Warner Australia churning out MORE NTSC DVDs to the Australien PAL DVD Market! (1 Viewer)

[Roland Wandinger]

From Link Removed
quote: I-C, U-C, oh god, more NTS-C!!
For some reason, Warner Australia seem to continually churning out MORE NTSC DVDs to the Australian PAL DVD Market.
And For their October/November DVD Release Schedule, V: The
Mini Series AND The Goonies!!! are said to be NTSC Region
4 Transfers!!!!!!
Personally i DO NOT agree with their Decision for ANY NTSC
Region 4 DVDs, as Australia is a PAL territory afterall, and PAL is a superior Video Format. While Warner are only releasing a "select" number of titles in the NTSC format, it seems to be growing with every month's new batch of DVDs. We have been told that at some point down the track, "some" of these NTSC DVDs will get re-released in PAL (though you're looking at quite some time down the track, given it's taken around 1 year for the FIRST Region 4 NTSC DVD from Warner, Romeo Must Die, to get a PAL re-release).
At any rate, we've created a POLL which we would like for you to take part in, to see what region 4 DVDer's think of Warner Releasing NTSC DVDs to our PAL Marketplace. Once we've gathered enough data, we'll be sending it over to Warner as an FYI.[/quote]
Very stupid from WARNER Australia and strange since there will not be any WARNER R2 NTSC Titles in Europe (...or so I hope)!
What the purpose of this is supposed to be is beyond me especially for WARNER because their PAL releases in the last time have been better (videowise) than their R1 releases.
I usually buy WARNER Titles here in R2 but I do have lots of Australian R4 titles and would hate so see this happen to more titles there!
[Edited last by Roland Wandinger on October 18, 2001 at 04:13 AM]

 

[Nicole P]

Roland,
It may probably the cost factor involved.
Many R1 releases are also coded R4 for South America. It probably is cheaper for Warner to distribute these releases to Australia rather than remastering a PAL version. It also gives the appearance of reducing the time between regional releases.
For myself, I certainly hope this does not become the norm.
I would rather wait for a R2/R4 release because I prefer the superior PAL resolution.
Regards,
Nicole P
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"So where does the power come from, to see the race to its end? From within."

 

[Ted Todorov]

If Warner has the rights to all those teritories, why don't they just release multi-region NTSC & PAL versions -- that way they would only need to do two releases... Of course there are always susbtitle & cover art questions, but why they need to place region restrictions if they are releasing it everywhere anyway is beyond me.
Ted

 

[Roland Wandinger]

Nicole
What you say makes sense, I haven't seen it from that point.
However Warner will have to produce PAL versions for the European R2 market anyway so there is no way around it?
And also I think not everyone in Australia has NTSC equipment. Surely all new TVs and DVD Players sold in Australia are multinorm like in Europe but still....
I'd hate to see this become a common practice by any studio, what would people in NTSC countries say if they could only buy PAL DVDs!
[Edited last by Roland Wandinger on October 18, 2001 at 08:28 AM]

 

[James Nguyen]

I'd hate to see this become a common practice by any studio, what would people in NTSC countries say if they could only buy PAL DVDs!

Pop those bad boys in my lovely Malata N996 DVD player!!!!

 

[dcaconnolly]

Maybe a reason for putting out NTSC R4 discs is that Region 4 actually covers South America as well? I'm not sure which countries in S. America use NTSC, but surely some do.
Which leads to an interesting question. I just purchased an R4 version of The Gift in Australia,which has subtitles in English, Hindi, Arabic and Russian - together with Russian Dolby 5.1 surround sound. I know Australia is highly focussed on immigrants at present, but this is taking things too far!
I notice that DVD choice in Australia has grown enormously over the last 12 months, and my guess is that these strange discs are driven by the need to get some kind of R4 product into the stores for a relatively small market, to deflect the suggestions that all-code players become mandatory in Oz to allow full customer choice.Obviously changing the region code on a master is much easier then re-formatting or re-doing the audio tracks.
David Connolly

 

[Jeff Kleist]

People in NTSC countries are very rarely equipped to play PAL, therefore the discs would be useless. Most PAL sets also do NTSC. That's why they wouldn't do such a thing
Jeff Kleist

 

[Hendrik]

"...I just purchased an R4 version of The Gift in Australia,which has subtitles in English, Hindi, Arabic and Russian - together with Russian Dolby 5.1 surround sound... "
Hah! That's nothing: my copies of the R4 "Collector's Edition" of The Patriot and of the R4 "Deluxe Widescreen Presentation" of 8mm feature, respectively:
- optional English DD 5.1 and Hungarian DD 2.0 Surround soundtracks
- optional English DD 5.1 and German DD 5.1 soundtracks
- optional English, Greek, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Icelandic, Hindi, Hebrew, Dutch, Bulgarian, Turkish, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian and Arabic subtitles
- optional English, Greek, German, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Hindi, Turkish, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Dutch, Norwegian and Hebrew subtitles
Note that both discs are PAL-encoded; neither disc contains Spanish or Portuguese soundtracks or subtitles - so these discs would be of little or no use for the Latin American market...
. . .

. . .
[Edited last by Hendrik on October 19, 2001 at 08:27 PM]

 

[Christine Warren]

It's surprising that more DVDs aren't region 2 and 4 compatible - Elizabeth was one of the first DVDs I bought and it was a region 2/4 DVD (PAL) - seems a lot more logical to me. But then again, it doesn't appear as if logic enters into the DVD market too often. *S*
many music DVDs are regions 2-6.
Christine