Death Race (2008) UK DVD - Help! UPDATED

[Ewan_McMahon]

OK can anyone help with this - this might be a bit complicated.

I need help with the DVD UK-VERSION of "Death Race (2008)". This title is already comparison-listed, and has two comparisons (America and UK). Here are the overall notes of both:

R1 America- Universal Pictures - No cuts: includes both the "Theatrical" version and the "Unrated" version of the film.
R2 United Kingdom- Universal Pictures - No cuts - contains the "Extended" version of the film.

My problem is - just what exactly is the UK "extended"-version? OK, the American versions seem clear enough - in the USA they have both the theatrical(cut)-version and the unrated(not-cut?)-version, and if http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=3123325 is anything to go by then that's all fine and perfectly clear.
But in the UK they decided to be clever by calling the release "Extended" (actually has that printed along the top of the DVD-cover), but what does that actually mean - what version of the film is actually on the UK-DVD release?

The film runtimes (from IMDB) are:

1 hr 45 min (105 min)
1 hr 51 min (111 min) (unrated) (USA)

(Oh by the way, the comparison-listing of this title here on DVDCOMPARE lacks information of the runtimes of both country DVD versions).

Now most (UK) online shops (well UK-Amazon and UK-HMV I have checked ) have the runtime of this UK-DVD listed as 104minutes, though I am reluctant to accept the accuracy of their listings (I have seen them wrong with various other titles), could be just that these are wrong, I don't know. If this UK DVD version is 104(105ish)-minutes, then why is it called "Extended"? It seems to suggest it's not extended at all, and this is just the theatrical release, with false advertising on the UK DVD-cover (seems unlikely I know, but still possibly I reckon).
Oh, and then there is the NTSC/PAL time-conversion thingy to take into account (I have no idea what region-version runtimes are listed on IMDB - are they usually NTSC or PAL on IMDB?). It could be these that are confusing my research of the runtimes of this title.

Now before anyone says anything - I have looked at the BLUERAY comparison-listing of this title, and overall notes there suggest the "unrated" + "extended" versions are in fact the exact same thing. But is this true the same of the UK-DVD version? BE VERY CAREFUL not to make any assumptions (just because BlueRay says "unrated" + "extended" seem to be the same, doesn't mean same is true of the UK-DVD-version, especially given these runtime inconsistencies).
Perhaps a good place to start is, does anyone have a copy of the UK-version they can check the back-cover of and see what the runtime listed there is (and check the overall recording too, meh). BUT keep in mind all my above notes - surely it seems like some information somewhere is wrong (either the online shops listed runtimes are wrong *probably* , or the UK-DVD-cover is false - either of which could be important information to make note of on this site).

Hope someone can help out with this. Sorry to make everyones lives very complicated!... Wait, not my fault, it's the DVD companies who make our lives complicated - BLAME THEM! Heheheheheheh. And yes I do love to type a lot!

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

The "Unrated" and "Extended" cuts are the same.
In the UK, they cannot call something "Unrated" because all films must go through the BBFC for a rating classification. The word "Unrated" sells better in America, but the UK must have the "Extended" renaming for legalities.

As for the runtime difference, the US DVD is an NTSC transfer. The UK DVD is a PAL transfer.
When converting a 24fps film to NTSC, the framerate is kept the same, for example a 100 minute film is 100 minutes on an NTSC DVD.
When converting a 24fps film to PAL which is at 25fps, the film speed is sped up by 4% to match the framerate. So a 100 minute film is 96 minutes on a PAL DVD, as it runs 4% faster.

Getting the UK DVD of "Death Race" (2008) is not missing footage, but if you want the option to watch the theatrical cut plus the longer cut, the US DVD is the way to go.

Went ahead and updated the listing for additional discs and details.

[Ewan_McMahon]

OK, thankyou for clearing that up about "Unrated" and "Extended". Figures different countries have got to be difficult and have their own ideas on how things can be named released.... Oh well. Glad to know the UK version is the full uncut version at least - I just was not 100% sure.

Anyway, you mentioned runtime differences with NTSC and PAL - I know about this and understand the transfer from one to the other can cause framerate speed up (a.k.a runtime differences). But which version does IMDB usually list their movie runtime spec-details in? NTSC or PAL? (And does this apply to all movie/tv listings on their site?)

Anyway, thanks again for helping - I'll try to resist putting out another comparison-request too soon - otherwise i'll be keeping you guys busy every day probably!

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

For IMDB's runtime, it's whoever submits the information, and there can be some differing info!