Augustes

Hi everyone,

I was looking on Amazon's page for the HD DVD version of "The Last Samurai" and noticed that it is coded "Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only)".


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...695482-0759946

I thought that HD DVD was doing away with the region codes and the Blu-Ray was going to have them but reduce them to three.

Anyone think this is just a mistake on Amazon's part, or is HD DVD adopting the same region codes that standard DVD had.

Nero

I'm confused aswell. I want whichever one is region free.

Nimbus

Amazon is probably just loading in their default DVD specs until they hear differently. I wouldn't take this as confirmation of anything.

redford

the one rumor I have read is that Japan will be included in the new region 1-and as they are NTSC that is a plus,

Nero

Unfortunately, I'm not sure about that though I'm not sure about how this would affect DVD, because I don't know the technical issues, but with HD, we're going to have the usual world divisions unfortunately.

The U.S., Canada, and some Latin American countries have adopted a new format called ATSC as their preferred HD system called 8VSB. South Korea, in Asia, has also adopted ATSC.

In Europe, they have adopted a digital system called DVB-T (using COFDM modulation). They have adopted 720p only so far as their preferred HD medium, but for now many countires are satisified with digital multicasting instead. There is an HD channel originating from Belgium called Euro1080, which is gaining support.

Japan has adopted a modification of DVB-T, called ISDB-T. Brazil is considering DVB-T over ATSC and is the only other country considering Japan's ISDB system. Argentina had considered ATSC adoption, but is now reconsidering. I think they are a current PAL country.

So, we'll still have some version of the NTSC/PAL/SECAM mess, instead it will be: ATSC/DVB-T/ISDB-T.

The U.S. has aligned with Europe in terms of satellite modulation however using DVB-S for Echostar broadcasts. I'm not sure about DIRECTV.

How this will affect DVD as it is all digital, I'm not sure if at all.

Augustes

Okay, well I just thought it might be something to look out for as current SD DVDs seem to be formatted NTSC/PAL, dunno why. I know it doesn't seem to matter as computers can seemingly play either format if you have region codes disabled or region 0.

I'm curious as to why I've heard the PAL discs have the infamous PAL speed-up problem with frame rate in movies. And why this matters in SD discs and not for the future digital formats? I claim ignorance on this one.

Why are they formatted now, and why would this not be an issue in the future? I know it has something to do with MPEG and all of that. I guess what it boils down to is why they are formatted NOW (for SD versions).

redford

What I don't understand about it is the way pretty much all PAL TVs (in the UK at least) have been able to display an NTSC signal from, say, a US DVD, correctly for the past decade at least and the movie on the DVD has played back at the correct speed. So why not now just have new HD releases on either format play back at the correct speed (especially since there's no longer going to be the extra resolution PAL has had as an advantage anymore)? If all of the old SD PAL TVs from the last decade or so can handle it, surely the new HDTVs should be able to also. Either that or why not just go one step further and make all new TVs refresh at 48hz (or even 72hz) so film frames can just be repeated evenly and eliminate the problems with the 3:2 pulldown NTSC can have?