Blu-ray, in General

[swo17]

PAL along with NTSC is still one of the main two encodes for non-HD video.

Not in the U.S.

[mfunk9786]

swo, what are you doing in here?! Get out while you still can - save yourself!

[Zot!]

I have to admit I'm with you TMD, unlocked is the only way to fly, but this is only a recent development, so I can understand early BR adopters being irritable about having to upgrade. Also region-free players are kind of a grey-market good, so being able to play PAL for people in the US is far more of a novelty than in Europe, where mutlisystem equipment is old news.

[mfunk9786]

It's not even a matter of being irritable about it, it's just a) not important to everyone who owns a BD player, particularly to those who don't import and b) buying a 2nd (or in some cases, 3rd) BD player just isn't in everyone's budget.

[TMDaines]

PAL along with NTSC is still one of the main two encodes for non-HD video.

Not in the U.S.

And? NTSC hasn't been used in the UK since colour TV was pioneered. It doesn't mean the majority of equipment over here doesn't support NTSC. Manufacturers in the US could quite easily make their equipment handle PAL. They choose not to at times. The player can't then handle one of the most widely used encodes (not sure if encode is the right term). That's a flaw by my book, intended or otherwise.

[swo17]

Per mfunk's recommendation, I am bowing out of this argument.

[mfunk9786]

Shouldn't you be directing all this anger at, uh, let's say Samsung - and not at the hapless folks who just have the player that they have and just wanted some simple information on whether or not a disc would play on it?

[Zot!]

If you visit the US, people don't even know what PAL is. Only industry people or enthusiasts would have any idea.

[mfunk9786]

Zot!, what are you doing? You're practically holding out a raw steak - the beast is going to bite your arm clean off if you're not careful! Don't try to justify anything that he doesn't like to hear!

[TMDaines]

Shouldn't you be directing all this anger at, uh, let's say Samsung - and not at the hapless folks who just have the player that they have and just wanted some simple information on whether or not a disc would play on it?

Go back and read the messages posted before you, as usual, jumped on my back (this is now like the 4th thread where you've attacked me and tried to change the argument into region coding and region-free players or something). All I said was that certain labels are now making a conscious decision to encode extras on Blu-rays in an HD video format to avoid issues with flawed equipment that can't play PAL. That's all: I didn't attack anyone or anyone's equipment. All I said was, if it can't play PAL, it's a flaw.

I don't particular see why you keep following me around and mocking me.

[mfunk9786]

*runs out of thread, looks for swo to make sure he got out safely*

[tojoed]

I don't particular see why you keep following me around and mocking me.

It's because he can't find Foofighters7 anywhere.

[swo17]

:-# (trapped in a mine shaft, deep beneath the earth)

[mfunk9786]

Last time I checked, I was trying to advise someone who asked a question in here, and TMDaines was the one who chimed in with information and attitude about something I wasn't even talking about. And I just saw foofighters7, he was coming out of a screening of I Can Do Bad All By Myself.

[cdnchris]

I'll just shoot myself in the foot before getting in on this, but speaking as a technical person (a software engineer) a "flaw" is something that isn't intentionally done, a byproduct of an error, and most US players purposely don't support PAL playback, so technically it's not a flaw. I have a PS3 for my Blu-ray playback and love it (part of the reason I haven't gone all-region yet) but it doesn't play PAL because its manufacturer decided it shouldn't. It's a friggin' super computer so of course it could if they wanted it to, but for whatever reason they decided not to support PAL. At one point they even made it throw an error if it came across PAL when playing back video. They've fixed it since then so it just skips it. This was all intentionally done.

I have to fight with people everyday as to what is a "bug" and/or a "flaw" in something. And as I tell them "if that's what you wanted it to do it's not a flaw!"

[tojoed]

Now you've heard the voice of reason you should all play nicely, or find yourselves locked away downstairs in a thread entitled "I'm not your Pal".

[TMDaines]

I appreciate that Chris. At the same time though it's not like they couldn't quite easily support PAL and not cause more problems for the user. The player is flawed from the perspective of not being designed to support what one would deem to be a reasonable set of encodes.

Anyway I didn't expect it to kickoff so let's just leave it.

[swo17]

I've broken free of my restraints and clawed my way back up to the surface, but the razorwire around the perimeter of TMDaines' ranch is proving more difficult to bypass than I had counted on. Is no one coming with my rescue helicopter?

[TMDaines]

I've broken free of my restraints and clawed my way back up to the surface, but the razorwire around the perimeter of TMDaines' ranch is proving more difficult to bypass than I had counted on. Is no one coming with my rescue helicopter?

Sadly not. Just play your part and die quietly.

[tojoed]

I've broken free of my restraints and clawed my way back up to the surface, but the razorwire around the perimeter of TMDaines' ranch is proving more difficult to bypass than I had counted on. Is no one coming with my rescue helicopter?

Yep, "Whirleybirds". Remember them?

[mfunk9786]

Not if I can help it! *swoops in, grabs swo, thows grenade as we helicopter away*

BLAMMO

[Brian C]

If you visit the US, people don't even know what PAL is. Only industry people or enthusiasts would have any idea.

I've got news for you - no one here in the US knows what NTSC is, either, unless they're industry people or enthusiasts.

[Noiretirc]

Edit: Y'all lost me 3 pages ago. Hahahaha.....

[nsps]

I'll just shoot myself in the foot before getting in on this, but speaking as a technical person (a software engineer) a "flaw" is something that isn't intentionally done, a byproduct of an error, and most US players purposely don't support PAL playback, so technically it's not a flaw. I have a PS3 for my Blu-ray playback and love it (part of the reason I haven't gone all-region yet) but it doesn't play PAL because its manufacturer decided it shouldn't. It's a friggin' super computer so of course it could if they wanted it to, but for whatever reason they decided not to support PAL. At one point they even made it throw an error if it came across PAL when playing back video. They've fixed it since then so it just skips it. This was all intentionally done.

I have to fight with people everyday as to what is a "bug" and/or a "flaw" in something. And as I tell them "if that's what you wanted it to do it's not a flaw!"

OK, now I'll shoot myself in the foot for getting into an argument I had planned to avoid as well.

Speaking as a linguistic person, a "flaw" is a fault or imperfection, and is not the same thing a bug or a defect. Back when the iPhone didn't have copy-and-paste, people marked it as a flaw. The phone worked exactly as Apple intended it, but many considered it to be flawed due to the missing functionality. If they had said it was defective or had a bug, they would have been wrong.

If lawmakers purposefully include a loophole in a regulatory bill to appease bank lobbyists, it would work as they intended it, but it would be flawed (unless you're the banker). If some guy goes on a forum and quibbles over the definition of words, you might say he has a flawed personality, but that doesn't mean his brain is defective (although it could be…).

So when a company arbitrarily leaves off a feature that takes as much effort to exclude as it does to include, just to make life difficult, and as a potential consumer you value that feature, then you're perfectly in your right to call it a flaw. PAL doesn't equal region-locked, so why do so many manufacturers act like it does?

It may be that "bug" and "flaw" are synonymous in technical/software-engineering lingo, but TMDaines wasn't speaking in those terms, and used the word in its correct context in conversational and written English, so I'm gonna have to give this argument to him. (Whether he complained out of turn or not I can't even remember anymore.) And, as my word is the end-all-be-all, let's say that's the end of it.

[MichaelB]

This won't help since MoC Blu-ray features are upscaled to 1080p I believe to avoid these PAL issues on flawed equipment.

Actually, you're thinking of BFI releases - I think all of their Blu-ray discs to date have been 1080p throughout (and genuine 1080p for the most part: SD material tends to be presented on a separate PAL disc rather than upscaled).

By contrast, MoC's policy so far seems to be to encode SD material in NTSC, though the motive is the same: to maximise compatibility worldwide with players that can't handle PAL.