i saw this posted at another forum, apparently the r3 version of kill bill will be available on the 28th of february. http://www.dvdfromasia.com has it. it says its a legit release but i thought r3 was ntsc not pal. anyone have more info on this?

the site is from thailand and even though it is r3, thailand uses PAL. just like japan and countries in europe use r2, with japan using NTSC and europe using either PAL or SECAM. as far i can tell, the dvd looks legit, but with shipping and the price of the dvd, you might as well wait the extra few days for the r1 to come out.

It seems like if you order over $50 you get free shipping which is worth it. I'm thinking about going region free so this seems like just a good as time as any. Anyone recommend any other movies outside of Kill Bill to get my order over $50. I was looking at Battle Royale. Just wondering how their version is and I can't tell if it's the original or the director's cut.

I would seriously avoid that version. I know you need something, but that one is piss poor.

You sure about that? I just ordered 2 titles from Thailand and I wouldn't have done so if they were PAL. This site is all PAL...but not all are PAL.

Thailand is MOST DEFINITELY a PAL country (though there might be a few "exceptions")

Ugh!

Then I just wasted $50. *sigh*

what discs did you order.....most every title I looked indicates the format (100% of them PAL). Look here for the Rush Hour 2 specs for example:

Director: Brett Ratner
Running Time: 91 minutes
Studio: New Line
Release Date: 12/2001
N° of disc(s): 1
Format:PAL (US and Canada customers, please check your TV and player before bidding) Rating: - R
Screen: Anamorphic Widescreen - 1:85.1
Region: 3 or Multizone DVD player
Subtitles: (removable) English - Thai
: English 5.1 - Thai 5.1


They even have a flag-warning for US/Canada buyers!! Perhaps you could cancel your order!!

Nope. There's been a whole thread going on and my discs shipped today. The site doesn't list ANYTHING about it being PAL. In fact, neither site that I looked at mentioned it. I guess I made an assumption and I was wrong. *****.

This is from the Kill Bill listing on the DVDfromAsia site, and it most definitely states that the format is PAL:

Features:
Starring: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Sonny Chiba, Vivica A. Fox, Daryl Hannah, Samuel L. Jackson, Julie Dreyfus, Chiaki Kuriyama, Christopher Nelson, Jun Kunimura, Kazuki Kitamura, Akaji Maro, Larry Bishop, Michael Parks, Gordon Liu
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Running Time: 110 minutes
Studio: Miramax
Release Date: 02/2004
N° of disc(s): 1
Format:PAL (US and Canada customers, please check your TV and player before bidding)

See this thread for what I'm talking about:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=344651

So, I guess Thailand DVDs don't follow Hong Kong's example, where the broadcast television and VHS standards are PAL, but DVDs are almost exclusively NTSC (laserdiscs too, VCDs either/or) ? Confusing, ain't it?

Most Hollywood titles are NTSC in Thailand whereas local productions are predominantly PAL.

Thank you, Furious. I was just emailed back confirmation of what you said. Luckily the others were wrong.

Now I just have to make sure that the discs are 16:9. *sigh*

Sorry to hijack...

Now, if only the US would follow in the steps of the rest of the world and sell multi-system Televisions and DVD players that can cope with PAL and NTSC as the rule rather than the exception - then you wouldn't have this problem

I ordered and received "36th Chamber of Shaolin" region 3 and it is in NTSC format
...love my newly modded Cinevision DVD Player

Yes I would

PAL will always have a speed-up. Therefore, I will never buy it.

I could counter that with "but NTSC will always have inferior picture quality"... but I don't think I would want to get that petty

NOT to get into this...but to me...

4% speed up= the difference between widescreen and pan/scan

NTSC/PAL PQ=difference between DD and DTS. Better yes...but it's just an improvement on something good that's already out there.

The proper pitch and widescreen will ALWAYS be the way it was meant to be seen.

I too don't want this to degenerate into that old well worn argument... however, speaking from the experience of one whose collection comprises both NTSC and PAL DVDs (and in some cases PAL and NTSC versions of the same film), I can speak with authority when I say that I never ever notice the supposed pitch shift resulting from PAL speedup, but in many cases I do notice the inferior image quality of NTSC. And in my defence, having been a musician for many many years (vocalist and guitarist), I would have thought that my ears were reasonably well attuned to pitch.

I really think that the pitch thing is a very individual problem whereas the NTSC/PAL thing is far more universally noticeable (so I would probably reverse your analogies to say that speed-up would equate to the DD vs DTS thing).

ok we agree to disagree!

I have lots of PAL DVDs and have never noticed speed up.

I haven't noticed the speed up or pitch problems, but I do notice some nasty motion blur with PAL material that I don't see with NTSC. So now I avoid PAL altogether. It looks great with shots that don't feature a lot of motion, but its aggrevating when it does. Oh well, I know this is not the case with a good majority of displays out there, but it is with mine. Que sera sera!!

It'll never happen. The lack of PAL compatibility in the US is a deliberate move to limit the importation of foreign electronics and software.