West Wing DVD's to be released in US

[DarkHoarse]

Thanks very very much, that's WAY more info than I was expecting, all of it useful. Have printed out your post as there's so much to take in. Keep us informed if you get the region 1 DVDs. What with all the added complications and my ancient telly I may wait a while yet.

[slimsneaker]

Hi I have a question about the US versions of the dvds.
Probabal best directed at Mr President.

1. Has anybody ordered and viewed the US season 1 set? Are the extras worth it?

2. Do they have this RCA protection thingy?

Thanks in advance.

[Admin]

I haven't yet got my hands on the season 1 set from America, though in my experience RCA sounds more of a threat in writing than it does in practise. Whether it'll be a problem depends on who made your DVD player and how much effort they made into making it as user friendly as possible.

Whichever way anyone goes about it, I really do recommend having or getting a multi-standard television set so that NTSC can be played back correctly. Unfortunately, whilst a NTSC>PAL switch/option on a DVD player will convert the signal, it will be in effect a down conversion. From 30 frames down to 25 frames per second the results are often crude. The main side effect will be 'judder', where the motion looks dodgy (stutters/skippy/insert own word of choice here). It'd be the same with a world-standard VCR. From everything I've seen, any hardware claiming to convert NTSC to PAL will only convert the colour profile, refresh rate and not really the frame rate to a desirable standard.

AS for the extras, I'll have to wait and see what they're like when my region 1 version makes it to my doorstep somepoint late next week. I don't want to pre-judge, but I have read a comment along the lines of 'the extras are on a double-sided disc of which one side is not used, and carries the information "no material" - rather apt.'


Back to imported discs, though, I find a lot of problems are easily resolved by sticking the DVD into a DVD Rom drive and ripping the material to hard disk, removing security measures along the way. Plus you can then convert properly to PAL, do this, do that...... Though I will admit, it is only easy when you know how.

So, if you want a genuine 'this is what they're like' review rather than this 'buying a bit of time' reply, watch this thread......