i posted awhile ago asking about the best place to buy the DVDs ... i found my website after all.
http://www.dvdpricecheck.co.uk/index.php
it was under my bookmark folder called "Futurama." d'ohhh!
three places sell the DVDs for GBP29.99 (and ships free in the UK and/or Europe):
playserver.com dvd.co.uk bensonsdirect.co.uk
all you need is an overseas friend willing to ship it cheaply to the US ...
thanks for all the responses --
... prankmonkey
On Sat, 07 Dec 2002 16:36:38 GMT, "PrankMonkey" wrote:
And a multiregion DVD player and TV capable of dealing with PAL.
-Jouni
Which is any recent TV.
On Sat, 07 Dec 2002 18:59:23 +0200, Jouni Paakkinen wrote:
Many DVD players will play them on an NTSC TV just fine. As long as you can bypass the region code.
Look at www.vcdhelp.com for details on what models support this and who to hack region codes.
--Larry
On a TV that doesn't adjust to PAL, you'll miss the bottom 20% (or top and bottom 10%) of the screen. Watchable, but annoying. Or are you saying that some DVD players do PAL->NTSC on the fly?
Matthew Miller came to alt.tv.futurama with a simple dream, a dream of killing all humans:
I'd imagine there are many NTSC TV sets which could not sync to the 50Hz PAL signal and just show a rolling picture, and if your DVD player is hooked up by composite you'd also get a black and white picture since the set wouldn't be able to find the chrominance signal because it's on a different frequency.
There are a few DVD players on the market which will do rudimentary PAL to NTSC conversion (the Xbox apparently does this!). I'd be interested to know what the quality is like. My brother has an older Samsung DVD player that does rudimentary NTSC to PAL conversion and the picture is very choppy....
That's probably true. I've definitely seen the missing 20% thing, though.
"Matthew Miller" wrote in message news:[email]...
TVs in the US will just throw fits trying to play a PAL picture, resulting in a B&W rolling image. There are several DVD players that will convert PAL to NTSC, keeping the proper aspect ratio and everything. The most popular is the Malata 520, although some cheaper players like the Cyberhome CH-DVD 500 will do it as well.
-Jay
Interesting. I always assumed our TV was doing the work here; perhaps it's been our DVD player all along. I'll have to go look some things up. :)
On 8 Dec 2002 02:27:22 GMT, [email] (Matthew Miller) wrote:
It's more effective to do the format conversion when the signal is digital. By the time the signal is sent to the TV, it's already analog.
--Larry
:
Hmmm I'm not so sure about that ... a few years ago I hooked my PAL camcorder up to this ancient NTSC TV, while visiting the states ... the image was indeed black and white, and bottom 20% was indeed missing but, with a little twatting about with vertical hold, the picture was static.
"Blues Punk" wrote...
resulting
Yes, playing with the verticle hold could create a non-rolling image. I bet when you flipped back to NTSC it rolled like hell again though. I'm not even sure if newer TVs even let you mess with the verticle hold.
Besides the rolling image, it's in B&W because PAL uses a different method to carry the color signal, so an NTSC TV can't decode it. And 20% of the image is missing because PAL has a higher resolution than NTSC. Even without the rolling, it's still not the best way to watch Futurama.
The two answers are to either get a multi-system TV, or to buy a DVD player that can convert the signal. Seeing that in the states, multi-system TVs are non-existant on the consumer level, most people go with option 2.
-Jay
That's because they have electronics to do it for you.
On 7 Dec 2002 20:02:36 GMT, [email] (Matthew Miller) wrote:
The whole standard is different. Frame rates, sync signals are messed up. I Once got a PAL VHS tape. The play back jumped all over the screen, rolled and what you could see was B&W.
There are several on the market that do. There was a thread here a while ago with a list of player that play the UK disk just fine.
It is cheaper to make one model that will play either format and handle either voltage, then just set the region code and output format for the destination.
I did a search on google and found the old thread. This URL should get you there: http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=pal&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_ugroup=alt.tv.futurama&as_usubject=dvd&lr=&hl=en
--Larry
Yeah, I understand that.
My friend definitely has a setup -- not sure it's the DVD player or TV -- where PAL VCDs show only the middle 80%. And *my* setup plays them just fine. And PAL versions of the exact same stuff looks distinctly better (sharper) than NTSC versions -- this seems odd if the DVD player is converting to NTSC: I'd expect the conversion to look worse.
On 8 Dec 2002 15:50:13 GMT, [email] (Matthew Miller) wrote:
Since DVD has so much more data than VCD it would be able to make the conversion much better.
While the video is in digital form, the only difference between PAL and NTSC is number of lines and the frames per second. Both can be converted by mathematical interpolation before the D toA conversion. Then when the color signal is created it is done in NTSC directly.
If the conversion is done on in the TV, either the signal has to be sampled back to digital (not likely) or the color data has to be converted then the missing frames must be created and the resolution converted, all in analog and in real time. Either method will involve more signal loss than a digital conversion.
I think the difference in quality that you see is due to the difference between DVD and VCD or your DVD player does a better job on the conversion.
--Larry
What? There's less data per frame (more frames, though) in NTSC. I'm not comparing a DVD to VCD -- I'm comparing NTSC VCDs to PALs one. Both file sizes approximately the same. Both downsampled from a higher-quality source, presumably. The PAL VCDs consistantly look much better. Sharper. I should count the scan lines shown on the TV; that'd resolve it. But on the other hand, it'd be ridiculously tedious, so I probably won't.
Oh, I don't think the TV is doing conversion -- you're right, that would be worse. I think it's just *showing* it. I could be wrong, but I'm perplexed by the better image from PAL source.
On 8 Dec 2002 17:57:08 GMT, [email] (Matthew Miller) wrote:
The individual frames in PAL are a bit denser. The problem in conversion is artifacts created during interpolation. How much that is a factor may depend on the type of source material.
The only PAL sourced material that I've viewed has been on computer, where it can be displayed unconverted, or pre-converted VHS tapes.
If you are having a serious problem with too much free time <g> you could rip a segment from a DVD and convert it to PAL and NTSC VCD format, burn them to one disk, then do a side by side comparison.
To be truly scientific, whoever is judging the final quality should not know which clip is in which format.
Beyond that, there are many factors, other than PAL vs NTSC that could be effecting the final quality. I can only guess what may be causing the quality difference you are seeing.
--Larry
This is essentially what I'm doing, except I didn't actually do the ripping myself. It's possible that the PAL ones just happen to be from a better source, but they're better than even really clean NTSC VCD stuff. SVCD NTSC is better than both, of course.
Well, the difference is enough that there's not really a question. But in fact, I *did* ask a couple of people to compare in a sort of blind test, and the results were unanimously: "why did you even need to ask us? that one is obviously better".
Yes. My Daewoo 5800 does it. Cost me $90. You DO get a slight "jumpy" feeling sometimes due to this though (I think it's due to this). On season 2, I've noticed when there's animation w/ a lot of speed in it, it gets a little choppy. On season 1, every 30 seconds or so there'd be a very slight "trails" type of thing going on. On my Family Guy DVDs, when they show the house (still motion), you see movement a little on the lines of the house (not waviness, but just some type of sparkle effect).
BUT all of this is not really annoying. You really don't really notice it too much at all (either that or you get used to it and tune it out).
so, if you are using a DVD player that is region free, will Region 2 DVDs play correctly on an NTSC television? or does one still need something to correct it?
clueless, having never tried an R-2 DVD,
PrankMonkey
wrote in message news:IcQI9.1686$[email]...
season
slight
the
"PrankMonkey" wrote in message news:hiyJ9.108831$pN3.8200@sccrnsc03...
You'll need a region free DVD player that can convert PAL to NTSC if you want to play a UK R2 disc. Currently the Cyberhome CH-500 is a hot item, available at www.bestbuy.com . The Apex 1200 will do it as well. Both of these or cheap players that will get the job done. If you want a higher-end player with more bells and whistles, the Malata 520 is highly recommended. Check out this site for more info on the various 'hackable' players
http://www.nerd-out.com/forums
-Jay
"PrankMonkey" wrote in message news:qspI9.273578$1O2.17853@sccrnsc04...
found
...
Bensonsworld will ship the DVDs to the US for GBP32.00 each. http://www.mrbensons.co.uk/
It's the international site for Bensonsdirect (which is UK only). I've order from them before and was very happy with their service.
-Jay