Australian Blu-ray discs, surprise surpise!

Sony Pictures Entertainment has supplied me with half a dozen Blu-ray titles that are to be released in Australia. Here’s the big surprise: all of them are 60 hertz titles!I shall try to find out whether that is their continuing plan, or whether it is temporary, and what the other suppliers are proposing.The good point about titles being 60 hertz is that eliminates the 4% PAL* speed up (and associated pitch increase). The bad point is that the first two Blu-ray players on the Australian market will not do 24p output, so the best picture quality is 60p. That makes for jerky pans and the like. Still, eventually all Blu-ray players will offer 24p output.

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* I have been chastised for misusing ‘PAL’. Technically PAL is a description of the colour encoding system used in places like Australia, Germany and India, and has nothing to do with resolution and frame rate. Indeed, some South American countries use PAL colour on an NTSC-like 480/60i resolution signal.Nevertheless, I shall continue to use PAL from time to time as shorthand for 576/50i signals. It is just too convenient not to use.

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