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Originally posted by Ian:
Actually with 3 Ian's in the front row of the 4pm meet, I found it rather amusing that there was at least one other Ian for the 7pm showing. Alas, I think I was sitting next to you laugh but at the time didn't put 2 & 2 together.
You're joking! The Ian to my right (an Iain incidentally) was a friend of mine. If you were a seat apart from a chap in a grey sweater with glasses and a long navy coat it was indeed me.


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Framerates? 24fps in the US and 25fps in the Europe?
Ian is spot on. 24p in Europe. The studios, even the European distributors like Studio Canal have - thankfully - sided with retaining 24p encodes for film-based content in European territories. Since 60hz HD support is mandatory in all European ‘HD Ready` sets, there`s no problem sticking with 24p and letting the players do 3:2 pulldown for 60hz output like in the US. Ok, so this adds some judder, but as someone who works with film off and on (and as someone who enjoys film scores), speedup is a conversion element I find to be of great frustration.

In addition, the HD DVD players on sale cannot handle 25p/50hz HD content. The second gen players will get an update for this in March, though out of the box standard definition 25p/50hz content is no problem. I do believe we have Microsoft to thank for pushing that distributors retain 24p for 24fps sourced content.

You`ll find most HD DVDs on sale here literally are the US discs, right down to the FBI logos and MPAA ratings. So if you want Harry Potter, Mark, buy with confidence. It looked to be a superb disc and a stunning achievement for VC1 and HD DVD encoding a 157 minute feature, with Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby True HD, ‘in movie experience` content along with all the supplements from the existing DVD version. I was fondling the box for this one in Harrods today.