The disc was widely available until Miramax bought the rights. After that, Beuna Vista stamped down on the import disc, asking retailers to stop selling it. Several online sites reported that they had been threatened with lawsuits.

They did launch a major legal campaign, which worked to eliminate most parallel importing of that and other titles. An ad campaign just would've brought the idea of importing to more people's attention.

The Bus is right, all the major studios do not like importing. They all use current DVD region-coding, regardless of whether or not it makes sense for a particular title. Several even tried other region-coding methods like RCE. In addition deterrents like forced subtitles or lack of English subtitles have been demanded by US studios on other-region DVDs. The degree of "protection" varies by studio, and sometimes by film, but it's clear that US studios would rather you buy films from them, and they're not afraid to manipulate affairs so this will more likely occur.

That is certainly the impression Amir is attempting to convey. As far as I can remember the DVD forum launched their working group on this about 2 months ago, so it could be at any stage of development. It is not a technical challenge, however.

Implementing any software change to production electronics can be a technical challenge and wont be done overnight. Ask Sony or Samsung. ;)

In this case, all media would have to implement a region code AND the players would have to have it added to the firmware/software. According to Amir, the Toshiba does not have it and the media does not either.

If this happens, ill stick with my 6 months to year prediction. And I think im being conservative.

Personally, I think studios are more concerned about copy protection and thats why BD has appealed to them.

HD DVD Imports
 

Can someone point into the direction of where I can buy some imports HDs?
Thanks in advance

sendit.com
xploitedcinema.com
amazon.co.uk
amazon.fr

Will imported HD-DVD's work on my xbox 360 add on player?

HD-DVD's should be region free, so they should play on your 360 add on

I imported La Haine from the UK and it works perfectly on my XBox 360.

They should.

Also (iirc), there is no such thing as PAL and NTSC in HD anymore, so everyone's happy. Especially because there's no more PAL speedup. :banana:

here's a website about hd dvds outside the US
www.area-hd.de

Has Anyone seen the The Holiday UK up for sale yet?

It's available from Amazon.uk, Sendit, HMV, and pretty much all the UK online sites that sell DVDs.

Wow I had no idea! i didn't know HD DVD imports were region free, shit I need to get some movies to play on my HDA2 woot!

If a title is released elsewhere, and released in the US, what are the odds they're the same? Amazon.co.uk has the MI 1-3 boxset for 42.43 shipped, compared to Amazon.com's 69.95.
it does say
"# Format: Box set, PAL
# Language English
# Region: Region 2 "
Is that just default boilerplate?

Whoops, never mind, it's actually 62 dollars, if the Amazonuk's price is in pounds not euros. *cancels order*

Wow, I didn't know that. Makes me even more excited to pick up The Prestige and Le Pacte De Loups in a couple months.

There may be no PAL with HD DVD but according to several members at AVS, some of the European HD DVDs do have the same voice pitch problem.

Really? Hm I didn't know that. Is the problem occur because of poor authoring or is there something else in the process that caused that? If there's a voice pitch problem like the ones on PAL speedup, are the film duration in correct order?

I don't know about HD DVD, but I know that one of the possible HDTV standards is 1080p25. This site mentions that it's supported by the EBU and ETSI:

http://www.paradiso-design.net/video...ds_en.html#dvb

A lot of shows or movies specifically made for PAL TV would've been shot on film at 25fps, much like how US shows like Friends are shot on film at 30fps. So putting 25fps in the spec allows these shows to be remastered at a higher resolution while played back at the correct speed.

I can't find any source that mentions whether HD DVD supports 25p framerate, although it'd make sense if it did.

I don't know why any material not shot in 25fps would be mastered and stored as 25fps on HD DVD though. Maybe force of habit, maybe confusion about the new format, maybe lack of a proper source.

I agree. Running time would be a good thing to check.

Before everyone freaks out, the pitch problem only occurs on a couple of the first wave Studio Canal releases. I really didn't notice the problem with Basic Instinct and Total Recall but First Blood sounds pretty bad. Just think Rambo on helium.

The pitch problem is present on almost all of the existing Studio Canal titles, including Basic Instinct and Total Recall. It is not a problem on European discs from other studios (Warner, Universal, etc.).

This is stictly a Studio Canal screw-up, and may have even been done intentionally if they believed that their PAL-viewing audience expected the higher pitch (pure speculation on my part).

That is just a huge load of crap if it's true. I hope they rectified this in the future. In the meantime... :banana: for The Prestige on HD-DVD. Not that I own any HD format, but still... :banana:

Is there any extra fee for currency exchange/difference? I planned on using a credit card.

Just to be clear, The Prestige is being released by Warner in the UK, so it shouldn't have any pitch issues.

Does "La Haine" have this problem? I am thinking about ordering the UK version soon.

I really hope this problem doesn't show up with their future release of La Pacte De Loups.