hey all,

I was just compiling a list of the movies I have that are still non-anamorphic and I noticed 75% of them are available in Australia in 16:9. Anybody have any idea why that is? Are there a lot of widescreen TV's down there? How come they get the better transfers?

I think it's a conpiracy of PAL-Speedup Enforcers who are just having a laugh at you.
"Haha, digitalfreaknyc! We shall dangle the forbidden fruit over you, knowing that you cannot grasp that which runs 4% faster!"



I think a lot of it is coincidence. Also, some countires caught on to DVDs a good bit after the US and other countries did - as a result, some countries have much nicer editions than countries where it appeared first, mastered with inferior technology. Could be the case in Australia.

A lot of R4 DVDs (Australia) are also encoded R2 (Europe), where there are many more widescreen TVs.

So Australia and New Zealand (R4) get the benefit of 16:9.

Widescreen TVs in Australia are more common than in the US, but I would say they are still in the minority, although that is changing fast with the popularity of DVD and HDTV.

PAL is more suited to anamorphic images unlike NTSC (grain and artefacting looks far better in NTSC).

Those are proven scientific facts.

Which are? That grain and artefacting looks better in NTSC?

Wow...thanks for your input, Mad Scientist.