My understanding is that NTSC compatibility is almost a non-issue over there whereas PAL compatibility is a fairly major hurdle over here.
Our DVD players have been dual format since the beginning, so it has never been any problems with playing NTSC over here. And our TV:s have been NTSC capable since the early 90:s.
I find it most baffling that your restricted to one format equipment, it's strange, I mean it's the same companies who are releasing the dual format equipment in Europe who are then restricting the US market.
Yep, that's why with HD everything can switch between 60 Hz and 50 Hz readily and so it's not really an issue anymore. But you have more people traveling now and just expect things "to work." And with manufacturing off shore now and the cost of doing special runs on the line plus packaging, documentation, other logistics, it's cheaper in the long run just to make it one size fits all today. But TV technology had been developing 70 years nearly independent of one another. So one method took hold one place, another method took hold some place else. It wasn't until the 90's with globalization taking hold, and the US being such a large market, that a lot of manufactures just designed for NTSC first then threw in a few extra chips to be able to sell it in markets with PAL. And there was MUCH more local manufacturing in the US prior to this time. Not much point in spending the extra cash on the chips to make US players PAL convertible. You could probably count on one hand the number of Joe Sixpacks who need PAL supported. Once physical media gets dropped it won't be a thing at all anymore.
Review of the US Donnie Darko set: http://www.mondo-digital.com/donnie.html No surprise of course, since it's basically identical to the UK set.
Well there you go. I wasn't aware of that. I always assumed PAL was to the European market what NTSC is to the North American. Kinda makes you wonder why PAL lasted as long as it did. I know it supposedly is capable of better resolution, but the speedup issues are a real deal breaker for me. I would have thought that as soon as they were able to make the switch, European DVD producers would have done so.
Darn. I was looking for an excuse to upgrade and I think this right here might be it: "[the transfer] handl[es] the film's tricky blue-heavy aesthetic far more adroitly than past video transfers and finally getting those black levels back down to the deep, inky levels where they belong. Detail is increased considerably as well, with the beautiful outdoor shots in particular now really sparkling like never before." I know. That reaction confused me as well.
Indeed they are. Available in widescreen for the first time ever and if they do a good as job as they did at resurrecting Blood Rage and The Mutilator we should be in for a treat. Bill from Code Red was going mad because a friend sold the rights to Arrow cheap and he said he could have got three times the amount had them sold them to Scream. Arrow will be debuting there restoration of The Slayer alongside there 4K restoration of The Bird with The Crystal Plumage at Texas Frightmare. http://www.texasfrightmareweekend.com/production/arrow-video-presents-slayer/
10K Bullets reviews House: Two Stories: http://10kbullets.com/reviews/h/hou...econd-story-arrow-video-usa-bluray-dvd-combo/
July announcements next week!!! http://arrowvideodeck.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/arrow-video-and-arrow-academy-future.html
For $50.00! Sure, the price will drop some, but the Amazon UK price may drop as well. Further proof that more often than not, it's cheaper to buy the Arrow UK releases (at least if you're comparing Amazon US to Amazon UK).
Whenever I come across these replies reacting to announcements, I always peel back the previous few pages and check to see if there's an "official" statement from zblinks(?) or Satans-sadists. Of course, with Arrow, you never really know if it's going to be a U.S. or Non-U.S. set just because people are reacting on the next page. All told, I still can't believe the company is releasing Donnie Darko or that they beat Shout! Factory to the releases of Society and Slugs, etc. In the old days, Anchor Bay was our one-stop-shop for all these cult titles. (Though I guess Blue Underground helped them with the rights before they became their own company.) But, in Europe- nothing surprises me. Who else is going to release Phenomena, for example? In the U.S., we have so much competition that Blue Underground has Argento's - what - Bird, Cat, and Stendhal, Code Red / Scorpion is getting Opera, and Synapse is getting Tenebre, Suspiria, and Phenomena. Quite the clusterfuck. In Europe, they seem to keep cult international releases a lot neater and tidier.
I usually do the same but it got lost -to me- due to the NTSC and PAL discussion. It also didn't help no one is discussing it except the brief comment from fceurich39. Not really an issue.
Screenshot comparisons between Arrow's 2011 Phenomena release & 2017 release: http://www.landofwhimsy.com/archives/2017/04/blucaps-phenomena-comparison/
