I'm dumbfounded by the regional differences found on some DVDs..... (1 Viewer)

[Daniel Becker]

I'm relatively new to the home theater world. Recently i've begun to see more and more information about DVD's that are completely different when released in different parts of the world. For some reasons these companies will make changes and remove/add extras to particular releases depending upon what region it's being released.


Here is what I want to know: Wouldn't it make SO MUCH MORE SENSE to released the best possible product in every region? Why would these companies feel it necessary to invest the time and money to change and alter things for particular regions? I am dumbfounded just thinking about such things. Does anyone have a logical explanation for this type of activity?



Dan.b

 

[Page]

I think a lot of it might have to do with a "rights" issue. Films released in this country by a certain company/DVD autoring house are sometimes released by a different company/DVD authoring house in other countries because the rights to distribute a film were negoatiated that way. This would include extras, commentary tracks, etc. Also, some countries have censorship laws which cause companies to alter their products. (For example, England seems to object to violent material while the USA has a problem with sexual material. The "Straw Dogs" controversy...the "Eyes Wide Shut" controversy...)

 

[oscar_merkx]

the other popular thing at the moment is to release a SE in r2 and 6 months later you will have an updated SE, example Terminator 1

 

[Mark Zimmer]

On the positive side, multiple attempts to get it right increase the odds that someone, somewhere, will come up with a good edition. If it were just a single issue, then one issue (probably the US one for Hollywood films) would dominate. And the US version, even in region 1, isn't always the best: see, e.g., Ginger Snaps. But to take advantage of this, every film fan should have a multiregion player and either a multiformat TV or a player that converts NTSC and PAL as needed.

 

[Chad R]

Terminator was a special case where the overseas rights became MGM's many months before the U.S., so in the interim extra features were prepared because they had the extra time (and MGM needed the cash from the overseas release).

 

[Tim Ke]

About A Boy is getting an R2/4 release with a 20-minute featurette on Badly Drawn Boy, while the R1 has the English-to-English featurette instead. Darn rights/legal issues...

 

[andrew markworthy]

Wouldn't it make SO MUCH MORE SENSE to released the best possible product in every region?

Daniel, you're using common sense. A few months more with us and you'll get into the mindset that seems to control these issues - and trust me, it has nothing to do with common sense.
R2 (and the UK in particular) was a byword until about a year ago for very shoddy releases. Whilst we tended to get widescreen as the default option (widescreen ownership is *much* higher in Europe than in the USA) we lost out on all the extras. The BS that was given for this was that we had to sacrifice disc space in R2 for all the extra foreign language tracks (even when there were no foreign language options). When consumers voted with their wallets and began importing from R1 through etailers, suddenly a miraculous method was found of offering all the extras that were on the R1 discs ... [Not only that, release schedules began to be pushed forward. Previously the UK got the big movies about 6 months after the USA - these days a lot of them are simultaneous releases].
There are still some differences, and as people have already pointed out, this is due to licensing differences and in some cases censorship issues. The British film censors are not quite as repressed as is often presented - the issue is that Brit censorship is far more age-conscious than American. Thus, a movie passed uncut in the USA will get trimmed for the UK market if it wants to fall within a particular age band certification. Other European contries will also often censor films to fulfil their own age band requirements. This also applies to the extras on a DVD. The DVD is rated by the most 'adult' thing on it. Thus, the Brit DVD of LOTR is missing a brief extra (lasting circa 2 minutes) that was considered to have rather adult humour, and would have pushed the certification for the whole set to too high a level.

 

[Clint B]

Andrew, for the LOTR disc are you talking about the parody on Disc 1 with Jack Black and Sarah Michelle Gellar?
It's on the R1 DVD as an easter egg.

 

[Simon Basso]

Clint, no, the cuts were to the extras. Specifically 1m 16s of Elijah Wood, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan swearing. Even though bleeped, it was so obvious what they were saying that the BBFC had no choice but to offer the distributors a 12 rating uncut, or a PG cut. EiV chose to cut and maximise sales. I'm not sure that the rating of a video/dvd ever kept a film out of anyone's hands, but the distributors probably know different.

 

[oscar_merkx]

also what is interesting about the regional differences has to do with all of Paul Verhoeven's Dutch Films with the exception of Floris, a B&W TV production from the 1960s where we do get a documentary. Otherwise it is R1 to purchse them with all of the commentaries, whereas far as I know, his Dutch dvds are featureless.

I am sure that either Hendrik or Mark know more about this than I do, but still crazy I think.

 

[andrew markworthy]

Daniel, if you're still reading this thread, and you're newish to the world of DVDs, have you tried this site?
Link Removed
This has direct comparisons of different regional releases.

 

[ChuckDeLa]

Whilst we tended to get widescreen as the default option (widescreen ownership is *much* higher in Europe than in the USA)

Just curious... does this mean that some R2 full-frame movies get cropped at the top and bottom to placate "Nigel 6-Pack"?

 

[Bjorn Olav Nyberg]

If by full-frame you mean filmed open matte, then that is what happens, yes. Not to placate Nigel 6-pack, but because that is how you recreate the theatrical framing for a open matte movie.
As for movies intended to be 1.33:1 I think it is very rare. I know of a scandinavian exception, a movie called Flåklypa grand prix (Pinchcliffe grand prix in the U.S.) which was indeed cropped to a 1.75:1 ratio for anamorphic enhancement. I have seen none of the usual uproar about that, so I guess it is accepted.
Also, at least Gosford park and U-571 that I know of was opened up to 1.75:1 when it was supposed to be 2.35:1
While there are not enough examples of releases to call it a trend, you are definitively right though. A lot of people want their screened filled, even those with 16:9 screens.

 

[Qui-Gon John]

More than dumbfounded, pissed of is how I feel. There are many movies that I want and would buy the DVD, but the R1 are non-anamorphioc despite the fact that other regions the same titles are Anamorphic. CRIMSON TIDE and MRS. DOUBTFIRE are just two examples of movies that I have heard are ANAMORPHIC in other regions but not here. WTF is the problem with the studios and their screwing us over here in the US!