Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

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Antarctica
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#176 Post by Antarctica » Thu Feb 11, 2016 12:31 am

I apologize if this should be obvious: is this release only going to be region B? I have a region A player, but maybe I should buy a region-free one.

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MichaelB
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#177 Post by MichaelB » Thu Feb 11, 2016 2:58 am

As a BBC license, I'd be amazed if it wasn't locked to Region B.

But the 50Hz issue is likely to be a bigger problem for you, as these discs won't play in many US setups even if they were region-free.

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Alphonse Tram
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#178 Post by Alphonse Tram » Thu Feb 11, 2016 5:00 am

Manny Karp wrote: Are there other examples of discs already on the market that were produced as this set will be?

The UK BBC Doctor Who Blu-ray releases of the older Who stories would be 1080i 50Hz, I'd imagine.

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Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BBC

#179 Post by MichaelB » Thu Feb 11, 2016 5:02 am

The BFI's The Great White Silence is region-free, mostly playable on any player, but has a couple of Discovery Channel docs in 1080i50. So that might be a good test disc, if only because you'll still be able to watch most of it regardless - including the main feature.

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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#180 Post by peerpee » Thu Feb 11, 2016 5:19 am

Artificial Eye's ANTICHRIST (and Warner France's Blu too) were 1080/50i (Criterion's was slowed down to 24p, and thus has a slightly longer running time). Zentropa have a lot of 25p source material (which presumably was slowed down to 24fps theatrically in Europe and elsewhere when 35mm prints were shown?)

Criterion have been forced to slow a few European 25p films down to 24p (BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ springs to mind, which unfortunately added something like *half an hour* to the 15hr running time).

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Manny Karp
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#181 Post by Manny Karp » Thu Feb 11, 2016 6:18 am

MichaelB wrote:The BFI's The Great White Silence is region-free, mostly playable on any player, but has a couple of Discovery Channel docs in 1080i50. So that might be a good test disc, if only because you'll still be able to watch most of it regardless - including the main feature.
As a matter of fact I've been eyeballing the Great White Silence / The Epic of Everest two-fer of late, so I may go ahead and grab that. Thank you. Might there be anything on BFI's Herzog, Robbe-Grillet or Dreyer sets to test, as I already have those (but have only watched the main films, none of the extras)?

Do I understand correctly that this issue only affects the Blu set, not the two DVD sets?

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MichaelB
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#182 Post by MichaelB » Thu Feb 11, 2016 6:22 am

In general, the BFI has tried to avoid including 50i material on their releases - The Great White Silence was a rare exception. I don't know about Herzog/Dreyer etc. - the problem being that because I can play this stuff regardless, I wouldn't notice unless I was specifically examining the encode.

The Alan Clarke DVDs will of course be PAL, and probably won't play on most US setups for the same reason - but computers with DVD drives should have no problem handling them (provided the region-locking isn't an issue).

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tenia
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#183 Post by tenia » Thu Feb 11, 2016 12:47 pm

peerpee wrote:Criterion have been forced to slow a few European 25p films down to 24p (BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ springs to mind, which unfortunately added something like *half an hour* to the 15hr running time).
They actually wrote an article about this specific difference for Alexanderplatz, which pinpoints quite well the issue of faithfulness this can imply (the fact that this is an extreme exemple shows it even more)

I'm thinking it's actually quite likely Carlotta's DVD of Rivette's Out 1 are encoded in PAL (so 25fps) so that would also imply the same kind of extreme difference (12h40 with a 4% difference would imply about 30 min of difference).

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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#184 Post by GaryC » Thu Feb 11, 2016 3:20 pm

Alphonse Tram wrote:The UK BBC Doctor Who Blu-ray releases of the older Who stories would be 1080i 50Hz, I'd imagine.
There is only one, because Spearhead from Space was the only story entirely shot on film (16mm). It says "1080i" on the back of the Blu-ray case.

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Manny Karp
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#185 Post by Manny Karp » Thu Feb 11, 2016 9:17 pm

Good news, everyone!

I asked 220-electronics, from whom I bought my modded Sony BDP-S1500, if it will play the 50hz material. They responded with a quick and unequivocal YES. I can only presume anyone else who has bought region-free players (at least Sonys?) from them will also be in luck. As for the quality of the image... we will have to wait and see.

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domino harvey
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#186 Post by domino harvey » Thu Feb 11, 2016 9:32 pm

That's not the problem, it's getting your TV to recognize the signal

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Manny Karp
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#187 Post by Manny Karp » Thu Feb 11, 2016 9:58 pm

domino harvey wrote:That's not the problem, it's getting your TV to recognize the signal
David M. wrote:
swo17 wrote:But if your player converts it to 60Hz, there's no longer a compatibility issue with your TV, is there?
Nope, if the player converts to 60hz, your 60hz TV will show a picture. There may be some motion stutter, though.
What am I missing here? Are you saying there's a difference between the player playing 50hz and converting it to 60hz?

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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#188 Post by EddieLarkin » Thu Feb 11, 2016 10:02 pm

Yes, some players will be able to output 50hz presumably because the manufacturer has standardised across all territories, but that doesn't help American viewers whose TVs cannot display 50hz content in the first place (the majority). The player will need to feature a 50hz to 60hz converter to get around this.

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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#189 Post by swo17 » Thu Feb 11, 2016 10:10 pm

I knew there was a reason I bought an Oppo.

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domino harvey
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#190 Post by domino harvey » Thu Feb 11, 2016 10:16 pm

Love of palindromes?

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zedz
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#191 Post by zedz » Thu Feb 11, 2016 10:47 pm

domino harvey wrote:Love of palindromes?
Swo will buy anything that's an anagram of "poop." Fortunately, there aren't too many of those.

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swo17
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#192 Post by swo17 » Thu Feb 11, 2016 11:05 pm

An unfortunate side effect of a linguistics-related run-in that I had once with the po-po.

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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#193 Post by David M. » Thu Feb 11, 2016 11:57 pm

A quick guide for people living in the 60hz countries:

A: Some players for the US market will not play 50hz discs. As per the BDA license, It is an optional feature for players in 60hz countries, but obviously a mandatory one in 50hz land.
B: Some TVs in the US will not show a 50hz signal. Some do (LG, Samsung, more recent Sonys). All TVs in Europe work with all types of signal.

If you have both problems A & B, no Alan Clarke BD for you.
If you have problem A, no Alan Clarke BD for you either.

If you have problem B but NOT problem A, you need some way of converting the 50hz signal to 60hz so the American TV will not artificially lock it out. Some players do that themselves. There's no guarantee of the quality; you'll definitely end up with some slight motion stutter (because 50 does not divide into 60 cleanly). The best way is always to go native (50hz display all through the chain with no conversions).

BTW, there is no reason a modern (Non-CRT) running in the US can't show 50hz. The lockout is purely artificial/financial.

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rapta
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#194 Post by rapta » Fri Feb 12, 2016 12:03 pm

Image

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zedz
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#195 Post by zedz » Fri Feb 12, 2016 4:34 pm

rapta wrote:Image
That David Bowie chap seems to be worming his way in everywhere lately.

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Antarctica
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#196 Post by Antarctica » Sun Feb 21, 2016 10:19 pm

Ad for DVD box set on Bowie's Instagram. Even though he was a chameleon, I might not have recognized him if I didn't know.

https://instagram.com/p/BB9dq8em9xp/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#197 Post by beasled » Tue Feb 23, 2016 9:18 am

base.com have the full set up for a reasonable £99.99.

Link

Also.. hello!

TIVOLI
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#198 Post by TIVOLI » Thu Feb 25, 2016 12:24 am

I was excited to see this price for the Alan Clarke set, but base.com shows 39.99 pounds for shipping charges to the US. What a disappointment.

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Manny Karp
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: The Complete Alan Clarke at the BB

#199 Post by Manny Karp » Mon Mar 07, 2016 10:49 pm

Manny Karp wrote:Good news, everyone!

I asked 220-electronics, from whom I bought my modded Sony BDP-S1500, if it will play the 50hz material. They responded with a quick and unequivocal YES. I can only presume anyone else who has bought region-free players (at least Sonys?) from them will also be in luck. As for the quality of the image... we will have to wait and see.
domino harvey wrote:That's not the problem, it's getting your TV to recognize the signal
MichaelB wrote:The BFI's The Great White Silence is region-free, mostly playable on any player, but has a couple of Discovery Channel docs in 1080i50. So that might be a good test disc, if only because you'll still be able to watch most of it regardless - including the main feature.
I've obtained BFI's The Great White Silence per Michael B's suggestion, and am happy to say that every bit of video on the Blu-ray plays perfectly on my 220-Electronics-modded Sony player, through a Samsung panel. Obviously results might vary depending on machines and displays, but hopefully all of 220's modded players will have similar results, for those of you wondering.

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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#200 Post by chatterjees » Mon Mar 07, 2016 11:08 pm

TIVOLI wrote:I was excited to see this price for the Alan Clarke set, but base.com shows 39.99 pounds for shipping charges to the US. What a disappointment.
You can get it from zavvi. I think that they have the cheapest price for now - $147.99. Their shipping to USA is only $1.40

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