Differences NTSC or PAL on DVD’s
quote:
Originally posted by FX:
aleck, honey, feel free to jump in any time now [img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
Head first, sweetie.
FX is right. NTSC and PAL refer to video signals that are sent out via video decks and the like. PAL, I believe, transmits video signals at 25 frames per second (as opposed to NTSC’s 24 fps) and at a slightly higher resolution than NTSC, and is the standard video format of Europe while NTSC is the domain of North (possibly South?) America. That’s the first regional barrier.
The second, regional encoding, is a fairly voluntary thing that I don’t quite get the logistics of, since it seems to be intentionally limiting competition, which is why there’s a movement in Australia, I think, calling for the end of Region Coding. Basically what it means is this: players sold in specific territories (US — Region 1, UK — Region 2, etc.) are generally programmed to only play discs that are encoded *for* that territory, or that do not have regional encoding at all. This was, allegedly, set up to limit cross-border sales of product that is only licensed to be sold in one region. For instance, Anchor Bay can lease the rights to and release Lucio Fulci’s [i]Zombie[/i] in the US without fearing competition from Vipco in the UK who might release their own version. Also, the company that owns the rights to the film can make more money by leasing to both territories knowing that neither market will be watered down with imports (creating a demand). Because of this, some licensors will demand that DVDs of their product be regionally encoded. If this demand isn’t made, and depending on the internal policies of the video label, a label can simply opt *not* to regionally encode the discs at all (commonly referred to as Region 0 discs).
Now, even if the discs in question aren’t regionally encoded, you *still* have to know if you can play either NTSC or PAL. Because while Region 0 discs can be played in *any* DVD player, the signal put out from the disc is in either one of these two formats. You must know if your player has a built-in signal converter or if your TV can decode either signal. Otherwise, you’ll be able to hear everything fine, but you won’t be able to see it.
Also, for those of you in the States, as far as I know, there is only one multi-region DVD player that can accurately reproduce 16×9 Anamorphically-enhanced discs (widescreen presentations enhanced for widescreen TVs), and that’s the Malata. However, it has problems of its own that make it less than desirable.
Now that that’s out of the way, the differences between the US and UK versions of [i]LEXX[/i] are in the supplements only. The versions contained on the discs are the uncut international broadcast versions of the episodes. The supplements that may overlap are “making of” segments and “Rated LEXX” segments, as those were produced by and provided by Salter, but the other supplements were either created in-house by each respective company, or created with the assistance of Salter, and are unique to each company’s release.
–Aleck