RE: In many cases you are right, but in many DVD are better than that.

I own nearly 2000 DVDs, from Regions 1-4.

I have compared hundreds of Region 2 and 4 DVDs with their Region 1 counterparts. My reviews are posted on www.michaeldvd.com.au.

Apart from a few exceptions, my experience is that Region 1 NTSC DVDs tend to have superior audio and video quality, compared to Region 2/4 PAL DVDs.

There are a few other sites doing these comparisons. You will find on most of these sites, the reviews concur with my experience. Many include screenshots from the Region 1 and 2/4 discs and you can clearly see the difference (in many cases less macro-blocking, less mosquito noise, less HF filtering, often better colour/contrast for the NTSC transfers).

The reason why Region 1 tend to have better transfers is because of bitrate. NTSC has lower resolution so if both NTSC and PAL are encoded at the same bitrate, NTSC will have less encoding artefacts. Plus, Region 1 DVDs tend to have fewer audio tracks, so the video track is encoded at higher bitrates compared to PAL. A typical PAL DVD tend to have multiple language tracks (English, Frech, German, Hungarian, Polish, ...).

As for the 4% speedup, as I mentioned, this occurs on all transfers that originate from 24fps film. Yeah, there might be a few concerts and documentaries based on 50Hz sources, but these are very much in the minority. If most of your collection consist of these sources, well, good on you. Me, I prefer watching transfers from film.

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Follow Ups Full Thread

Topic - and then there were none - Joe Murphy Jr 22:52:29 02/20/08 (29)

Steve Jobs may bury physical media yet ;-) - 4season 21:28:58 03/22/08 (0)

RE: and then there were none - Duilawyer 12:26:54 02/21/08 (2)

Did You See The Link I Posted? - Robertc88 13:13:03 02/21/08 (1)

sorry nt - Duilawyer 16:04:24 02/21/08 (0)

Aftermath - Robertc88 10:17:02 02/21/08 (0)

What took so long? (nt) - Jack G 06:08:52 02/21/08 (0)

yep, just read that one! The world is blu - Jazz Inmate 22:59:35 02/20/08 (22)

It is a wonderful day for all Blu ray supporters - Ole Lund Christensen 04:15:23 02/21/08 (21)

anyone whose day is made by adoption of a video format needs to get a REAL life. nt - Duilawyer 12:28:05 02/21/08 (1)

losers weepers(nt) - Ole Lund Christensen 05:13:30 02/22/08 (0)

Yes it is - racerguy 07:17:00 02/21/08 (17)

Welcome back :-) - Ole Lund Christensen 10:14:45 02/21/08 (9)

Quick note: PAL DVDs are not necessarily better than NTSC DVDs - Christine Tham 20:53:34 02/22/08 (4)

In many cases you are right, but in many DVD are better than that. - Ole Lund Christensen 13:11:42 02/23/08 (3)

RE: In many cases you are right, but in many DVD are better than that. - Christine Tham 16:30:31 02/23/08 (2)

Your "Boss" have written a very nice guide to PAL and NTSC - Ole Lund Christensen 07:33:52 02/24/08 (1)

Sorry for taking so long to respond - Christine Tham 18:42:05 03/22/08 (0)

Thanks :-) - racerguy 12:15:03 02/21/08 (3)

video versus audio - Ole Lund Christensen 09:43:29 02/22/08 (2)

RE: video versus audio - racerguy 10:43:37 02/22/08 (1)

thank you - Ole Lund Christensen 14:26:10 02/22/08 (0)

I made a few posts about the black level and contrast ratio of the new Pioneer 5010 - Jazz Inmate 09:44:04 02/21/08 (0)

Good post - Jack G 07:22:26 02/21/08 (5)

Thanks - racerguy 08:38:54 02/21/08 (4)

very nice choice - Ole Lund Christensen 10:36:39 02/21/08 (0)

Interesting comments - Jack G 08:50:56 02/21/08 (2)

RE: Interesting comments - racerguy 12:40:15 02/21/08 (1)

RE: Interesting comments - Jack G 14:05:16 02/21/08 (0)

Player & Software Prices Need To Drop - Robertc88 07:02:45 02/21/08 (0)

Follow Ups

RE: In many cases you are right, but in many DVD are better than that. - Christine Tham 16:30:31 02/23/08 (2)

Your "Boss" have written a very nice guide to PAL and NTSC - Ole Lund Christensen 07:33:52 02/24/08 (1)

Sorry for taking so long to respond - Christine Tham 18:42:05 03/22/08 (0)

RE: In many cases you are right, but in many DVD are better than that.

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