Should I buy the US/NTSC/R1 DVD sets or the UK/PAL/R2 versions?

[sltrek]

I live in America and am interested in getting some of the Star Trek TV series and movies on DVD.

But I just discovered that the UK Region 2 DVD sets are much cheaper than the US Region 1 versions (even after you take into account the shipping fees). I can find each season of every Star Trek TV series, as well as each of the Original and Next Generation movie DVD sets, for about 30-50% cheaper at a UK web site than at any US-based web site.

But then I also read that the PAL format (which UK DVDs use, as opposed to the NTSC format that US DVDs use) has some kind of a speedup problem. Everything will be 4% faster on a PAL DVD, and all the sounds/music will be slightly higher pitched.

Does anyone have the Region 2 versions of any Star Trek TV series or movies? If so, did you notice any difference? I wonder if I should get the cheaper UK versions, or if it is worth paying almost double to get the US versions that play at the correct speed?

(BTW, I do have a DVD player that can do PAL to NTSC conversion, and it is region free.)

 

[Warp Coil]

Buy the NTSC versions. Converting video from NTSC to PAL does create a difference in both the video quality and the pitch of the audio. You're converting from a frame rate of 30 fps to 25 fps. There will be noticeable conversion artifacts in the video, and the timing, speed and pitch of the audio will change as well. It won't sound quite right to anyone who's used to watching the show in NTSC.

 

[DrTikhon]

I watched one episode of PAL TNG on a friend's DVD. After years of hearing Riker and Picard talk at the normal rate, it was noticeably higher pitched.

One of those things you'd never notice if you've never seen the show before, but ya know... it's Star Trek.