Region 4 Winners and Losers

    As far as can be ascertained, the Region 1 release of the DVD itself is identical in content to the Region 4 DVD. The reviews available of the Region 1 DVD all seem to indicate a similar quality of transfer that seemingly sounds just a little poorer than what we have in Region 4. That may of course be due to NTSC formatting as against PAL formatting. Certainly, the audio transfer sounds extremely similar, so I would doubt that as far as the DVD is concerned that there is any compelling reason to prefer one version over the other.

    The original Region 1 release boasts more extras, namely:

• Theatrical Trailers for 2001 and 2010
• Interview with Arthur C. Clarke
• Booklet

    However, the original release also missed out on 16x9 enhancement, and all the extras in the world were not going to hide the fact that the transfer was not the best you ever saw. It lacked vibrancy, was plagued with a dull look and had plenty of film artefacts. All these problems have been rectified in the new restoration, so if you have the original Region 1 release, you will definitely be needing to upgrade to the new version - it really is that much better.