Yellow Hammer

I was about to order this new DVD and I noticed on Poker Industries that it said that it was encoded in PAL. This is the first time I've ever heard of a HK-distributed DVD in PAL format. Can someone please confirm?

dleedlee

list it as NTSC. Maybe Johnny at dddhouse can give you the answer?

And how is the film itself? I'm not familiar with it.

Yellow Hammer

I emailed Johnny and he pulled out the copy and it says on the DVD that it is NTSC. He emailed Winson, who also confirmed that it was NTSC.

However, I know that Michael at Poker is very knowledgeable and accurate and I find it strange that the site would explicitly say that the DVD is PAL. Could there be two different masters of this DVD floating around, one NTSC, one PAL?

This is one of those haunting gritty noir HK movies from the 80's, with powerful performances by Carrie Ng and Season Ma. It deals with two women who are in prison and their violent and triad relationships. The conclusion is rather interesting.

dleedlee

Well, since Poker doesn't identify the distributor on their titles, it's very likely
that they are not carrying the Winson version that dddhouse and dvdshelf have. That's
_my_ assumption anyway. So why take the chance to get it from Poker?

Darn I wish hkmdb was back up.

goldultima

Despite what yellowhammer says, Poker isn't too reliable. I noticed they just added the Mega Star Temption Heart disc and they say it's all region. But muldoon posted a review of this disc a couple of weeks ago and he said it was region coded.

Let's not forget that Michael at Poker was convinced that the Fist of Legend discs a competitor was selling were bootlegs. Not only did he retract his statement but he's selling the same discs now.

Yellow Hammer

well quite frankly I've never bought from Poker and I wouldn't buy this DVD from them either, not when it's selling for $5US in HK. However, Poker does have some decent content on their website and lots of people swear by them so I have to take their word in terms of just browsing for DVD info. In this particular case, since the Asian DVD Guide has no info on this disc, I have to go to these secondary sources.

If Johnny says that it's NTSC, then I feel a lot better. The cover is the same between DDDHouse and Poker and I've never seen a PAL DVD come out of HK, which is the strange part.

Peep

When I'm in doubt, I usually check asiandvdguide.com - they're pretty good about listing multiple versions of the same title and the region-coding for each.

HKFlix

I just checked it out, the Winson DVD is PAL formatted, positively. The case makes no mention of it, but it is PAL.

Yellow Hammer

hmmm....something weird is going on. Sounds like there could be a mastering problem? Here are the emails I've had with Johnny at DDDHouse concerning this:

First Message:

> To: "'hausltd '" <[email protected]>
> Sent: Friday, August 31, 2001 2:22 PM
>
>
> > According to a very reputable source, I heard that the DVD movie The
> First
> > Time Is The Last Time is in PAL format and not NTSC (for North America
> > viewing). Is this true?
> >


Reply:

> Sent: 8/31/01 12:01 AM
> Subject: The First Time is the Last Time
>
> The printing layout has not mentioned Pal or NTSC,
> I opened it and see the disc printing said is NTSC,
> I didn't check it but I have asked Winson, they said
> this is NTSC.
>
> Johnny

2nd message:

To: "'hausltd '" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 8:06 AM
Subject: RE: The First Time is the Last Time

> Hi Johnny,
>
> can you do me a favor and actually play the DVD? I've had two DVD dealers
> in the U.S. now tell me that their Winson DVD is in PAL format even though
> it says NTSC on the DVD. I find it hard to believe that there would be
both
> a NTSC format and a PAL format version of this DVD.
>

2nd reply:

From: hausltd
Sent: 9/5/01 9:08 PM
Subject: Re: The First Time is the Last Time

> I sold all the Winson dvds but never heard this kind of problems,
> for "Replicant" we have sold over 500 copies to overseas,
> only one customer complianted about "Replicant" is region code 3 or
> Pal format, I have talked to Winson, they said they get no such
> compliants up to this moment, I have checked some kind of
> such disc, they were all no scuh problems (I have a Pioneer DVL909
> dvd player, it has selected region code to test the disc", I know that
> both dvdplayer and TV must have NTSC fomart, not either one.

> Keep in touch
> Thanks
> Johnny

HKFlix

I don't know what to say, really. I just put it in my R1 player again, and it doesn't work properly. It is black and white and the vertical hold is screwy, exactly like PAL discs always look on an NTSC player/TV. I can confirm that the disc says NTSC, but I can also confirm that this is not true. I can also confirm that Replicant IS R3 (or at least not R0 or R1).

dleedlee

If you haven't sorted it out by the time I receive my copy, I'll post my findings.
I have both a R1 Pioneer and region free Sampo PAL/NTSC player, so I
should be able to figure what format it's in.

Yellow Hammer

dleedlee, have you gotten your copy yet? I saw another person on the Asian DVD Guide site say that their copy was PAL.

dleedlee

I placed my order on 9/6 with dvdshelf. They usually take a week before sending
a shipping confirmation. Since Shaolin Soccer was also on the order, that would
have delayed the processing. Now, with the delays in air traffic in general (re: the
thread on Overseas Shipping), who knows when it will arrive? At this point, I'm
expecting it will be PAL. I'll let you know here when I finally get it.

dleedlee

Well, here's what I've found, but I don't know what it exactly means:

- No indications on the case
- The disc itself says NTSC
- I put the disc in my Pioneer 525, region 1, no mods player
The picture "scrolls", so I imagine it is a PAL disc
- I put the disc in my Sampo 620. It's currently set up as NTSC through the
remote setup/hack. It looks fine, no scrolling. Via remote hack, I set it to both PAL
and Multiregion settings, it scrolls. I check the manual and it says it does automatic
NTSC/PAL conversion. So I imagine that why it plays okay in NTSC mode, since I
have a NTSC display. The remote PAL and Multiregion settings must be for the
type of display.
- I checked the Pioneer manual and didn't see any reference to automatic NTSC/PAL
conversions so I guess that's why it didn't play properly.

Conclusion: It is a PAL disc, but if your player does the automatic conversions you
can view it on a NTSC display.

Hope this helps.

p.s. The picture looked very soft at a brief glance.

Yellow Hammer

to conclude, the disc is indeed PAL then. It bothers me personally from the standpoint that I can't play it in the living room, but oh well. AsianDVDGuide in the meantime has put up the listing, which it does say PAL. But this is so strange, it's the first time that I've seen an HK DVD coded as PAL.

I have to think it was a mistake on the part of Winson.

HKFlix

There are several HK DVDs that are PAL formatted, here are some:

Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do
Endless Temptation
The First Time Is The Last Time
Ghost Story
The Long Gun

Weird but true... Gotta' read all those specs before purchasing.
-Mhat