Regions

[kcuber]

Forgive me if this is a dumb question but I truly do not know the answer to it.

How does one know if a certain disc will play in my player from other countries? Or is it as easy as that those discs won't? I am in the USA and have a SONY Blu Ray player (BDP-N460).

I was looking at this disc: Life is Beautiful

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Life-.../13658/#Review

Will this play in the USA?

Thanks!

[crazyBLUE]

If you look at the link page you provided under the reviewers rating it says Playback ~ region A.

So it should work in your BD player

[Anthony P]

these are the BD regions, there are three of them (officially A/B/C but some use the 1,2,3of DVD



for movies not released in your region (i.e. if you are interested in a European movie), there is a site that gives the region of some movies, so you can use it, unfortunately I don't remember what it is.

[cbono]

This phrase appears in the review of many region-free BDs..

"Please note that this is a region-free release which you will be able to play in your PS3 or SA regardless of your geographical location"

My questions...

1. What is an SA?
2. Will every region-free BD play in any Region A Blu-ray player in HD (1080i or 1080p)?
3. If a Region A Blu-ray player can play some particular region-free BD in HD, should it be able to play them all in HD?

Some background...

I own a Pioneer BDP-09FD. I was recently pleasantly surprised to learn it could play a region-free 480i PAL format DVD in 480p via component video cables on my first generation (8 yr old, pre-HDMI, pre-1080p, limited to 1080i, still looks great to me) Panasonic 50" plasma.

Thanks!

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by cbono

This phrase appears in the review of many region-free BDs..

"Please note that this is a region-free release which you will be able to play in your PS3 or SA regardless of your geographical location"

My questions...

1. What is an SA?
2. Will every region-free BD play in any Region A Blu-ray player in HD (1080i or 1080p)?
3. If a Region A Blu-ray player can play some particular region-free BD in HD, should it be able to play them all in HD?

Some background...

I own a Pioneer BDP-09FD. I was recently pleasantly surprised to learn it could play a region-free 480i PAL format DVD in 480p via component video cables on my first generation (8 yr old, pre-HDMI, pre-1080p, limited to 1080i, still looks great to me) Panasonic 50" plasma.

Thanks!

I should answer here

1. SAs - stand alone(s), meaning all BD players.

2. PS3 - should be obvious, Playstation 3.

3. All discs that I review that are marked as Region-Free will play on your PS3/SA. I manually check each disc on multiple players.

4. If the disc is Region-Free but encoded in 1080/50i, which is not supported in North America, I would mark it as Region-B "locked", or leave a specific comment noting that there is problematic content.

5. If the disc is Region-Free but there is forced 1080/50i or PAL content preceding its main menu, thus making it unplayable in Region-A PS3/SAs, I would also mark it as Region-B "locked" or specifically note that it is unplayable in North America. There are only a few such releases, mostly produced by smaller European distributors.

6. If the disc is Region-Free but its menu is encoded in 1080/50i, I would again specifically note that you cannot play it in North America.

7. What you have written above is incorrect. PAL is 576i. 480i is a substitute for NTSC.

To sum it all up, if you are interested in purchasing some of the imports we review on the site, all you need to do is go to the bottom of the Video Section where I always leave a specific note. Example from our Battle Royale review:

(Note: This is a Region-Free Blu-ray disc. Therefore, you will be able to play it on your PS3 or SA regardless of your geographical location. For the record, there is no problematic PAL or 1080/50i content preceding the disc's main menu).

At the very top of the review, under playback, the region status is also displayed.

Lastly, just so that this is perfectly clear, all Region-A "locked" releases (and this means releases from Canada, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, and all of the other countries that are part of Region-A), will play in the United States, because, well, the United States is also part of Region-A.



Pro-B

[cbono]

You have just opened up a world more of BDs to me.

Like many on here, I really appreciate the reviews. Even more so now that you have detailed the extent you go to before declaring which BDs are region free.

I'm grateful that you cleared it all up for me.

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by cbono

I'm grateful that you cleared it all up for me.

You are very welcome, cbono

And you should know, if you ever have a question you can't find an answer for on international subforums, you are always welcome to PM me. Perhaps I might be able to help.

I will see you on the forums

Pro-B

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

4. If the disc is Region-Free but encoded in 1080/50i, which is not supported in North America, I would mark it as Region-B "locked", or leave a specific comment noting that there is problematic content.

5. If the disc is Region-Free but there is forced 1080/50i or PAL content preceding its main menu, thus making it unplayable in Region-A PS3/SAs, I would also mark it as Region-B "locked" or specifically note that it is unplayable in North America. There are only a few such releases, mostly produced by smaller European distributors.

Since there are quite a lot of US Blu-ray players that will play 1080/50i
https://forum.blu-ray.com/blu-ray-pl...atibility.html
(more player models in the list that will play it than won't), why set it to "region b locked" when it isn't? Why not just set the resolution to 1080/50i and add a note saying you need a 50hz compatible player?

For those people who own one of the 50Hz compatible US players (which are the majority of those in the link above) and the title isn't actually Region B locked, they would be able to play them. But adding incorrect info saying it is "region B locked" when it isn't could mean they won't buy them because of it. It also means the database will have knowingly incorrect data added.

In fact for 5 in your quote above, if there is 50Hz content before the main title, but the main title isn't 50hz, and the disc isn't region B locked, maybe an extra flag in the movie database could be used that that says "requires 50Hz compatible player/TV". This way it would still allow correct flags for the "Region B locked" setting. Though actually, I thought a firmware update for the US PS3 made it skip any 50hz content on the disc anyway (it was talked about on Penton's thread as well as the news section I think) - so this probably isn't a problem for the US PS3.

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by 4K2K

Since there are quite a lot of US Blu-ray players that will play 1080/50i
https://forum.blu-ray.com/blu-ray-pl...atibility.html
(more player models in the list that will play it than won't), why set it to "region b locked" when it isn't? Why not just set the resolution to 1080/50i and add a note saying you need a 50hz compatible player?

For those people who own one of the 50Hz compatible US players (which are the majority of those in the link above) and the title isn't actually Region B locked, they would be able to play them. But adding incorrect info saying it is "region B locked" when it isn't could mean they won't buy them because of it. It also means the database will have knowingly incorrect data added.

In fact for 5 in your quote above, if there is 50Hz content before the main title, but the main title isn't 50hz, and the disc isn't region B locked, maybe an extra flag in the movie database could be used that that says "requires 50Hz compatible player/TV". This way it would still allow correct flags for the "Region B locked" setting. Though actually, I thought a firmware update for the US PS3 made it skip any 50hz content on the disc anyway (it was talked about on Penton's thread as well as the news section I think) - so this probably isn't a problem for the US PS3.

4K2K,

It appears that you are misinterpreting some of the info I have posted

1. All 1080/50i titles are correctly logged in the database. With other words, Region-B "locked" and 1080/50i are two different things.

2. In my opinion it is best to treat 1080/50i content as impossible to playback in North America on standard Region-A equipment because even the few players that can output 1080/50i do not all convert it to 1080/60i. With other words, even if you have a player than can output 1080/50i but you don't have a TV set that can accept 1080/50i, and 99% of all TVs in North America can't, you are effectively dealing with a Region-B "locked" disc.

3. Out of 500+ import discs/reviews, if I am not mistaken, there is only one title covered here that has been 1080/50i and Region-Free.

4. Because Region-Free capability on some players has been affected by various firmware upgrades, I think the safest thing to do is not to constantly guess which players may output and convert 1080/50i to 1080/60i.

5. Lastly, the firmware upgrade the PS3 received basically brought back its old ability to skip PAL or 1080/50i content that isn't forced, not all PAL or 1080/50i content. So forced PAL or 1080/50i content that precedes the main menu is still very much problematic for the PS3.



Pro-B

[4K2K]

Thanks. As long as it's correct in the database it's good. As long as "region B blocked" isn't selected when it isn't really blocked etc. then that's good.

2. In my opinion it is best to treat 1080/50i content as impossible to playback in North America on standard Region-A equipment because even the few players that can output 1080/50i do not all convert it to 1080/60i.

As long as you only set the "region b blocked" setting in the db according to the actual region settings of the disc, that's okay.

You mention the "few" players that can output 1080/50i (I assume you mean read 1080/50i) - I've already shown that, according to the list, most player models can read 1080/50i not just a few. If you have tested more players that don't, I can update that list. Yes some don't convert it to 60hz, though a lot of them do, and not all US displays are incapable of accepting and displaying 50hz content either.

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by 4K2K

Yes some don't convert it to 60hz, though a lot of them do, and not all US displays are incapable of accepting and displaying 50hz content either.

Could you list a couple of non-modified TVs that can display 1080/50i content?

Pro-B

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

Could you list a couple of non-modified TVs that can display 1080/50i content?

Pro-B

I did say US displays not TVs though
I think I remember posts by people with TVs that could, though don't know model numbers and it's unlikely to be anything by Sony. Maybe one of the cheaper brands?
I've seen a couple of posts by people saying they have projectors that can (including one that was a Panasonic projector (Panasonic AE4000 projector?)).

Maybe it would be a good idea for a new thread where people could list their US TV/display if it was compatible with 50hz or a poll thread?
Though it might be possible to search for this info in the "home theatre"/electronics section (you can search by 1080p50 & 1080p60 compatibility - maybe it could do with also specifying and searching on what place it was released in eg. USA/Europe or by searching by power supply voltage?)?

[bnoyer]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

these are the BD regions, there are three of them (officially A/B/C but some use the 1,2,3of DVD



for movies not released in your region (i.e. if you are interested in a European movie), there is a site that gives the region of some movies, so you can use it, unfortunately I don't remember what it is.

I'm jumping in here because I'm too new to start a post apparently. I bought a DVD from a seller in Korea. It was described as DVD-9, Region-free. The front of the box had the Blu-Ray 'logo' on it. I contacted the seller and he said it just meant it was high definition (or something like that). It plays fine on my standard DVD player (Panasonic SA-HT700). The box is marked NTSC. Isn't Blu-Ray a proprietary format? Should it have played? Thanks for your time.

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

.3. Out of 500+ import discs/reviews, if I am not mistaken, there is only one title covered here that has been 1080/50i and Region-Free.

I thought there were quite a few - including the BBC titles such as "Life" - there's another site that lists almost 30 titles that it says are region free but 50Hz.