would the UK PAL Bablyon 5 dvds be any better quality than US NTSC?

[scrumptious]

I'm also looking at upgrading some other NTSC dvds to PAL. Is there a good place to go to see if the dvd is really PAL? Apparently some of the amazon UK listings are actually NTSC even though it says PAL, sometimes even on the box.

I can't believe amazon UK has the complete babylon 5 set (including the spinoffs and the Lost Tales) for like just 50 or so pounds.

[HotRats]

From DVDcompare.net

General Note:
Because the Babylon 5 visual-effects shots were archived as 4:3 NTSC and the purely live-action shots were archived as High-Definition, there is a noticeable drop in quality whenever a shot containing CGI occurs (since the 4:3 NTSC image had to be blown up to fill and cropped to fill the 1.78:1 DVD). This drop in quality is much worse on PAL DVDs (were the shots had to be then transformed to PAL).

Also,

In PAL, because of the considerable drop in quality on CGI shots, all of the shots including visual-effects in the episode "Sky Full of Stars" (about a quarter of the episode) are stretched sideways to fill the 1.78:1 format without too much loss in quality. There are also one or two shots in later seasons which use this effect to achieve the 1.78:1 without losing important parts of the image. "Sky Full of Stars" is all properly framed on the R1.

[koontz1973]

I can't believe amazon UK has the complete babylon 5 set (including the spinoffs and the Lost Tales) for like just 50 or so pounds.


It is and it is Pal. Got the box set for more money a while ago. Fantastic set.