Purchasing US shows from other regions

Re: Purchasing US shows from other regions

BSmith,

I realize you didn't ask about this aspect of it, but I purchase other regions when the product is superior (special features, packaging, etc.). For me, price is rarely a consideration.

Re: Purchasing US shows from other regions

Brad,

I buy R2/4 PAL sets for the same reason as Scott...availibility and when the item contains the original music content when the R1 set does not (ie Happy Days S1 & 2).

I've been able to enjoy several DVD's from R2/4 that have yet to see releases in the U.S. since I bought that R-Free (Upconvert) player. It's the best home ent purchase I've made.

Bionic Woman S1 & 2
Happy Days S1 & 2 (original music in both)
Man in a Suitcase series set
Rich Man Poor Man Bk 1 & 2
The Saint Complete B/W set
6M$M S2

Plus, a few R2/4 movie DVD's that aren't available in R1 Anamorphic formats

Re: Purchasing US shows from other regions

Price isn't the only thing you should look at, though, especially when it comes to movies, or American TV shows that were shot on film, because the PAL versions, if duplicated from the film elements, will play at a 4% faster speed than they should, and if mastered from tape, will have been standards-converted (to PAL) and then your player would then have to do another standards conversion back to NTSC (plus, most region-free players with built-in converters have trouble preserving the "shot-on-tape" look of videotaped shows that end up undergoing an in-player standards conversion).

There are a few instances, though, where I bought the PAL version anyway, due to the superior extras, such as the R2 version of the Flash Gordon movie (with Brian Blessed on the commentary track).

Re: Purchasing US shows from other regions

The PAL speedup is a dealbreaker for me. I just can't get past the chipmunky-y sound, as I seem to be VERY sensitive to those kind of discrepancies.

If it were something I absolutely HAD to have and couldn't get an R1 version, then I'd acquiesce and perhaps investigate an all-region player. But for now, count me out.

Harry

Re: Purchasing US shows from other regions

Andy mentions a good point to keep in mind about the "tape-shot" conversion. I'm fortunate since all of my PAL sets are shot on film so the conversion on my player's excellent.

Harry also points out that the PAL speedup seems to be an individualized issue since I have played my PAL DVD's for friends and family members and no one has yet been able to detect the 4% speedup difference. But there's a Wiki article about the PAL/NTSC issue that mentions that a small % of the population can detect the speedup difference more readily than others. That's not to give Wiki a "blank check" on accuracy , but it's interesting that none of my friends can detect the difference between an NTSC & PAL DVD unless they're compared on a "side-to-side" comparison.

For me, what I've found out with this is that I can hear the PAL speedup in an opening TV show theme and the closing credits music but I can't hear it during the main show presentation.

When I watch the "Combat!" Image DVD's, I can detect what's similar to a PAL speedup in the opening & closing music since most of the Image Combat! episodes (excepting Season 5) are time-compressed. But the TC doesn't bother me during the main part of the episodes themselves.

Re: Purchasing US shows from other regions

Brad,

From reading your post, I'd guess that you're not in the susceptible group. As I posted earlier, no one that has watched my PAL DVD's has been able to detect any difference from an NTSC DVD. I recently played one of the Saint B/W DVD episodes for my nephew and asked him before watching the episode to see if he could notice anything "different" from the episode and any other U.S. DVD. He said that after we watched the episode, "I give up. What's the story with this DVD?" When I told him that it was a PAL DVD that was converted back to NTSC for the TV output, he was surprised.

Perhaps there's some differences in the (standard) DVD Players that are Region-Free with the internal PAL/NTSC Converters. That could possibly explain some users' noticing a video/audio Q dropoff in the conversion process. I do know that some of the earlier DVD players used inferior Converters but in most cases that conversion quality problems would only be noticable when converting some of the anamorphic PAL movie DVD's to NTSC.

I have a Pioneer DV-400V standard upconverting player with a 32Mb internal PAL/NTSC Converter. Here's an excerpt from a lab test report on the converter performance:


A point of interest regarding the "If this player could be made region free..." line: That is the lab tech's referral regarding a general comment that most (perhaps all?) of the Std Pioneer players can't be "hacked" for R-free playback. I chose to spend more $$'s to buy a "chipped" player that came with a lifetime guarantee (covering the internal mods) to play any region's (std) DVD worldwide, including any RCE (region coded enhanced) encoded movie DVD. I tested my player on a known R1 RCE-encoded movie DVD when I initially installed the player and it played the movie perfectly. Some, but not most, "hacked" players may occasionally have problems playing back an RCE-encoded movie DVD. That's why I went with a hardware-modified player.

Regarding your referral to the "Combat!" set, there are a few of the B/W episodes from S1-4 in the series that escaped the time-compression from years ago when the masters were put to tape by Worldvision. One of these episodes is the S3 episode "The Hard Way Back" (guest star: Sal Mineo). When I watched that episode, I could tell that it was a non-time-compressed episode from the moment that the opening music theme began. But for me, as well as friends that have watched other TC'ed episodes from this show, the TC issue doesn't bother me at all when watching the episodes.

Bottom line for me is that there was no way I was going to pass on Combat! (or other TC R1 TV/DVD sets) or that Saint PAL set due to any 4% speedup issue. What you're talking about here is a time difference of 46-47 min's for a PAL (or R1 TC) ep vs, say, a 51-52 min show from the early-mid 60's era. When I watched the Bionic Woman S1/S2 sets from the UK and Australia, the only way that I could detect the speedup was when I played back the opening music theme on my PC (WAV file) and then went back to my TV and played the opening theme on the PAL DVD. I asked Mom about this (she's a retired music teacher with a masters degree) and she noticed the 1/2 pitch difference in the PAL vs NTSC audio but also has watched many PAL episodes with me and the speedup doesn't bother her during the main episodes. She didn't notice it during the episodes themselves.

Re: Purchasing US shows from other regions

Well I bought Ironside s3 r4 got it around the end of 2008 and I'm very happy with the set. The video and sound captures of madmans r4 verison are superior to shouts r1 releases. I'm so pleased with s3 Ive got a pre release order of the s4 release (late june 09) right now with mad man. And getting a region free player isnt a horrible burden , infact it opens up a world of great releases that will never be release in r1. I'll keep ordering Ironside or any other favorite shows or movies from any region I like.

Re: Purchasing US shows from other regions

And for some (such as myself), the 4% speed-up issue is restricted to definite (rather than indefinite) pitch. And spoken dialogue does not effect me nearly as much as music which is playing at a faster rate of speed.

Re: Purchasing US shows from other regions

I use an inexpensive Philips that has no problem with PAL to NTSC conversion. Bought it a month ago after my earlier region free unit stopped reading disks.

Re: Purchasing US shows from other regions

Yeah me too I've got 39.00 philips that works great after I punch in the regionless code I found on google search. Also by a happy accident my pansonic upscaling dvd player works region free with no code (found out by putting a r4 ironside disk by mistake). Neither player has problems with pal to ntsc and no chipmonk vocies on ethier player.

Re: Purchasing US shows from other regions

I used the same code on my Philips and I love being able to watch Six Million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, Cybill and other shows that have not gotten a region 1 release.

Re: Purchasing US shows from other regions

Bob, what's the model number for that Panasonic?

Re: Purchasing US shows from other regions

No, even though your equipment is outputting a true PAL picture (i.e. no conversion), you are still experiencing the 4% speedup.

PAL speedup has nothing to to with standards conversion to NTSC, it's all in the conversion from 24fps film to the PAL standard. People in native PAL countries experience the same speedup when they watch American TV or cinema films (i.e. film shot at 24fps) on TV, whether it's just a broadcast, on a VHS tape or on a DVD. It's all to do with the frame rates.

All of the examples you mention above would've been shot at 24fps, yes, even The Saint, because ITC shot all their filmed series* (at that time) in the "international" speed of 24fps.

One important thing to note, though, is that just being "shot on film" does not automatically mean there will be a PAL speedup. Shows that were shot on film specifically for British TV were often shot at 25fps, because the TV companies knew they didn't want to deal with the speedup problem. So, the film inserts in BBC shows (like Doctor Who, Monty Python, etc) have always played at the proper speed in PAL countries.

*—one exception is Space 1999, where a lot of stuff was shot 25fps to avoid the "vertical roll" on the TV monitors in Moonbase Alpha.


So, in short: all cinematic movies will be affected by the PAL speedup, as will all American-filmed TV shows. Filmed programmes that were made for British consumption likely are not affected (and, thus, might mean that NTSC version could be playing 4% too slow!). Of course, British TV that was completely on-film is rarer, anyway, and most likely, any American DVDs of such was probably standards-converted from a PAL duplication tape (rather than from the originaly film elements) and, thus, probably wouldn't suffer a slowdown, just a standards conversion.

Re: Purchasing US shows from other regions

Harry:
You do know this only applies to film material, yes? Shows that were shot-on-tape, or were filmed in the UK, would not be affected by the speedup.

Re: Purchasing US shows from other regions

I don't notice the speed-up either. Even when I'm told its there.

I mostly buy other region when something isn't available in the US, but I've been known to buy movies that have better special editions in other countries.

Re: Purchasing US shows from other regions

PAL speed-up bugs me, but it's a trade-off I'm sometimes willing to make if the material is otherwise unavailable. As Andy noted, it doesn't affect material that was filmed with a British video presentation in mind, so it's not an issue with most of the music titles I might buy overseas of artists whose work isn't released in the US.

But I do notice it on things like "Ally McBeal," which I bought from overseas because it's doubtful it'll ever get a proper release here with all its music intact. I'd rather have it play slightly faster and have the pitch be slightly higher than have the music replaced. BTW, one of my el cheapo Daewoo players actually has a pitch control on it, though it introduces some other problems into the audio so I rarely use it.

Re: Purchasing US shows from other regions

Why not? Wikipedia is more accurate than hard-copy encyclopedias.

Re: Purchasing US shows from other regions

Its a oldie panasonic dvd -s52