It's Mr Video versus Universal Studios

[losing]

Okay, if we're resorting to nonsensical car analogies, sitting at the traffic light with the handbrake up is also not going to get us anywhere.

No, its not.

What i mean is if mr video was really trying to change the system, why has he only thought about himself? There are lots of stores out there that would have jumped on the boat and gone along for the ride.

 

[chiskop]

No, its not.

What i mean is if mr video was really trying to change the system, why has he only thought about himself? There are lots of stores out there that would have jumped on the boat and gone along for the ride.

Yeah, but it's not mr video's responsibility to look after these other stores. Mr video's responsibility is to their customers and shareholders (or owners whatever).

 

[losing]

Yeah, but it's not mr video's responsibility to look after these other stores. Mr video's responsibility is to their customers and shareholders (or owners whatever).

MR VIDEO wants change
EVERYONE wants change

lets change the system....

Mr Video is going to go bang and I feel for the stores that are named mr video. Not to be nasty but because of CHANGES made in the correct mannor.

 

[chiskop]

losing, this is going nowhere. If you feel the need, you're welcome to support whichever video store you want.

I will continue to support mr video who seems to have my (the customer's) interests at heart.

 

[Lipgloss]

Mr Video vs Universal Studios

Any news yet on the court case between Mr Video and Universal Studios that was heard on 30 April?

 

[ldmelsa]

The NTSC videos as everyone knows have 30fps to 25fps on PAL

I'm not going to talk about the difference in resolutions, as it is marginal.

The NTSC feature film DVDs (which are the ones we are talking about) are 24p. That means that the actual video on the disc does not use 3:2 pulldown, as it is not a 60i video. This is called a 24p DVD. "p" is for progressive. So the 24p DVD is technically very similar to a 25p DVD (PAL).

So, what do we know so far? That feature film DVDs, 480p24 (NTSC) and 576p25 (PAL), are very similar. What's the problem with 24p DVDs then? Nothing. The "problem" comes when viewing it:

Viewing on a normal DVD player:
The player will add a 3:2 pulldown, as to create a 60i signal that the TV can understand.

Viewing on a progressive DVD player:
The player will not add any pulldown. Your TV will have to be able to accept progressive signals. Guess what! In this case the TV adds the pulldown!

The thing is, you are going to be viewing 24fps over 60Hz. This is more jerky than 25p DVDs because PAL runs at 50Hz (25fps over 50Hz). This is why PAL feature film DVDs appear to have smoother motion than the NTSC version, when played on an ordinary TV.

How do you watch the 24p DVDs without the pulldown? For that you would need a display that can play the 24fps video over 72Hz (24 x 3) or 96Hz (24 x 4). I don't know if any consumer TVs can do this.

One way it can be done, is with one of those new 100/120Hz TVs with *motion compensation. Here the TV will take the 24p signal and use motion compensation to arrive at 120Hz. The resulting video will not be jerky.

Needless to say, TVs like these are expensive and 3:2 pulldown is an NTSC thing that we (PAL region) should not have to worry about. We live in a PAL region and we want to see our feature film DVDs running at 25fps for our 50Hz TVs, thank you very much! If the DVD is not available in PAL, only then get the NTSC DVD. That said, I have had some bad feature film DVDs from Ster Kinekor and Nu Metro . What the hell is their problem!? (and the sound at their cinemas - bring your earmuffs)


*Motion compensation: Motion compensation uses motion estimation algorithms and lost of processing power to create new "in between" frame from existing frames. This is not pulldown or frame blending. These are unique frames. It's amazing to see this technology in a consumer product. It has been used since the mid nineties in standards converters, to convert between the NTSC and PAL systems. But only because of big advances in motion estimation algorithms and processing power are we seeing it in consumer products.

 

[Mephisto_Helix]

No, its not.

What i mean is if mr video was really trying to change the system, why has he only thought about himself? There are lots of stores out there that would have jumped on the boat and gone along for the ride.

Rofl ......

 

[LazyLion]

whats the big deal, video shops will all be dead within 5 years. mark my words.

also, film studios are stupid for not releasing a movie internationally at one time. doing so will halt piracy and force people to go watch the movie at the cinema instead of getting a copy from a friend who downloaded it etc.

the reason why this market is so huge is because people want to see the movie asap, they dont want to wait 2 months for it to be released in SA.

Release movies internationally for 4 weeks, then bring out the dvd's internationally, at reasonable prices. whats so hard about that!?!?

um, it makes sense, that is what is wrong with it.

It is America saying we made the movies, we should get to watch them first.

The whole region zoning thing is stupid and needs to be abandoned.

I would love for a South African court to rule that bypassing the zone on your DVD player is perfectly legal. It is the MPAA's problem, not ours.

Why should some corporate decision in another country affect us and the way we watch legitimately bought movies?

 

[PeterCH]

um, it makes sense, that is what is wrong with it.

It is America saying we made the movies, we should get to watch them first.

The whole region zoning thing is stupid and needs to be abandoned.

I would love for a South African court to rule that bypassing the zone on your DVD player is perfectly legal. It is the MPAA's problem, not ours.

Why should some corporate decision in another country affect us and the way we watch legitimately bought movies?

Bypassing the region coding thing is not illegal. It's illegal in terms of civil law for a company do to this service because of intellectual property issues involved. It is legal for anyone to do this themselves. What the deal here is that the DVDs MrV imports are meant for the US market and there is a seperate company doing resale here, the US studios sign deals with the local
companies which obviously earn the US studios revenue - in exchange the
NM/SK gets to show movies in cinemas and sell the relevant DVDs later on.
If they officially condone parallel importation of movies then the deals they
signed with NM/SK are worthless and they won't be getting revenue that way.

I've been through this myself, a US company called AnimEigo obtained the rights from Toho Animation
for a TV series back in 99. They then released DVDs of the series but would not ship these discs outside
of North America. When I asked the CEO himself, Robert Woodhead why he wouldn't sell me the
items he blamed his licensor which exclusively forbade him from reselling the titles outside of his
region, obviously the licensor wanted money for rights for our region and all the others. Its a similar
story here.

 

[noxibox]

Needless to say, TVs like these are expensive and 3:2 pulldown is an NTSC thing that we (PAL region) should not have to worry about. We live in a PAL region and we want to see our feature film DVDs running at 25fps for our 50Hz TVs, thank you very much!

We don't have to worry about it. Leave it up to the TV. Given the choice I'll take NTSC with some pulldown artifacts over pitch-shifted audio.

That feature film DVDs, 480p24 (NTSC) and 576p25 (PAL), are very similar.

All DVDs should technically contain the original 24p and the production of 30fps or 25fps left up to the player, but that is not how it happened.

 

[ldmelsa]

We don't have to worry about it. Leave it up to the TV.

Like I said, you get TV that can do that but 99% of the TVs in SA are going to show it at 60Hz. This make the PAL version of the DVD a better option.

Given the choice I'll take NTSC with some pulldown artifacts over pitch-shifted audio.

You don't make any sense. You can't hear that with todays audio technology, used to stretch the audio. I'm not going to argue with you about the "macros and micros". All I would like to say to the forum members, is that pitch-shifted audio is not an issue with proper Hollywood DVDs.

All DVDs should technically contain the original 24p and the production of 30fps or 25fps left up to the player, but that is not how it happened.

I'm talking about feature film DVDs.

____________________________________________


I am sick of talking about NTSC in a PAL region.

____________________________________________

 

[noxibox]

but 99% of the TVs in SA are going to show it at 60Hz.

Exactly what you'd want. No messy conversions, just show it at the intended 60Hz.

You can't hear that with todays audio technology, used to stretch the audio.

There is no guarantee that they have bothered to pitch correct the audio. Pitch shifted audio is definitely something to consider for anyone who cares about sound.

I'm talking about feature film DVDs.

All are supposed to contain the 24p stream and allow the DVD player to do the necessary work to output the required frame rate. Never happened. Some are, some are not.

 

[PeterCH]

All are supposed to contain the 24p stream and allow the DVD player to do the necessary work to output the required frame rate. Never happened. Some are, some are not.

Not all DVDs contain 24p. Most TV/direct Video to DVD shows, are either
interlaced PAL or NTSC.

 

[noxibox]

Not all DVDs contain 24p.

It was originally intended that all movie DVDs, i.e. those coming from standard film run at 24 frames per second, would contain the material at that frame rate, in progressive form, and leave the pulldown/speedup to the player. How many movie DVDs are 24p?

Most TV/direct Video to DVD shows, are either interlaced PAL or NTSC.

An entirely different situation.

 

[ginggs]

We live in a PAL region and we want to see our feature film DVDs running at 25fps for our 50Hz TVs, thank you very much! If the DVD is not available in PAL, only then get the NTSC DVD.

I prefer NTSC discs. Most movies are shot at 24fps, so in the conversion to PAL they are sped up to 25fps. I haven't noticed the speed-up visually, but there is a change in pitch in the audio which I have noticed in discs where I know the soundtrack well, like Pink Floyd's The Wall and Tank Girl.

Also, the NTSC discs often only have the English soundtrack and a director's commentary, leaving more space for extras, or for the movie itself to be encoded at a higher bit rate.

Besides all the space taken up in PAL discs by the many soundtracks in different languages, they insist on wasting even more space by putting multiple copies (one for each language) of that retarded advert, "would you steal a handbag? would you steal a car?".

That said, I have had some bad feature film DVDs from Ster Kinekor and Nu Metro . What the hell is their problem!? (and the sound at their cinemas - bring your earmuffs)

Yeah, their discs are awful, I once rented a Nu Metro DVD called K-Pax that was so badly done I tried to report it as being pirated, eventually I realized that was how they had made it! The disc's menu looked like it had been done in Windows Paint, there was only a stereo soundtrack, the movie had been cropped down to 4:3, the Nu Metro logo sequence had been transferred from VHS, and the disc was only single-layered.

 

[ginggs]

How many movie DVDs are 24p?

I'm sure most (if not all?) of my NTSC discs are 24p, they certainly appear that way when I pull them into Xmpeg or Flask. How could I tell for sure?

 

[Keeper]

If it can be shown that Universal get the same amount of money either way, then they should have no leg to stand on.

they don't get the same.

if Mr.video buy a DVD for $20, and make R2000 with that DVD from rentals, than Universal still gets only $20, and not any of the R2000.

The brochure at Mr.Video Stores showing you how to remove the Region Code Chip Settings was rather strange....and a bit dodgy.

Did the Big-Wigs at Mr. Video honestly NOT know what they were doing?? I think Not.

 

[Lipgloss]

Any news yet on the result of the court case of 30 April?

 

[noxibox]

if Mr.video buy a DVD for $20, and make R2000 with that DVD from rentals, than Universal still gets only $20, and not any of the R2000.

When they buy it for R200 from Ster Kinekor Universal don't get any of the R2000 either, so what exactly is your point?

The brochure at Mr.Video Stores showing you how to remove the Region Code Chip Settings was rather strange....and a bit dodgy.

In what way?

Did the Big-Wigs at Mr. Video honestly NOT know what they were doing?? I think Not.

I'm sure they knew exactly what they were doing. I welcome local shops bypassing the official channels.

 

[chiskop]

I'm sure they knew exactly what they were doing. I welcome local shops bypassing the official channels.

Absolutely. Who is looking out for me, the consumer? This is about Universal trying to protect their artificially created monopoly - if they were more concerned about me and what I want, I'd have more sympathy for them.