Curious Q about US & UK Blu-Rays

[HitmanKelly]

I just recently picked up Die Hard 4.0 on UK BD and despite the superb A/V Quality was disapointed to see the Audio Commentry was missing, despite being included on the US Release. I also understand this is the same with the UK BD of the Rock not having the Commentry.

So I'm just curious as to why we (the UK) would get inferior releases, surely it's more hassel to remove certain extras than to just port them straight over from the US BD? What is the deal?

I've also heard/read from various people that UK BD's can also be inferior in A/V quality when compared to the same US BD, is this true? If so when a disc is confirmed Region Free, would you rather go for the US or UK release (Ignoring the difference in price?

[Pecker]

Originally Posted by HitmanKelly

I just recently picked up Die Hard 4.0 on UK BD and despite the superb A/V Quality was disapointed to see the Audio Commentry was missing, despite being included on the US Release. I also understand this is the same with the UK BD of the Rock not having the Commentry.

So I'm just curious as to why we (the UK) would get inferior releases, surely it's more hassel to remove certain extras than to just port them straight over from the US BD? What is the deal?

I've also heard/read from various people that UK BD's can also be inferior in A/V quality when compared to the same US BD, is this true? If so when a disc is confirmed Region Free, would you rather go for the US or UK release (Ignoring the difference in price?

Firstly, regarding extras. In Ye Olde Dayes of early DVDs we regularly got second rate, extras-less releases. This appears to have largely balanced out, and the release dates got a lot closer, too. This was, I believe, largely an attempt to combat importing of UK discs (better, earlier releases than in the UK) after Regional Coding was largely nullified.

Are the studios letting things slip again? I notice this largely appears to be happening on discs which have RC. Ones that are region free tend to be more equal. Occasionally extras are missed off a UK disc for legal reasons.

As for PQ & SQ, if a disc is released by the same company in the UK & US then the same transfer is usually used. On the occasions when different companies release the same film, again the same transfer is often used. When a different transfer is used there doesn't appear to be any bias towards either side of the Atlantic, and some of these differences are hotly argued about as to which is best (I'm thinking of Pan's Labyrinth and Face/Off).

Steve W

[lancerumbolt]

Originally Posted by Pecker

Firstly, regarding extras. In Ye Olde Dayes of early DVDs we regularly got second rate, extras-less releases. This appears to have largely balanced out, and the release dates got a lot closer, too. This was, I believe, largely an attempt to combat importing of UK discs (better, earlier releases than in the UK) after Regional Coding was largely nullified.

Are the studios letting things slip again? I notice this largely appears to be happening on discs which have RC. Ones that are region free tend to be more equal. Occasionally extras are missed off a UK disc for legal reasons.

As for PQ & SQ, if a disc is released by the same company in the UK & US then the same transfer is usually used. On the occasions when different companies release the same film, again the same transfer is often used. When a different transfer is used there doesn't appear to be any bias towards either side of the Atlantic, and some of these differences are hotly argued about as to which is best (I'm thinking of Pan's Labyrinth and Face/Off).

Steve W

And isn't the general consensus that Pan's Labyrinth has a better transfer on the Region B release I'm talking about excessive dnr on the region A version.