Region 4 Winners and Losers

    The R1 release has a few differences other than the PAL/NTSC differential. The R4 releases misses out on:

    - Character Profile: “The Smoking Man”

    - DVD-ROM Game “Dreamland”

    - 24 International language Clips

    - Spanish 2.0 Dolby Surround Audio Track

    - Spanish subtitles.

    The R1 Release misses out on:

    - Italian 2.0 Dolby Surround Audio Track

    - Dutch, Greek, Italian subtitles.

    Considering the international language tracks are a waste of time anyway, I feel no great loss there. However, the Character Profile and the DVD-ROM game might have been a bit of fun. How much they add to the whole experience is probably marginal. I suspect, however, that the picture quality for ”Triangle” is better on the R1 copy, as it has not undergone an NTSC to PAL transfer, although I have no means to verify this. (Ed. The image quality of this particular episode is also problematic on the R1 version - there is more information and an official explanation from the producers on The Digital Bits, just beneath the cover shot of Solaris.)

    Although the R1 copy is more expensive, I think that it might just sneak over the line as the winner, unfortunately. But it’s such a bare margin that it is really of little significance.