Originally posted by: ThunderPeel2001
For starters: If the PAL DVD looks "softer", how can it also look "marginally better"? You qualify this statement with ignorance: Confusing the issue of "up-scaling" an interlaced SD source to a progressive HD output. This is NOT the same as "up-scaling" a DVD's image from 720x480 to 720x576, which is nothing more than "stretching" (not literally) the image to fill the extra lines of resolution and doesn't really offer any increase in quality. I disagree. Although you cannot add detail where there is no detail, it will look better because it uses more lines of resolution. That's all I was saying.

FYI: A few years ago, most progressive-scan players you could buy in R4 (PAL territory) played only NTSC in progressive scan! This included all Panasonic Progressive Scan Players at the time.

PS: it was up-scaled from 712x274 --> 720x376 (roughly). Why not see if you can see a difference in your computer monitor right now between 640x480 and 640x400?

By only altering every 12th frame, you can get 24 into 60 perfectly and not have to bother hear the PAL pitch problem at all! You've said that twice now. I don't think it's used as much as you do... and both times you said "24 into 60", I think you mean "24 into 50".

(One example, if you own an LCD TV with 960x540 native resolution). Yes, you'd be correct about LCD/Plasma TV's... however I would think that having an NTSC one would be even worse when trying to play PAL!

Actually, after trying out six TVs bought in the UK within the past 5 years, only one will handle pure NTSC (i.e. NTSC 3.58). The others will only give a colour picture with NTSC 4.43 or PAL-60. I think it's almost a legal obligation here to handle NTSC as standard... it may not be in the UK or Australia... but PAL-60 is still acceptable as almost all DVD Players will output that (the one's that don't are the ones that do a Player-upscale to PAL resolution when you select the PAL mode, instead of doing PAL-60).

Originally posted by: THX
1) not all UK (Region 2) based display devices support "NTSC";

All NZ TV's do.
Originally posted by: THX
2) not all UK (Region 2) based playback devices support "NTSC";

All NZ VCR & DVD players do.*
Originally posted by: THX
3) even where both do, they can be rendered effectively incompatible in some circumstances;

All NZ equipment plays NTSC just fine (and I'll remind you that you can find MANY NTSC DVD's imported from the US for sale here).
Originally posted by: THX
3) not all UK (Region 2) based playback devices support region 1 playback (i.e. are region-free/multi-region).

All NZ players are, by law.

* And here's the best evidence I can find for this:
http://www.ezydvd.com.au/extra/terminology.zmlPlease note: All DVD players sold in PAL countries (Australia) play both NTSC & PAL discs, but your TV monitor must be NTSC compatible in order to view in full colour. Please refer to your user manual or manufacturer to determine compatibility.

Oh and to Darth Editous, I cannot stand using abbreviations without apostrophes, and it's perfectly acceptable to use them when making plural abbreviations (in fact, it's better grammar then not IMHO). Here's a link I found on Google that proves my point:

http://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/lapost.htm

Personally, I think you should be flaming people who write "your" in place of "you're".