'Crash' (Haggis) - comments on the UK BD please?

[Bruce Morrison]

I have the US Blu-ray edition of 'Crash' (released by Lions Gate), but I'm wondering whether to order the UK edition on Fox-Pathé. It has the director commentary and the featurettes that were included on the DVD, whereas the US edition is barebones. The US edition also doesn't have lossless audio.

But - I've seen a photo of the back of the UK edition and it is described as 1080i rather than 1080p. Can anyone confirm whether this is really the case (as opposed to a printing error)? If it is 1080i, is it also encoded at 50Hz (so that it runs at the wrong speed)?

Your general impressions of the technical quality would also be welcome.

Any information would be much appreciated.

[nitin]

looking for comments on this version too please.

[steve_dave]

1080/50hz with extras in 576i/p.

DVD Active Review

[Bruce Morrison]

Originally Posted by steve_dave

1080/50hz with extras in 576i/p.

DVD Active Review

Thanks - so it's running at the wrong speed like a PAL DVD - is that correct?

[steve_dave]

Yes and no.

1080/60hz is at the wrong speed since its 30f per second.

1080/50hz is at a slightly wrong speed at 25f per second.

1080p is at the correct frame rate for film at 24f so the 1080/50hz is closer to the original than 1080/60hz. 1080/60hz can also have display anamolies due to the way 1080/60hz is displayed.

With HD material, the only thing to worry about is if the soundtrack was sourced from a PAL master then you have an issue. Otherwise, it does not truly affect the running time or sound quality on HD material.

[Bruce Morrison]

Originally Posted by steve_dave

Yes and no.

1080/60hz is at the wrong speed since its 30f per second.

1080/50hz is at a slightly wrong speed at 25f per second.

1080p is at the correct frame rate for film at 24f so the 1080/50hz is closer to the original than 1080/60hz. 1080/60hz can also have display anamolies due to the way 1080/60hz is displayed.

With HD material, the only thing to worry about is if the soundtrack was sourced from a PAL master then you have an issue. Otherwise, it does not truly affect the running time or sound quality on HD material.

You seem to be contradicting yourself. First you say the 1080/50Hz is at a slightly wrong speed, then you say that, for HD material, it doesn't truly affect the running time.

A film presented in 1080i/50Hz is running 4% faster than it should. I would say that is quite significant, just as it always has been for PAL DVDs.

If a film is presented on Blu-ray in 1080i/60Hz, the running speed would actually be the correct 24fps, because of the use of 3:2 pulldown to correct it. That's what has always happened on NTSC DVDs, so presumably the same would happen on any BDs that are encoded that way. A playback speed of 30fps would be out of the question, as it would be like watching a Keystone Cops movie!

Of course, as you mentioned, the use of 3:2 pulldown does introduce playback anomalies due to the duplicated frames, but many people don't notice this in practice.

[steve_dave]

1080/60hz has 3:2 pulldown to correct for the 30f NTSC speed-up.

1080/50hz has 2:2 pulldown to correct for the 25f PAL speed-up.

So the running time is unaffected on HD media and actual speed is unaffected.

[Bruce Morrison]

Originally Posted by steve_dave

1080/60hz has 3:2 pulldown to correct for the 30f NTSC speed-up.

1080/50hz has 2:2 pulldown to correct for the 25f PAL speed-up.

So the running time is unaffected on HD media and actual speed is unaffected.

It's simply not true that playback speed is unaffected on HD media. I've (briefly) owned one Blu-ray disc based on a 1080i/50 master, and the playback speed was definitely 4% faster than it should have been. That was Optimum's UK release of 'The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada'. I've also seen reports that two Australian BD releases on the Icon label have the same issue - those are 'Pulp Fiction' and 'The Piano'. I'm sure there are several other examples out there as well, and it sounds as if the UK 'Crash' release is in the same category. They probably arise as a result of companies using HD masters created specifically for TV broadcast in PAL territories.

[steve_dave]

Okay. Well, the best choice at this point would be to avoid the UK release entirely since the extras are PAL format anyway and would suffer from PAL speed up.

Then again, if speed-up were an issue then 1080/60hz discs would have the same problem but 3:2 pulldown fixes that just like 2:2 pulldown fixes it on 1080/50hz.

Something to also consider that I mentioned earlier is that it could also just be that Icon and Optimum used the same PAL audio masters to create the lossless audio tracks for the titles you listed which has the sped up audio. Optimum was notorious for doing this with their HD DVD releases.