, I have only seen a few and was a bit dissapointed as Japanese LD's were great but their DVD's don't seem to match the North American output.

It is very important that you admit that the speed up and the sound on R2 bothers you. On sound you are more aware of it but understand that it has undermining impacts within the visual psychology and pacing also.

Thank you again for your reply it is appreciated.

[David Mackenzie]

I actually do agree with parts of what Howard is saying.

Especially this part:

"1. Most DVD's authored by London based firms are authored by people with inferior personal and professional standards. You would be amazed at much the general technical ignorance and lazy and conceited mindset permeates and determines the mediocrity of the UK DVD industry."

I can well believe this. The UK in general compared to the US has a bit of a ****less attitude at times. That's not to say all R2 DVDs are made to a poorer standard though. Look at the FOX R1 version of "Thirteen" compared to the Universal R2. The R1 is a noise reduction nightmare. Over-filtering and edge enhancement also seem to crop up more on NTSC discs. I agree with Foxymulder here.

The same questions applies to box sets of American TV shows. Why would someone be foolish enough to buy BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER or FIREFLY in REGION 2 ?

Agree with you entirely. Why the hell would I buy a standards conversion when my TV can show both video formats anyway? Some conversions are remarkably poor... the PAL version of the anime musical "Interstella 5555" is horrible - jumpy lines everywhere.

2. Another problem with R2 is that those extra vertical lines any advantage of which is cancelled out by crap authoring anyway, leaves far less room for colour on R2 discs. Plus big studio titles often have numerous dub tracks for the Euro market on a single disc. The result is that PAL colour which at the best of times is weak compared to NTSC colour is even worse on R2 discs. In fact a REGION 1 DVD carries DOUBLE the amount of COLOR ENCODING on the disc giving a far richer cinematic pallette.

Errrrm.... what? Where did you get that from?

3. Compare artwork and packaging and most R2 issues look cheap and nasty.

Agree there most of the time - seems to be lowered standards again. Look at EIV's UK covers compared to the American versions by New Line Home Entertainment, it's hilarious. The UK versions are covered with tabloid quotes (except Lord of the Rings and some of the more "high brow" movies - but even still look at the UK LoTR Extended box sets. What was a textured high-quality printed box for the US market has been replicated as a cheap cardboard case for the UK!)

[howard444]

Dear Lyris,

On the issue of colour encoding. It is true. My Professor friend at Salford Uni explained the tech to me. The amount of colour encoded on a Region 1 discs is nearly twice as much as on a Region 2. As I say the modestly fewer lines and fewer languages tracks allow for more space to encode colour. NTSC color is richer as a rule anyway. It is only in past few years with digtial (because it is all now MPEG colour) that the gap has been narrowed but it is still true that NTSC is richer. However you need to learn the art of setting up and balancing as PAL's phase is fixed. Whereas NTSC has manual HUE or TINT controls. A blessing I think as otherwise you are stuck with what someone else thinks is correct or just an auto-pilot setting by some lazy mug who went off for lunch.
I remember having an R2 disc of a Swedish movie authored in Australia. It was fine until about 60% of the way through when some strange herring-bone type patterning appeared and never went away. Other copies confirmed the same. Like no one was monitoring it. No doubt techies pal (pun) called him to say "the surf's up and its wicked, grab your board mate!" I bet the Aussie skived off to the beach leaving the machines to finish the job. Hahaha!!

Yes thanks about the packaging on R2 I really hate those BBFC age certificate numbers...even on the spine...so an entire row of discs on a shelf looks like an oddball illogical number rotation. Its all so cheap and tacky. Compare for example the artwork to the HBO TV movie that started Angelina Jolie's career GIA the American one is real classy. The UK one looks like something on Page 3 of The Sun.

Thank you for responding. Oh here is a tip when buying R1 discs use the third party dealers on Amazon, where it says "new and used" in a side box. Also on the UK branch of Amazon simply add in large case the letters NTSC after a movie title in their search engine. Some great best kept secret prices.

When you talk of "noise reduction nightmare" I wonder if player and or TV settings are a factor there. Though I do admit that be warned about SONY COLUMBIA in the US I just noticed lately they are starting to down-grade SD images prior to launching BLU-RAY. They did this before for two years in the run up to DVD they made all Laserdiscs pressed at their plant in California doomed to rot. The production manager admitted to me they had started supplying them with inferior materials to make the discs. To kill of LD before launching DVD. The only R1's I have not been happy with lately are SONY COLUMBIA issues that say "Mastered in High Definiton" on the box. Maybe they should say high amounts of noise reduction. These corporations do not believe in free choice they want to force us onto the next format which is so foolish as it takes away the voluntary desire to do so.

[pjclark1]

Buy R1 and R2 alien quadrilogy boxsets
View them both and be amazed by the jerky pans on R1 NTSC set and other strange processing artifacts.
Now view the R2 PAL movies and be amazed at the quality of the picture.
Buy each DVD on it's own merits, some are best in PAL, others best in NTSC. Some are only best as R2 German PAL releases (as they tend to be uncut)

Generally you get more extras on the R1 disks, but they can edit out sex scenes. See here for an example http://www.discwrite.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=152

[Mr.D]

The claim that NTSC has superior colour to PAL is completely erronious. Factually , technically and in practice. Your pal could be Stephen Hawking and he'd still be talking piffle.

If this was not bad enough digital video is neither PAL nor NTSC it is component (normally 4:2:0 though it can also be 4:1:1 for dvd but rarely is). mpeg is not a colour standard it normally designates an organisation or a compression codec. NTSC or PAL colour frequency generation from dvd is a function of the player . You can have a 625/50 image with a PAL or NTSC colour frequency and you can just as easily have a 525/60 image with a PAL or NTSC colour frequency. You are not even savvy enough to differentiate between the two characteristics.

Most people who care about what they are watching will never even get into this territory because they will watch component or RGB or use a completely digital pipeline and NTSC and PAL colour issues only become relevant when you bring a signal type that uses chroma encoding into the equation ( composite or s-video or RF). Even then on a decent display you can percieve a notable improvement in colour resolution by using a PAL colour signal over an NTSC one regardless of the actual image format on the disc. I have done this on broadcast quality calibrated displays and domestic kit.

But you are not going to understand any of this as you are obviously some sort of NTSC centric crank.

The quality of the telecine has nothing to do with the specific image characteristics of 625/50 and 525/60 ( what you oversimply refer to as PAL and NTSC). The critical procedure at a telecine revolves around adequetely mapping a portion of a negative film density range to a video one maintaining a pleasing image whilst implimenting the necessary intensity scale compromises necessary to map film into a video colourspace. Again I reitterate this has nothing to do with PAL and NTSC. Telecine is a manual procedure with a telecine operator or colourist making decisions as to how they map from the film intensities to the video . No two telecine operators will do precisely the same telecine of the same material. It would be incorrect to quantify one telecine as superior or inferior to the other based on subjective analysis (unless there were obviously ugly decisions). If there were technical issues yes you could say that one was inferior however having a preference for one telecine over another when both are technically within parameters is merely a preference it does not indicate one telecine is more or less correct than the other.

Most commercial telecines are derived from a 24p hidef datacine from the original film negative. This datacine is then used to derive 525/60 and 625/50 subsampled versions for dvd mastering and broadcast. To keep this simple for you its the same telecine only the image structure is different colour and intensity are the same. This is not always the case but its by far the more likely scenario for commercial films over the last 5 years.

I have seen good and bad telecines from all over the world and only someone with no actual experience in this area would make a blanket statement that US telecines are better than UK ones. Put this in light of the fact that I've just explained to you about the more prevalent use of datacine hidef mastering and this statement becomes all the more facile.

There are differences between a 525/60 and a 625/50 master of a film. These specific differences are :

625/50 : 4% sped up , 25 fps encoded as 50 fields per second , 720x576 resolution (nonsquare pixel)

525/60 : 30fps encoded as 60 fields per second with 3:2 pulldown from 24fps , 720x480 non-square pixel.

Colour ...usually the same.

Mpeg2 compression is of a variable data rate so I fail to see how anyone would actually be able to state unequivocably what the data encoding rate is from minute to minute with 100% certainty and state with any confidence that its always better distributed on a 525/60 master than a 625/50 one . Whilst colour sampling can vary in an mpeg 2 compression schemes the global data rate is more likely to be significantly modulated referencing a motion vector analysis of the images. ie only update the moving portions of the image rather than contain any huge variance in colour sampling.

You are needlessly justifying some personal preference for 525/60 by trotting out irrelevant and erronious information to blanket qualify it as "better" than 625/50 . As I have said repeatedly in this thread and the other one neither type of image is intrinsically better than the other they have different characteristics that some people either prefer or dislike.

My own preference is for neither . 4% speed up does not bother me , 100 lines less resolution does not bother me , 3:2 pulldown artfacts do not bother me. I only require that the telecine is not overly harshly clipped or crushed ( and even the best telecines are to a certain extent relative to film). The only thing that I would not countenace is a needless transcode as I have already stated in the other thread if you would care to attempt to read it and understand it.

Myself and others on this forum thought we had just about extinguished the usual malformed diatribes spewed forth about PAL vs NTSC and then someone like you pops up and has the arrogance to justify your erronious and incorrect viewpoint by qualifying yourself as being from a professional background ( and claiming to have gone to film school isn't really enough to set my world on fire). You would do better to concentrate on getting your facts right rather than bludgeoning people with your self proclaimed superior experience and background . ( which believe me you have not got)

All you have done is perpetuate misinformation about this field which is the complete antithesis of the purpose of this forum and as far as I'm concerned for that you deserve nothing but the harshest criticism.

I happen to work in the global film industry ( I didn't just go to film school) and I take exception to someone with such obviously inadequate understanding of a subject they repeatedly claim to be knowledgable in making statements that : to paraphrase you, 96% of the industry don't know what they are doing. I'd take that personally from someone who knew what they were talking about from you its down right insulting.

I'm also one of the people that Laser Pacific ask about film to video issues on occasion.

[Duncan Harvey]

Whats needed is a healthy dose of reality in all this as well. Its extremely silly to make "hard and fast" rules re buying DVDs.

Whilst I agree that by and large, you are best off buying TV shows in their native format - eg Doctor Who in R2, and Alias in R1, there will always be exceptions to this.

With Buffy, seasons 4-7 are widescreen in R2, and whilst the speed up is a bit of a jolt, after a few episodes you dont notice it. Certainly I would not want Buffy seasons 4-7 in full screen.

Modern conversion technology is also so good, that going NTSC-PAL or vice versa is practically seamless, especially on film originated material.

As for the comments re the "superiority" of LD - well fine, but not all of us want a film studies lecture for a commentary. Also the much vaunted "kings" of LD, Criterion, had to be dragged kicking and screaming into issuing anamorphic DVDs - claiming that there were downconversion issues, and that they didnt want their consumers "confused" into playing an anamorphic DVD on a player which had not been told to downcovert if attached to a 4:3 set - so much for the supposed high brow audience that were apparently Criterion's consumer base.

I've been buying DVDs for 8 years now, and 80%+ of my collection is still NTSC. I'd never dismiss someone who bought R2 however as "silly".

I'd like to make a suggestion that will help your arguments.

Region coding has nothing to do with video standards, so when you're arguing video standards, you don't need to mention region coding. Generally, the cuts and transfers are different from country to county, not from region to region.

Laserpacific is a fine facility but it "can't be beaten?" No one with experience in TV or film would say anything that simplistic. There are fine facilities all over the world. Work for the EU market is often finished in the US and work for the US market is often finished in the EU. As for talent, a layman would be surprised by the international diversity of talent that's blended through facilities in both the EU and the US. If a studio cares to pay for a well supervised transfer that's performed by quality people, they can get it anywhere. Here's a lesson in American economics, prices and quality levels are controlled by the consumers' willingness to buy. Don't blame the artist and operators. The thing that hampers transfer quality is greed.

Regarding NTSC.... Call any facility in the US and you'll find a commonly circulated joke is that NTSC stand for "never the same color." PAL's quality is generally preferred. We're lucky to already have HD because it offers a quality alternative to NTSC.

Pjclark1 makes a great point about the cuts. Releases to different countries are often cut differently. As a film school writer, it seems that you'd find the story to be the most important factor in determining which version will bring you the most enjoyment.

You should end this thread. I appreciate your drive for the industry to produce high quality work. But, your emotional attachment to the US or your bitterness toward the UK is causing you to make up or guess facts about a subjects that you don't have enough information to understand. You aren't technically helping anyone.

Enjoy your movies and buy whichever source that you think is the best quality.

[Goose74]

I think once you have witnessed the glory of high definition this sort of debate becomes pointless - the LOTR EE DVDs are excellent on both R1 and R2 for different reasons (note that the r2 has pitch correction so the audio is at the right pitch) but compared to the 720p and 1080i versions I have seen they both look weak. Once you have seen 1080p you never go back...!

sorry for the slightly OT response

[Mr.D]

Originally Posted by Goose74

sorry for the slightly OT response

Not at all look what the crazy man posted originally. We should stick with 525/60 with an NTSC colour signal no less!

Originally Posted by Howard444

The results of PROGRESSIVE SCANNING in 24fps/60hz can on a good R1 disc be so breathtaking that I am quite skeptical about what spending the better part of three grand on upgrading to HD is going to do for me. Let me put it this way the planned HD transmissions from SKY in 50hz will NOT be as good as what I have now from REGION 1 SD DVD on my LCD projector. Apart from the speed and colour issues SKY's HD transmissions are going to be subjected to so much compression that they will be self-defeating plus if you watch them on a bloody PLASMA screen it is going to look like mush.

I've actually lost count of the amount of fundamental errors in understanding that these comments indicate.

I find it very difficult to believe this individual is attempting to do anything other than troll.

[CrispyXUK]

Yeah, what the D said

[CrispyXUK]

Yeah, what the D said