Comparing DVD outside Region 1 with Region 1

[ookzDVD]

I just want you to know that not all the company make the DVD
for outside region 1 as good as region 1 DVD.

As my country use Region 3 DVD,

I can tell that Universal Studio, they just did very good job,
almost all region 3 DVD from Universal Studio come with language
menu and all special features and video quality is as good as the region 1 DVD, most of them are DVD9 :)

The opposite is Columbia, their region 3 DVD version is not as
good as region 1 version. All 16:9 format is converted to 4:3 :(
and some of special features is removed to fit into DVD5 :(

How about the region 2 or other region, are you having the same
situation like me ?

[GIR]

From my personal experience I've found R2 & R4 (PAL) > R1 (NTSC) in both video quality and features most of the time. Occasionally the studios will give us (.au) R4 NTSC discs, much to the disgust of the DVD buyers here, or a badly encoded R4 PAL disc.

(I thought Christmas Island was R4 too)

[E-Male]

missing extras also happens on rc2 disc
sometimes a movie/series which is censored for on country (often UK) is sold censored in whole europe

the rc2 market is ok i gues, but i'm happy that i can import discs from other regions as well

[Mug Funky]

it's not really on a per-country or per-region basis, but rather on whether the authoring house has a clue, and if not, whether they can afford to outsource a clue.

i'd imagine columbia has other things to worry about overall, but i can't generalise having never visited the country (or indeed any other country :( *sigh*, i'm so insular).

it's basically a matter of who's available in each area to acquire the movies, get good QC, and put it all on a disc that's fun to use. big hollywood studios will have good discs pretty much everywhere, as they have their own distribution network that can cater for most of the world. it's only when movies find themselves in smaller markets (like perhaps a dub for an obscure language group) that you'll find big-name movies in rather bad DVDs, because most of the "localisation" has been done in the target country where perhaps the labour isn't available (or infrastructure to find it is lacking) to make a polished-super-hollywood-bonanza-DVD-9.

hope that makes some sense...

of course, every country has it's crappy DVDs. i own several (dammit, i want to see a half-decent release of Blade Runner!)

[edit]
Occasionally the studios will give us (.au) R4 NTSC discs, much to the disgust of the DVD buyers here, or a badly encoded R4 PAL disc.

hmm... i find with shows like "soap", NTSC is the lesser of 2 evils - if it began it's life as interlaced 29.97, it should end it's life there as well. i hate field-blending. it's so so ugly on natural motion (and almost invisible on anime, provided you have an interlaced CRT and not too many pans)

[ppera2]

Right, quality has nothing with DVD region. It was discussed here already couple times, btw.
Crappiest DVD what I saw was R1, bad VHS transform.

[E-Male]

i don't deny that there are good and bad dvds in any region
but rc1 seems to have the most "better than elsewhere" dvds

[jggimi]

As far as I can tell from surfing the web, from his island, ookzDVD can either stop and visit "Jogos Photos & Video Hire", or he can do mail order. Not too many other choices on an island with around 1500 people on it.

I suspect he's R3 because he's physically much closer to Singapore or Indonesia than he is to Australia, and that's where most of the imports come from.

I live on an island also, but mine has two drawbridges to the mainland, and both nearby countries are R1. :)

[E-Male]

there are good online shop in any region i assume

[smiller667]

Some positive things come included with globalization :) - including the ease with which you can mailorder just about any dvd from any country, delivered right to your doorstep :).

Provided you own multiregion equipment (and preferentially such which will playback both PAL and NTSC natively), nothing is limiting your choice of dvds. Sites like dvd-basen, moviereviewindex, dvdcompare & dvdbeaver are helpful with learning more about the various releases.

I personally bought perhaps <1% of my dvds in local shops, >90% of my collection came from abroad.

I find the hardest thing is the lack of English subtitles on many great releases :D (Japan & France come to my mind). R1 is fine for the sheer variety of titles, but it doesn't constantly produce great releases (speaking on a purely technical level here). Sure, there's great dvd producers like Criterion, but great releases come from just about anywhere. If you're a boxset afficionado, give Korean releases a try, same goes for Japan (remember the Alien "box").

Just my 0.02.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by jggimi
As far as I can tell from surfing the web, from his island, ookzDVD can either stop and visit "Jogos Photos & Video Hire", or he can do mail order. Not too many other choices on an island with around 1500 people on it. I wonder too, what TV colour system is used on Christmas Island. PAL, NTSC or SECAM?

Can you confirm this ookzDVD?


Cheers

[E-Male]

these japanese special editions are cool (the "cover art" *g*), but expensive as hell, no chance for my money

[ppera2]

Actually, in one thing is R1 far better than any other region. It's choice. As I see count of titles is at least 2 times bigger than in R2, which is second by choice.
Problem is that ordering oversea is not cheap. As always, technique, standards is not problem but business.

[ookzDVD]

@Forum,

First of all, I just want to apologize about my location signature,
actually I live in Indonesia, the "Christmas Island" is just for fun
I did change it last Christmas :) Sorry for my stupid mistake.

My country use PAL-BG TV system for broadcast. For VCD & DVD,
PAL is the majority for origianl ones. For pirate ones use NTSC.

Thanks you.

[theReal]

hmm... i find with shows like "soap", NTSC is the lesser of 2 evils - if it began it's life as interlaced 29.97, it should end it's life there as well.Luckily many tv shows are shot on 16mm film, so you can get very good PAL 626/50 releases.

I guess DVD release quality always depends on how much money can be made from a movie. For example in Germany you'll get perfect R2 releases of big block busters like LOTR (a lot of extras, perfect quality, optional English language soundtrack, a lot of subtitle options and so on).
For movies with not so much commercial potential you might end up with single sided DVDs, no English language track (or one with forced German subs).

As there's more people buying DVDs in the US than in any other region, I think it's pretty obvious why there are more well made R1 releases than R3 or other.

[Mug Funky]

Luckily many tv shows are shot on 16mm film, so you can get very good PAL 626/50 releases.

that's true... almost all american dramas and sitcoms with any kind of a budget will be shot on 16mm. but as we all know that doesn't guarantee a good PAL release...

i can only put it down to arrogance on the part of the distributors - assuming they can distribute overseas by simply sending an NTSC tape (which arrives 2 days before the release date i might add) and thinking it will be good enough.

the r4 release of Spirited Away is a prime example of this - it's field-blended telecine->PAL because the goddamn tape arrived at the authoring house 2 days before the release date in the WRONG format. there's not much an authoring house can do in these cases but run with it and hope they're not criticised too harshly for the crappy video.

[theReal]

Maybe it also depends on how important (business-wise) the sitcom is?
For example "Friends" is available as a good R2 PAL 626/50 DVD(obviously made from film source).

If it's not for conversion to 626/50, then he question I'm asking myself is: why do they shoot on 16mm film? IMO it would be a lot easier (and also less expensive, I guess) to shoot on DigiBeta because the sitcom is intended for tv viewing only.
Well, maybe tradition or something :confused: