Does the US Sony BDP-S3500 have "Worldwide voltage?"

[John Bergqvist]

I've just got a US Sony BDP-S3500 player to complement my existing UK one (cheaper than buying a multi-region player). Now both have the same Power connector & both say 12v on the back of that connector. So does that mean that I can use the UK Mains adapter in the US one with no issues, if they're both accepting the same input? (My UK adapter for is outputting 12v & 800mA)

[Geoff D]

Yes.

[John Bergqvist]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Yes.

Cheers. I figured it was cheaper than buying a Multi-region one which could have out of date/dodgy hacked firmware. Plus they sit nice on top of each other. I just have to manually swap the HDMI & power cable each time I want to watch something that only the other player can play, but thats no biggie.

[Geoff D]

I love my dodgy hacked firmware. But yeah, two separate players bought for buttons is the most cost effective solution by far, you can update the firmware on both without having to worry about losing the MR playback, and without having both plugged in all the time (because you're sharing the power supply) then you don't have to worry about the remote activating the other unit when you don't want it to. (Remote codes can be changed, sure, but still.) I don't know if it's worth doing the remote hack for MR DVD on the US one as it probably won't play back PAL discs, in spite of the region code.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by John Bergqvist

I've just got a US Sony BDP-S3500 player to complement my existing UK one (cheaper than buying a multi-region player).

Where did you get the US one from, John Bergqvist? I've always thought it would be simpler to import a Sony, but Amazon have an embargo enforced on exports.

[John Bergqvist]

Originally Posted by chip75

Where did you get the US one from, John Bergqvist? I've always thought it would be simpler to import a Sony, but Amazon have an embargo enforced on exports.

Ebay, who were quite happy in pointing out that shipping it to the UK was allowed and covered by them under their global shipping programme.

And Geoff, the UK one will play Region 2 DVDs and the US one will do Region 1 DVDs.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by John Bergqvist

Ebay, who were quite happy in pointing out that shipping it to the UK was allowed and covered by them under their global shipping programme.

And Geoff, the UK one will play Region 2 DVDs and the US one will do Region 1 DVDs.

That goes without saying. But when I did the dual player thing I still wanted to be able to play all my DVDs (inc R4, R3 as well as UK/US) without tarting about switching between the players but the lack of PAL on the US player put the kibosh on that anyway. (That's why I like my dodgy hacked firmware player, it's a one box solution.)

[John Bergqvist]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

That goes without saying. But when I did the dual player thing I still wanted to be able to play all my DVDs (inc R4, R3 as well as UK/US) without tarting about switching between the players but the lack of PAL on the US player put the kibosh on that anyway. (That's why I like my dodgy hacked firmware player, it's a one box solution.)

Well i'm physically close (they're on the desk next to my monitor) to both players anyway, so all I do is swap the Power & HDMI leads to the other one directly below it, so it's not too much of a hassle for me. I mean by & large if I have an NTSC DVD it'll be Region 1, and a PAL one will be Region 2, so i'll just choose the player based on region, besides, both players should upscale the image to 1080 (so that's the PAL or NTSC resolution sorted, and the framerate will either be 50 or 60 for either PAL or NTSC too, which my monitor handles both fine) over HDMI surely?

[Geoff D]

The output res isn't the issue, it's the US player not physically being able to decode 50Hz content at source to begin with (whether on a PAL DVD or a 1080i50 encoded Blu-ray). But as you say, with one player strictly for US duties and one for UK it's not a problem.

I've got some R4 PAL DVDs from Oz and R3 NTSC from China/HK so it's not quite as straightforward, but then most Sonys can be made multiregion for DVD with a simple 'one for all' handset hack so if you apply that to the UK machine then that will play PAL and NTSC DVDs without difficulty.

[John Bergqvist]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

The output res isn't the issue, it's the US player not physically being able to decode 50Hz content at source to begin with (whether on a PAL DVD or a 1080i50 encoded Blu-ray). But as you say, with one player strictly for US duties and one for UK it's not a problem.

I've got some R4 PAL DVDs from Oz and R3 NTSC from China/HK so it's not quite as straightforward, but then most Sonys can be made multiregion for DVD with a simple 'one for all' handset hack so if you apply that to the UK machine then that will play PAL and NTSC DVDs without difficulty.

Do you mean not being able to decode PAL images at a hardware level, rather than just a firmware lockout based on region? Why is it more difficult for US blu-ray players to display PAL content anyway, when an equivilent RB/2 model from the same manufacturer can usually decode both PAL & NTSC? Surely you'd think they'd use the same internal components...

[Geoff D]

That's exactly what I mean, John. You sound kinda incredulous but I'm not making it up: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...0#post11681950

Yeah, I suppose if we apply your usual ruthless logic then it makes sense to build one base 50/60Hz model for all, but on the other hand building in support for something that the average US punter would never ever use (most of their TVs didn't even have 50Hz compatibility until the recent flat screen boom) is also a waste of money.

The funny thing is, when I had my two Panasonic DMP-BDT110 players (one US, one UK) I didn't need a US power converter even though it was being fed UK AC mains, not 12V DC like with them Sonys and their power adaptors. I took the lid off both and the power supply was exactly the same so I figured what the hell, I plugged the US one into the UK mains and it worked perfectly. So the power side of things was indeed universal but the US deck still wouldn't play PAL content, it would attempt to play the disc then stop. [edit] Or if a Blu was authored with a mix of content then it would play the 24p/60Hz stuff but refuse to play the 50Hz, as described in the linked post above.

[John Bergqvist]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

That's exactly what I mean, John. You sound kinda incredulous but I'm not making it up: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...0#post11681950

Yeah, I suppose if we apply your usual ruthless logic then it makes sense to build one base 50/60Hz model for all, but on the other hand building in support for something that the average US punter would never ever use (most of their TVs didn't even have 50Hz compatibility until the recent flat screen boom) is also a waste of money.

The funny thing is, when I had my two Panasonic DMP-BDT110 players (one US, one UK) I didn't need a US power converter even though it was being fed UK AC mains, not 12V DC like with them Sonys and their power adaptors. I took the lid off both and the power supply was exactly the same so I figured what the hell, I plugged the US one into the UK mains and it worked perfectly. So the power side of things was indeed universal but the US deck still wouldn't play PAL content, it would attempt to play the disc then stop. [edit] Or if a Blu was authored with a mix of content then it would play the 24p/60Hz stuff but refuse to play the 50Hz, as described in the linked post above.

But what I don't understand is, if they cba to build PAL playback into R1 players because that's not the standard they use there, why are they building NTSC playback into R2 players when we don't use NTSC and the British TV system is still at 50fps? Surely that's an equal waste of money?

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by John Bergqvist

But what I don't understand is, if they cba to build PAL playback into R1 players because that's not the standard they use there, why are they building NTSC playback into R2 players when we don't use NTSC and the British TV system is still at 50fps? Surely that's an equal waste of money?

You'd think so. But because Japan - a 60Hz territory - was designated R2 back in the DVD days NTSC support was built in to our R2 UK DVD players by some quirk of the specs. The region coding was later changed on Blu-ray as Japan was put into the same region as the US (region A) but because of DVD the legacy 60Hz compatibility has remained ever since. The Yanks never had such a crossover - R1 DVD was strictly North America NTSC only - and even now 50Hz compatibility is rarer over there than you'd think.

You may also remember (depends on how old you are) the increasing amounts of UK VCRs that had NTSC playback as a feature, as well as later models of UK LaserDisc players. Importing movies in general was always much more of a 'thing' for us European types than it was for the Amerikaners, and it still is if the NA forum is anything to go by: "I ain't importing an American movie from outside of America!" etc etc.

[boredandlazy]

Small fun fact, some parts of Japan (including Tokyo) have 50Hz power grids.

Back sort of on topic, I'm glad Sony players output 50Hz content actually at 50Hz. Not enough players do it these days.

[Geoff D]

Yeah, I remember hearing that it had some 50Hz power here and there, but they settled on 60Hz for their DVD standard and so here we are.

[Geoff D]

Oh, and the 50Hz thing hasn't changed in the UHD era either, as 25p/50Hz support is only mandatory in the territories that actually use 50Hz:

[boredandlazy]

At least they're supporting 25p, hopefully the days will eventually be gone when people complain that BBC productions are interlaced just because the specs say 1080i50.
It's something which gets under my skin.

[Geoff D]

Yeah, proper progressive 25/50p support is most welcome although the 'PsF' style encoding for many 1080i50 Blu-rays of 25p material (so effectively it *is* 25p once deinterlaced) has been very good these past few years. But as you say, it still doesn't stop people from recoiling in horror when they see that tiny little 'i' in the specs.

[John Bergqvist]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Yeah, proper progressive 25/50p support is most welcome although the 'PsF' style encoding for many 1080i50 Blu-rays of 25p material (so effectively it *is* 25p once deinterlaced) has been very good these past few years. But as you say, it still doesn't stop people from recoiling in horror when they see that tiny little 'i' in the specs.

Well it depends on the source first, I mean if you've got a program that was shot interlaced, then it should be delivered like that IMO.

I mean technically, de-interlacing a 25i video into a 50p track also does give you a slight quality loss too.

I know the BBC mandate that you deliver all material to them in 1080i50 (So even if you've shot a show progressive, it would still be i50, yet both of the two interlaced halves of each frame would be the same). Whether this requirement is waived for their Blu-Ray releases (and they'll accept a native progressive stream if shot like that, I don't know).

[Geoff D]

Sure, you'll note that I was speaking about genuine 25p content inside a 1080i50 'container' (like Network's The Professionals on Blu); if it was actually shot 50i and not 25p then of course it should be encoded as such (although unless you tell your player not to then it'll deinterlace it to 1080p50 anyway). That said, there is no provision for interlaced at all on UHD Blu-ray.