"Downton Abbey" on PBS - Page 2

I just downloaded a TV rip of the original UK airing, and sure enough, they did do a 25 to 24 fps slowdown for the BD. On top of that, after pulling out the guitar and tuner, it sounds to my somewhat not-entirely-untrained ear that the 25fps score is the correct one. This doesn't exactly come as a surprise, but it is a little strange that the highest-quality commercial release of the show in the country of production isn't the same as what aired...

I thought the music sounded off on the BD compared to the ITV1 HD transmissions - but couldn't swear to it.

Presumably they (NBC Universal?) wanted a single master for global releasing - rather than paying to master it twice- and thus a 1080/24p main feature and 480/60 extras meant guaranteed play-ability globally. (They could have gone for a 25p to 60i master - via 50i if need be - which would have retained the pitch/run time - but wouldn't have looked as clean)

If they'd released a 1080/50i mastered main feature and 576/50 extras that would have been an issue in 60Hz territories, and they'd have had to master a second time for them?

Because a 1080i25 BD release was not created, I will not be purchasing a copy. NBCU makes a lot of bonehead decisions, this being one of them.


So what. It is not difficult to run the 1080p25 master through the gear and get a 1080i29.97 master for BD authoring. The same authoring configuration would be used, with the only difference being the videos.

Plus... because PBS has decided to edit the series and make it shorter, I've stopped capturing it as well. This series will not get my eyeballs because of NBCU and PBS horrible handling of the series.

I think you missed my point because I was being ambiguous. My point was that they wanted to create a universal BLU-RAY that they could sell in all territories - rather than having to master two versions - one for 50Hz and one for 60Hz territories. (The cost of mastering and managing two different Blu-rays for the same title is presumably significant - and something they wanted to avoid?)

(I wasn't referring to the video master - when I meant master)

I'm a little confused. Did they change the release date to February 1? Or am I looking at a different version?

http://www.amazon.com/Masterpiece-Cl.../dp/B004FM2ENU

It looks like that date has been pushed up several months.

I got your point. I was tearing into NBCU for being cheap-assed. It couldn't have been that much more to provide quality releases, even if it meant two different versions. IMHO, both regions are now stuck with inferior releases. They had to create two masters for the DVD releases, yet were too cheap to do it right for the Blu-ray releases.

As such, I will not be purchasing either version of the Blu-ray. Too bad too.

So here is where I am lost. If the BD was 25i (or even 25p which it can't be because it is not in the spec) it would still need to be converted to 60, 96, 120, 240, 480 Hz somewhere to display on most US TVs. What is the benefit of letting our gear do it vs letting the professional encoding gear do it.

Really - PBS is editing the series. Why are they doing that. It wouldn't seem like it would be a time slot issue.

Maybe some people would like to comment on the show vs 25/24 frame rates etc which while interesting aren't really why we watch TV - or else we would watch test patterns.....

The problem is that the original source is 25p. For U.K. delivery, as well as all other 50 Hz regions, the correct thing to have done was release the Blu-ray at 1080i25. For 60 Hz regions, like the U.S., the 1080p25 original master would be converted to 1080p23.976, with audio pitch correction.

Instead, the cheap NBCU decided to only release one Blu-ray format for all regions, meaning that the 50 Hz regions are gipped from getting it in the native format. For those of us in the states that can play 1080i25 Blu-rays, we don't even get a choice.

The 1080i23.976 version wouldn't be as horrible if the audio pitch was corrected, but it seems that they were too cheap to even do that (see previous postings about the audio pitch).


You are going to have to ask PBS that question. But, most of the original 7 parts were about 45 minutes in length, which do not fit an hour time slot.


Some times our enjoyment of a show depends on how it was technically produced, etc. It would have been nice if the show wasn't edited for TV and the Blu-ray releases weren't as cheaply done.

Don't get me wrong in that the people who put the Blu-ray release together are not at fault. They were told to only create a single version. So they put together the best product they could, with the material they were allowed to use.

The only way that NBCU is going to learn from this is if every 50 Hz region purchaser returned the product because it is 1080i25.

Yesterday the Amazon listing said "February 1" but now it says "This title has not yet been released."

Wal-Mart also listed Feb. 1 yesterday, but today shows it as Feb. 8:

http://www.walmart.com/ip/15751861

BestBuy.com still lists Feb. 1 but now it's "Backordered."


shopPBS.org shows it as being in stock, and ships in 1-2 days. But their price is higher.

I don't know how many times this needs to be explained to you, but 1080i25 content and Region-locking are NOT THE SAME THING. A disc can be region-free, but still contain content that is encoded at 1080i25. As has been stated several times, the problem is with the PS3, and not the disc.

My LG player is only region A, and yet it plays the 1080i25 content from my Australian and UK region-free discs with no problem. It's because those discs truly are region-free, despite what you repeatedly keep claiming. Again, the problem is that the PS3 (and all Sony players IIRC) do not support 1080i25 content. Again, this is a separate issue from the whole region A/B/C thing.

But for some reason I seriously doubt that this will ever get through to you, and you will keep bringing up your Little Dorrit experience every single chance you can, despite you not understanding what you're railing on about.

It starts in the UK on ITV1/ITV1HD in the next few weeks. It appears that the BBC will be scheduling the final series of Spooks (aka MI:5) against it. Suspect Downton will win. Personally I'll be watching Spooks live and Downton on my PVR (to avoid the commercial breaks)


Lots of UK releases are region free - particularly TV shows. Many UK BD releases, however, are 50i, as that is often the mastering format, and is the standard delivery format for all UK broadcasters who have standardised on 1080/50i HD Cam SR universally (1080/50i AVC Intra 100Mbs MXF files is the likely tape-less delivery standard being introduced quickly to cope with the global HD Cam SR stock shortage caused by the Japanese Tsunami)

Slighly unusually Downton was shot 25p, and the transmission version on ITV1 HD was 50i. The Blu-ray release was converted from the 25p origination format to 24p for Blu-ray mastering - presumably to allow the same disc master to be used in the UK and the US (but meaning us UK viewers are stuffed with a slow-down release)

In mainland Europe it is not unusual for TV shows to also have cinematic releases. Sometimes these are thus shot 24p and released 24p on disc, but it is also common for them to be shot 25p and released 50i on disc (presumably the cinematic release is a slow down?)


Amazon and other suppliers often default to stating a disc is regionally encoded to the region it is released in without checking (it covers them - particularly for pre-orders where it isn't possible to check). A lot of discs that are advertised as Region B are not regionally encoded in reality. Once the disc has actually been released some suppliers will update their information with the correct regional encoding information.

However if you have a US player that doesn't support 50i and/or a display that doesn't support 50i then you won't be able to watch them.

If importing a UK TV show on Blu-ray, you should, as a default position, expect it to be 50i. That's what it will have been shot for, and that is what the master used by the broadcasters will be. It's relatively rare for a UK TV show to be released as 24p or 60i these days.

In the early days of Blu-ray most BBC UK releases were 1080/60i conversions to avoid issues with very early players sold in the UK that didn't support 50i content. Thankfully the days of the BBC releasing 60i converted content are over - no more mangled motion and conversion artefacts.


Err - Region-free is Region-free. Just because your equipment isn't compatible with the region-free disc you bought doesn't mean it isn't region-free. You just don't have equipment compatible with 1080/50i region-free content.

They are two different things.

Regional encoding restricts playback to the region your player is registered for. It's tricky to get round this on standalone players (DVD regions are much easier to cope with). However watching BDs on an HTPC is an easy solution to multi-region viewing.

There is also 50Hz compatibility, which is nothing to do with regionalisation. This is an equipment limitation.

Many European TV releases will be 1080/50i (with some rarer 720/50p releases as well). If your Blu-ray player won't play 50i content (either coded for your region or not coded for any region) then you can't play it. Similarly even if your player can play it, but your TV can't display it (and your player doesn't convert to a format your TV can display) you are also out of luck.

In Europe we have it better in this regard. All of our HDTVs can display 50 and 60Hz content (there is a licensing standard that mandates this and in reality every mainstream manufacturer licenses), and all of our Blu-ray players (including PS3s) will replay 24, 50 and 60Hz content. This is because you can expect to find 24, 50 and 60Hz content on Region B and European Region-free releases. We wouldn't ever think of this as being "multi-region" - as it isn't - it is still only Region B. Maybe "multi-standard" is a better way of describing this - though in reality in Europe this is never really used as a description as it is just standard to be able to watch PAL/SECAM/NTSC and 50/60Hz HD content on a regular HDTV. (Most will have PAL/SECAM/DVB-T and some DVB-T2, DVB-S/S2 satellite and/or DVB-C cable tuners as well)

I suspect in the US it is not common to find 50Hz content on US Region A releases, or US Region-free releases, so you can't expect compatibility with 50Hz Region-free releases.

However if you have a suitable Region-A player that IS compatible with 50Hz Region-free content, and a display that is compatible, there isn't an issue?

IIRC, my Sony standalone player will play my Docgtor Who 1080i25 region free Blu-rays. I have a Samsung that I use now.

So are the U.S. buyers.


I've not seeon, or heard, or any such releases.


My current display is 60, so the Samsung player converts the 25i to 30i for display.

I suspect that more and more of the newer players will do that, especially with the HDMI connection,

Better than nothing I guess - but what kind of conversion does the player do. Most 50/60 conversions I've seen at the consumer level have been pretty basic - either field/frame dropping or repeating and with no real interpolation.

No clue as to what it is internally doing. I've not tried to hunt down any specs.

The monitor info just says that it is 1080p 60 Hz

Often the 50 to 60 conversion is accomplished by simply repeating every 5th frame (so for every 5 frames in you get 6 out). For 50i native content this will add regular judder on motion (as is clear when I watch a 50Hz News Channel on my HTPC when it is incorrectly set to a 60Hz refresh) as there is a clear and regular repeated frame. 50p (often de-interlaced from 576/50i or 1080/50i but could be 1080/50p or 720/50p native) to 60p frames will be matched with a 1:1:1:1:2 cadence.

However it is a bit more complicated for 25p originated content as this already contains repeated frames at 50p using 2:2 cadence.

The resulting 60p cadence of 25p content (taken via 50p with every 5th frame repeated) is something like 2:2:3:2:3 in terms of the original 25p frames, which is a bit more broken up than the 1:1:1:1:2 you'd get with a 50i native (de-interlaced to 50p) source with 50Hz motion, and may mean the judder is less obvious, particularly if you are already accustomed to 3:2 judder.

So, I purchased the Blu-ray and we recently finished watching Series (Season) 1. Enjoyed it, and it looked and sounded great to me (but I had nothing to compare to).

Now, Series 2 begins airing on PBS this Sunday, Jan. 8. The Blu-ray will be released on Feb. 7. I'd be happy to wait for the Blu-ray. But my daughter and wife will want to watch on PBS.

Question: does anyone know ifl this PBS broadcast be edited such that some content is removed compared to original UK broadcast? How much content was deleted in the Series 1 broadcast? (EDIT: I found this, indicating it was really virtually no cuts at all, despite some confusion).

I watched a few minutes of the PBS re-broadcast of Series 1 last week. It looked good in HD, but not as good as the Blu-ray naturally.

I believe these to be fairly accurate (minus commercials) of the actual BBC Broadcasts.

Episode 201 1:06
Episode 202 0:53
Episode 203 0:53
Episode 204 0:52
Episode 205 0:53
Episode 206 0:53
Episode 207 0:54
Episode 208 1:07

Downton Abbey airs on ITV in the UK, not BBC.

According to the Masterpiece schedule, PBS is showing S2 from January 8 to February 19.

The timeslots for the Jan. 8 and Jan. 15 episodes are in my onscreen guide. Based on this, and the 7-week schedule, I think this is how PBS is airing S2:

Jan. 8 - Ep. 1 + Ep. 2 (120-minute slot; edited a bit to make room for Masterpiece intro & outro)
Jan. 15 - full version of Ep. 3 (60-minute slot)
Jan. 22 - full version of Ep. 4 (60-minute slot)
Jan. 29 - full version of Ep. 5 (60-minute slot)
Feb. 5 - full version of Ep. 6 (60-minute slot)
Feb. 12 - Ep. 7 + Ep. 8 (120-minute slot; edited a bit to make room for Masterpiece intro & outro)
Feb. 19 - Christmas special (90-minute slot; edited a bit to make room for Masterpiece intro & outro)

PBS edited out about 15-20 minutes here and there to condense the 7 S1 episodes into four 90-minute timeslots.

This year, it looks like the Jan. 8, Feb. 12 and Feb. 19 episodes will be mildly edited. For example, the first two episodes of S2 run about 119 minutes (really about 118 minutes, since this will probably be broadcast as one seamless episode and not need two sets of opening and closing credits). That's perfect for a 120-minute slot, but when the Masterpiece intro and outro are added, PBS might have to trim a few minutes (less than 5, I'd guess).

"Downton Abbey airs on ITV in the UK, not BBC."

My apology for the source misinformation.

Yeah yeah... but what's going to happen to Matthew, Mary, Edith, Mr. Bates, etc. etc.... ??

So, diditagain, per your speculation, PBS will show the Christmas special as the last S2 episode Feb 19.

But it will not be included on the S2 Blu-ray? The run time on Amazon is listed as 480 minutes. EDIT: the PBS store listing says 544 minutes, so maybe it does.

Never saw a more confusing mishmash of versions and releases.

hondo, Amazon frequently has wrong information in their DVD listings (wrong runtime, wrong disc count, etc.), so I usually take any Amazon information that isn't release date with a grain of salt!

Luckily, both Amazon and the PBS website are now saying that the Christmas special is included in the S2 set, as well it should be. Without spoiling anything, I'll simply say that while you could watch it as a stand-alone special, various storylines seen through S2 itself continue in the Christmas special. I understand why ITV held it until Christmas night (the ratings were great, and the special does features Christmas and New Year's at Downton Abbey), but if PBS viewers don't know any better, they'll think the Christmas special is the actual season finale!

My own hope, which I know won't happen, is that PBS won't wait until January 2013 for S3. There's no reason PBS couldn't show Downton the same night as the UK starting in September. In fact, by abandoning the non-sensical Classic, Mystery and Contemporary "seasons," PBS could start showing many Masterpiece shows the same night or week as the UK (Downton in September instead of January, Sherlock in January instead of May, etc.).

Given that it appears that NBCU are using a single master for both the UK and US releases of Series 2, and the UK Series 2 release was in the shops before the Christmas special (so that it could be a Christmas gift for many!) it isn't THAT surprising that the Christmas special isn't on the S2 release in the US.

It's the same situation as Doctor Who Christmas specials, they are included in the releases of the following series (So the Downton Christmas special will presumably be part of the S3 release?)

In an ideal world there would be separate UK and US releases - so those of us in the UK got a 50i release of the 25p material with no speed change - but I guess it makes more commercial sense for the release to be from a single 24p master. (Which means the episodes will run longer than the UK original broadcast with no editing)

The PBS Shop listings for both the American S2 DVD and American S2 Blu-ray say the Christmas special is included, and the runtime listed by PBS Shop (544 minutes) can be calculated by adding the runtimes for the 8 proper S2 episodes AND the Christmas special.