Everyone moans that the USA gets the better deal where DVD's are concerned, but is this really the case?

We get an extra 100 lines of definition over NTSC, also, far more of our disks are formatted for anamorphic-widescreen. Plus the disparity between extras content is fast diminishing.

In fact, a friend in the states said he wished he had R2 Disks!

All reasonable points but just try counting the number of R1 titles compared to our dismal list of R2 titles.

Perhaps, but just how miffed are those former colonials that we've got Friends on disc and they haven't yet?

I think R2 is catching R1 for extra's and General quality of the DVD's. However, until they start releasing films here at the same time, I feel most people will buy R1.

Dave

What about the price and release date? This is a good reason to buy R1?

3 months ago, I wouldn't have touched a R2 disc with a barge pole - now everything has changed. There are lots of titles coming through with better features on R2 (e.g. Mask of Zorro), and in cases where the feature list is the same, then for quality you should go for R2 because of the better resolution of PAL over NTSC (assuming they haven't screwed the transfer).

All of this of course relies on the discs coming out and in time, but that is also becoming less of an issue.

Anyway, the message is to always check before you buy. These days I check it out on http://www.rewind.org.uk/digitalera/ before hitting that "buy" button.

Colin.