The News Thread (for news that does not need a thread)
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Because if we don't have to wait for PAL conversions, the companies which rely on foreign editions can pick from everything that's out in countries like the US, rather than waiting for the Australian companies to pick them up (in turn from the US!) and convert them so we can use them. That and I don't understand why we even have PAL conversions for anime as most of them are rather ropey.
Are you saying you have a PAL-only setup? I'm genuinely interested; I thought they died out a long, long time ago.
R
Are you saying you have a PAL-only setup? I'm genuinely interested; I thought they died out a long, long time ago.
R
Can you name a brand of receiver in this country that isn't "PAL only"? You may have a player that is multi format, or multi regional, but the vision on your tele is either 625 PAL if it's an older CRT, or 1080p/50Hz. the HD equivilant of PAL if it's a newer flatscreen. so I'm just as genuinely interested as to what you mean.Rui said:
You may not know, so I'll state that Japan is also NTSC, or for HD 1080p/60hz. if they live in the south and west of the nation, or 1080p/50Hz. if they live in the north and east. Figure that one out. So all anime starts as "NTSC" and must be standards converted in order to be sold in Europe, and the UK.:wink:
Ah, you are talking about broadcast television, I think? And the last part seems to go along with what I said...
My interest is solely with home video releases: I'm sure anything successful enough to make it onto broadcast television here will still be able to go through the process. This is to support getting more niche stuff over here on disc by eliminating a completely pointless additional cost.
The original news comment did specify "discs", as did the Madman link.
R
My interest is solely with home video releases: I'm sure anything successful enough to make it onto broadcast television here will still be able to go through the process. This is to support getting more niche stuff over here on disc by eliminating a completely pointless additional cost.
The original news comment did specify "discs", as did the Madman link.
R
I'm talking about any and all vision seen on our tele's. Makes no difference what the source is, the final destination, meaning our teles, has to be converted to UK standards, or we just won't see them. That includes multi-region players which only means they are not software blocked to play anything other than R2 content, (and yes not everyone has one, though I'm one who does), the output, regardless whether R1, or not is still UK standard signals. It has to be, unless you are talking about watching your anime on your computer? That's an entirely different pot of chowder. So basically you are saying YAY to the death of R2 in favour of all R1. In that case buy all your anime from United Publications as that's all they deal in. :wink:Rui said:
No, I'm talking about watching a DVD in a DVD player, and I'm afraid I am having trouble understanding. The question is, of the kind of people who buy anime at all, how many actually have a PAL-only TV set and player? My mother and mother-in-law have setups which support NTSC and their embrace of technology is extremely slow. To clarify, if I put a regionless disc from an NTSC territory into their UK DVD players and play them on their UK televisions, I will see the DVD's content as normal.
I have far more trouble playing my PAL materials on my NTSC hardware than I have had the other way around since the VHS days.
I'm not for even one second talking about PAL broadcasting over television, which I freely admit I know absolutely nothing about.
Edited to comment on the stuff you added when I was typing:
I'm not talking about region coding here, and nor is anyone else. We're talking about the possibility of cutting costs in the supply chain to get more anime over here and with less molestation caused when converting between the two standards doesn't go well. It's a large Australian (PAL!) anime distributor asking the question. Nothing to do with region locking.
R
I have far more trouble playing my PAL materials on my NTSC hardware than I have had the other way around since the VHS days.
I'm not for even one second talking about PAL broadcasting over television, which I freely admit I know absolutely nothing about.
Edited to comment on the stuff you added when I was typing:
I'm not talking about region coding here, and nor is anyone else. We're talking about the possibility of cutting costs in the supply chain to get more anime over here and with less molestation caused when converting between the two standards doesn't go well. It's a large Australian (PAL!) anime distributor asking the question. Nothing to do with region locking.
R
Just Passing Through
The Wildcard
And UK Region 2 anime has been released in NTSC in the past...
Inuyasha's single volume, Bubblegum Crisis, Ah My Goddess OVAs, and Gunsmith Cats to name but a few.
I'm on the fence when it comes to NTSC vs PAL. You have the benefit of quicker release times and lower authoring costs due to a lack of conversion. You also get the correct frame rate and audio pitch.
But... NTSC does suck as a format. It is the lowest of the low. There aren't many anime companies that do decent progressive coding on their discs, so even if you have a player that can play back progressively, you'll get a wodge load of interlacing artifacts. And the colours...
I've recently been watching the review discs of Welcome to the NHK, which courtesy of Siren have had the PAL treatment. So yes, 4% speedup will no doubt turn a fair number of people off. But I have owned the R1 collections from Funimation for almost 4 years now.
I am never watching them again. The PAL discs eliminate the interlacing artefacts, of which there are many on the R1 discs. The whole thing is comb crazy. The resolution is so much better, details are better, the discs' bitrate is 2Mb per second higher on average. Best of all, the R2 discs eliminate the excessive colour saturation, contrast and haze that was apparent on the R1 discs. The colour balance and exposure on the new release is so much better that you can see the artwork now, and I realise that some scenes in NHK are breathtaking. Where before it was just a neon, overexposed mess.
Inuyasha's single volume, Bubblegum Crisis, Ah My Goddess OVAs, and Gunsmith Cats to name but a few.
I'm on the fence when it comes to NTSC vs PAL. You have the benefit of quicker release times and lower authoring costs due to a lack of conversion. You also get the correct frame rate and audio pitch.
But... NTSC does suck as a format. It is the lowest of the low. There aren't many anime companies that do decent progressive coding on their discs, so even if you have a player that can play back progressively, you'll get a wodge load of interlacing artifacts. And the colours...
I've recently been watching the review discs of Welcome to the NHK, which courtesy of Siren have had the PAL treatment. So yes, 4% speedup will no doubt turn a fair number of people off. But I have owned the R1 collections from Funimation for almost 4 years now.
I am never watching them again. The PAL discs eliminate the interlacing artefacts, of which there are many on the R1 discs. The whole thing is comb crazy. The resolution is so much better, details are better, the discs' bitrate is 2Mb per second higher on average. Best of all, the R2 discs eliminate the excessive colour saturation, contrast and haze that was apparent on the R1 discs. The colour balance and exposure on the new release is so much better that you can see the artwork now, and I realise that some scenes in NHK are breathtaking. Where before it was just a neon, overexposed mess.
I would hazard a guess there are a few.Rui said:
As expected, because it "regionless". Try that with a restricted R1 and let me know how you got on. If you can still see it, congratulations, your mother and mother-in-law have a multi-region DVD player. :wink:
Also as expected, because NTSC VHS players were only ever made to play NTSC tapes. However later PAL models made here were able to play NTSC as well as PAL. They were known as "Duel Format", or "NTSC Capable" players. I still have one that I play my charished KOR tapes on which are NTSC imports. However having said that there were models made for the Middle-east market that could play either quite happily, but they were only sold there. :wink:
No need to. Simply keep in mind that it's the same whether it comes down your aerial, or out the back of your VHS, or DVD, or Blueray player, or you just won't see it.
I realise that and what Madman are asking is exactly about region coding. The confusion comes from them calling their discs NTSC which is lazy technical slang for R1 coding. Unless they are talking about selling VHS tapes still, which I would find bizarre in 2011/12.
Just Passing Through
The Wildcard
Mohawk52 said:
No, they aren't talking about Region Coding...
They're talking about releasing R4 discs authored in NTSC, so they don't have to shell out for the NTSC-PAL conversions...
It's taking the R1 discs, stripping the logos and putting their own on, recoding it to Region 4 and just selling that.
Mohawk52 said:
Being winked at when you are being patronised by someone who is saying something completely wrong is quite frustrating ^^;
I deliberately said a regionless disc to highlight that it was possible to play an NTSC DVD on PAL hardware nowadays without any issues. If you prefer, I could have used a Japanese (R2) DVD as the example, but since you're obsessed with making this about regions you'd have ignored the point either way. JustPa had an even better example, with UK releases which have actually been NTSC discs - I wasn't aware of them.
So you agree PAL hardware can play NTSC discs nowadays. Ok. Good.
I don't know where you grasped the wrong end of the stick, but please look at what everyone here is saying and realise it is your assumption that R4 are considering suddenly start selling R1 discs. Nobody else is saying that, we're talking about PAL/NTSC which is very much an issue for DVDs, not just VHS tapes!
R
Just Passing Through
The Wildcard
Mohawk52 said:
I thought you meant region coding as in Madman were just going to release R1 discs in Australia and hope that everyone had a multiregion player.
And yes, you'll need a multiregion player to spin R4 discs, although a lot of Aussie releases have been coded R2/R4
Mohawk52 said:
The majority of recent TVs will happily accept and display an NTSC signal. Whether via a small bit of conversion (unlikely), or having variable refresh rates like PC monitors have had, even since the days of CRT.
Checking wikipedia to qualify for the HD ready logo (something pretty much every HD set meets) it must be able to display at 60Hz.
Whilst the "standard" display might be different, it doesn't exclude support for other formats.
Just Passing Through
The Wildcard
I've got a 20 year old 4:3 PAL CRT TV from JVC that accepts an NTSC input!
You'll die of old age if you try looking for a TV sold today in the UK that doesn't accept an NTSC source..
You'll die of old age if you try looking for a TV sold today in the UK that doesn't accept an NTSC source..
I'm dying of old age anyway. Accepting is one thing, displaying it without internal conversion circuits, which all flatscreen HD teles have and some older CRTs had, is quite another. That includes Duel Format VHS, and all DVD and Blueray players NOT region blocked.Just Passing Through said:
I tried. I'm out of here. :arrow:
alexrose1uk
Straw Hat Pirate
Mohawk52 said:
Actually you're somewhat wrong there as far as I know. Most TVs sold in this country over the last 5 years, including nearly ALL HDTVs are both NTSC/60Hz and PAL/50Hz compatible.
There are a few exceptions, usually cheaper brands/older TVs, but buy ANY big name TV today, check the manual and you'll find it accepts both; as 60Hz, along with 24Hz are part of the HD Broadcast/Authoring standards, whereas 30Hz isn't which has caused a few issues here and there
Most panels, bar the electrics aren't **** are also able to perform natively, like LCD monitors which support multiple natively supported refresh rates.
Whilst not the best example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_ready
Note the part about HD Ready 1080p screens being REQUIRED to support these display modes natively.
fabio de lunatico
Claymore
Hmm. I have volumes 1-3 of the ADV release and the second Funimation collection, and I can't say I noticed any major difference between the two of those, or that any of it looked outright bad. I don't doubt that you're correct about the Funimation collections, though, as they had a reputation for very poor DVD authoring until about three or four years ago. My TV is probably too small for me to notice a lot of what's wrong with their discs.Just Passing Through said:
Interesting to hear that the Siren/MVM release looks so good. This is why I love native PAL (though I do have sympathy for those who notice the speedup).
Shiroi Hane
Dragon Knight
It you're connecting over HDMI, component or RGB SCART then the only difference between NTSC and PAL at the TV end is the refresh rate so no conversion is required.Mohawk52 said:
ConanThe3rd
Railgun
My thoughts on the whole deal is the less conversions that are needed to get stuff on the shelves the better. It's kinda annoying to deal what are, in effect 3rd or 4th generation copies (JP NSTC Master (normally) -> US NSTC for US Release with Logos -> AUS PAL for Australia Release with Logos -> UK PAL for UK Release with Logos).
It's a lot of money in an economical stage were you need to cut back on as much as you can, so why not ditch something that is, for the most part, a non issue?
It's a lot of money in an economical stage were you need to cut back on as much as you can, so why not ditch something that is, for the most part, a non issue?