A/V Quality of UK discs vs US

[srinivas1015]

I have been buying BDs from the U.S till now and recently opted to buy a couple of discs from the U.K. I don't know if this is simply a placebo effect but I noticed the dialogue in Wall Street from the U.K to be a little muddy and the picture in The Hangover(U.K) to be a little soft.
Is this simply my imagination or has somebody else also faced this problem? Are the codecs/bitrates etc identical or do certain aspects differ from country to country?
Kindly help me out.

[deado]

UK nearly always gets it worse - ie. Tron Legacy UK is 16-bit whereas US is 24-bit audio.

[Simon_LDT]

Depends on the studio. Some studios do different encodes for each territory.

The Hangover should be identical worldwide as it's a Warner title and they use the same encode 99.9% of the time.

[srinivas1015]

Oh ok. Thanks for the replies. I also noticed that there was low voltage in my house when I was playing these movies. Even though the speakers were working, I wonder if the output quality was affected. Also, it was 'wall street money never sleeps'. I also noticed the same with band of brothers.

Since I'm in India shipping from UK is cheaper, but I don't want it to be at the expense of quality.

I have been having this doubt since the discs are authored in a different country. Also, discs are also cheaper in the uk. Have any of you bought the same movie from both countries? Also, I am mostly talking about newly released movies.thanks.

[Kuros]

Originally Posted by srinivas1015

I have been buying BDs from the U.S till now and recently opted to buy a couple of discs from the U.K. I don't know if this is simply a placebo effect but I noticed the dialogue in Wall Street from the U.K to be a little muddy and the picture in The Hangover(U.K) to be a little soft.
Is this simply my imagination or has somebody else also faced this problem? Are the codecs/bitrates etc identical or do certain aspects differ from country to country?
Kindly help me out.

You "noticed that the dialogue in Wall Street from the U.K to be a little muddy and the picture in The Hangover(U.K) to be a little soft", compared to what? Did you buy both of these films twice (i.e. a BD copy of each film from the US, and another BD copy of each film from the UK) and then directly compare them? Or are you comparing the a/v quality of these UK BDs with the a/v quality of the BD versions of other (i.e. completely different) movies?

[The Driver]

No difference. You'd need to try 100s of discs on the exact same setups to come up with accurate results.

And those results would all be the same unless there was a disc deffect. The odd release may have different encodes but again it's down to perception and the snowball effect -enough people say there's a difference then it becomes Internet fact.

People imagine (placebo -as you say) all sorts of nonsense. Evidence and opinion are rarely the same thing.

[srinivas1015]

Originally Posted by Kuros

You "noticed that the dialogue in Wall Street from the U.K to be a little muddy and the picture in The Hangover(U.K) to be a little soft", compared to what? Did you buy both of these films twice (i.e. a BD copy of each film from the US, and another BD copy of each film from the UK) and then directly compare them? Or are you comparing the a/v quality of these UK BDs with the a/v quality of the BD versions of other (i.e. completely different) movies?

No I haven't. That's exactly why I asked if anybody else did. I had a feeling it was simply due to the placebo effect. Thanks for clearing it up. The main reason for my doubt was because I got them at low prices. Now since this is no longer an issue, I can buy double the amount of discs from the UK for the same price! Also, you get steelbooks in the UK thanks for the input guys.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by srinivas1015

No I haven't. That's exactly why I asked if anybody else did. I had a feeling it was simply due to the placebo effect. Thanks for clearing it up. The main reason for my doubt was because I got them at low prices. Now since this is no longer an issue, I can buy double the amount of discs from the UK for the same price! Also, you get steelbooks in the UK thanks for the input guys.

I think DVDBeaver and DVDCompare should be your first stop if you can't find the information here, I'm sure even if there are differences a lot of them are imperceptible especially if they're released by the same studio. A cheap price is no means of regarding the quality of a disc.

[RuLeX]

I do believe there are a fair few discs with differing PQ, a way to maybe check is as Chip says the comparison sites or even see what studio is down as releasing it.

I read Zodiac UK was inferior to Zodiac US yet its the same company, which really pissed me off. And The Punisher UK is supposed to be better than the US release.

Its something I may look into myself as I'd want to be sure my 'faves' are the best release I could have in terms of picture & audio, extras do not really interest me thats probably my saving grace.

[Sky_Captain]

Originally Posted by RuLeX

I read Zodiac UK was inferior to Zodiac US yet its the same company, which really pissed me off.

Paramount US release, Warner UK release.

[tanujdua]

Originally Posted by deado

UK nearly always gets it worse - ie. Tron Legacy UK is 16-bit whereas US is 24-bit audio.

Oh, really? Well that's gonna bug me whenever I inevitably get it then (just knowing that there's a better version of something out there bugs me :/) (I live in the UK as you can imagine )

Edit: Just an update - Decided to buy the Tron: Legacy 3D Super Play set tonight seeing as Tesco Entertainment have a spend £10 and get 15% off!!! Pre-ordered Rango Triple Play too! (all for just under £30!). (I'm sure I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the UK audio and the US one anyway )

[Sky_Captain]

The UK Tron Legacy is also missing the Easter eggs that are on the US disc.

[RuLeX]

Originally Posted by Sky_Captain

Paramount US release, Warner UK release.

Ah, the same cover art lulled me into thinking it was the same release company, nice one for the correction.

[DaveSimonH]

Originally Posted by RuLeX

I do believe there are a fair few discs with differing PQ, a way to maybe check is as Chip says the comparison sites or even see what studio is down as releasing it.

I read Zodiac UK was inferior to Zodiac US yet its the same company, which really pissed me off. And The Punisher UK is supposed to be better than the US release.

Its something I may look into myself as I'd want to be sure my 'faves' are the best release I could have in terms of picture & audio, extras do not really interest me thats probably my saving grace.

Originally Posted by Sky_Captain

Paramount US release, Warner UK release.

DVDBeaver did a comparison of the two, the Warner release which was in Europe and Asia and the Paramount release in North America.
Differences sure, but certainly not night and day. Granted in motion one may look better than the other.

[nitin]

If its the same studio for UK and US, video encodes are the same. Extras and audio may not.

As some have said audio sometimes is only 16bit instead of 24 bit and sometimes you lose some extras or a whole disc of extras (eg Incredibles). But if its the same stuido, video encode is almost always the same.

But quite a few films, eg Zodiac, Flags of Our Fathers, Face/Off, Starship Troopers, have different studios releasing them in US and Uk and its best to check this site or dvdbeaver to get an idea of the differences. but bear in mind that US does not always win out!

[chip75]

Originally Posted by RuLeX

Ah, the same cover art lulled me into thinking it was the same release company, nice one for the correction.

Zodiac is one of the oddities like Watchmen, a film produced by two studios Paramount and Warner Bros. in the US Zodiac starts out with a Paramount logo over here then it's followed by the Warner Bros. our Zodiac is a port of the Japan version and a different encode from the US disc which results in the UK feature been almost half the size of it's US counterpart. Apart from the sound (we only got a DD5.1) the video quality isn't miles apart from the screen grabs I've seen.

[srinivas1015]

From what I have heard so far, it is mostly catalog titles/independent films which differ in quality.I guess newer movies like 'I am number four','unknown',etc won't have any differences, right? Also, why sis it that people keep saying uk versions consume less space on the discs? Shouldn't it be the other way around, with them having more language tracks?

[Kuros]

Originally Posted by nitin

If its the same studio for UK and US, video encodes are the same. ...

Sigh. If only it were that simple.

And the same studio for UK and US don't magically guarantee that the extras will be the same neevuh.

[edgar-pr]

I always try to get the best release of each film, whenever possible. Though the US releases are better the majority of time (higher bitrates for video/audio, more extras) this isn't always the case. Some releases, such as Sin City are the same in US and the UK so theres no reason to spend extra to get the US copy. Sometimes the UK versions are even better, like Watchmen for example (uses AVC codec and high bitrate instead of VC-1 like US). It varies, you simply need to search around before buying. Here are the best sources to compare releases:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/blu-ray-mo...on-thread.html

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1155731


The second link is by far the most comprehensive blu-ray data list i've seen and I always use it to see if the bitrates, extras etc are the same or different. DVDbeaver is also a good one as mentioned before.

[srinivas1015]

Originally Posted by edgar-pr

I always try to get the best release of each film, whenever possible. Though the US releases are better the majority of time (higher bitrates for video/audio, more extras) this isn't always the case. Some releases, such as Sin City are the same in US and the UK so theres no reason to spend extra to get the US copy. Sometimes the UK versions are even better, like Watchmen for example (uses AVC codec and high bitrate instead of VC-1 like US). It varies, you simply need to search around before buying. Here are the best sources to compare releases:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/blu-ray-mo...on-thread.html

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1155731


The second link is by far the most comprehensive blu-ray data list i've seen and I always use it to see if the bitrates, extras etc are the same or different. DVDbeaver is also a good one as mentioned before.

Thanks a lot for the links. This is definitely the most useful page with regards to this. Is the main page updated frequently? Also, does this mean you never pre-order?