Blu ray needs to be region free

[lateralus85]

As title suggests. The cost of blu ray dvds here in Australia is insane. You will only find a few blu ray dvds under 35US but most are about 45US.

Not only that but the selection here is very small and when I went to look at buying some blu ray movies on Amazon I realise that none of them will work on my ps3. I just think the blu ray is actually losing out of sales here and is very Inconvenient for customers like myself. There are some rare blu rays I would like to own like the NIN live blu ray but cannot find a pal region version of it.

In the mean time, HD DVD owners are importing their dvds at a cheaper rate and having a larger selection to choose from. Not to mention that the dvd's get delivered to you and most customers would buy more than 1 dvd to reduce delivery cost which equals more sales.

So yeh, if blu ray were region free I think this war would be a landslide to blu ray. The world today is internet shopping, yek PS3 games are region free but not blu ray movies. Thats just not right.

What do you all think?

[oldmike]

thing is this is one thing that has won movie makers to Blu-ray its also why New-line movies are comeing to Blu-ray only this year

[richteer]

Originally Posted by lateralus85

So yeh, if blu ray were region free I think this war would be a landslide to blu ray. The world today is internet shopping, yek PS3 games are region free but not blu ray movies. Thats just not right.

What do you all think?

I hate region coding as much as the next guy, but there's a very real reason why BD's are initially region encoded: some studios (Disney?) strongly demand it, and it is one of the reasons why they don't support HD DVD.

It's not all bad, though: the rules say that only first runs of release < 1 year old can be region encoded. Subsequent runs and older films must be region free. Sounds to me like a fair compromise...

[lateralus85]

Why are companies wanting region code?

If in Australia we had more selection and prices are not so damn high it wouldnt bother me at all.

[u_nick]

Originally Posted by lateralus85

Why are companies wanting region code?

i think its simply because of different economies is different countries. movie studios sell them to you at a certain price for a reason. I dont think they just sit there and think, "Well, we sold this in the US for 25 bucks... Let's screw the Aussies and make them pay 45!" There must be a reason behind it. If thats what it costs to get their movie over there, then thats what they charge. Otherwise, they dont profit on it at all, and they cant make more movies. Or at least cant bring them to those other countries at all.

[Dalese]

Originally Posted by lateralus85

Why are companies wanting region code?

Not all movies have the same theater release schedule in all regions. Some titles may get released weeks, if not months, after their original release. So in order to not cut into box office receipts in a region with a delayed release, there are the region codes...

That is why New Line is releasing Hair Spray and Rush Hour 3 on Blu-ray day-and-date with the DVD release in the US and there are no HD-DVD versions. Pan's Labrynth is being released in both HD formats as it is now considered a catalog title.

If I recall correctly, with Blu-ray the region code is only valid for the first year of the title's release.

[lateralus85]

Originally Posted by Dalese

If I recall correctly, with Blu-ray the region code is only valid for the first year of the title's release. After that the title plays as an "all region". (Gotta love the technology) Please correct me if I am wrong.

How is that possible, what you download a patch that unlocks the region code off it or do they re-release a updated version that is region free.

I understand the studio side of region codes now but it still doesnt help me.

[foots]

Originally Posted by lateralus85

As title suggests. The cost of blu ray dvds here in Australia is insane. You will only find a few blu ray dvds under 35US but most are about 45US.

Not only that but the selection here is very small and when I went to look at buying some blu ray movies on Amazon I realise that none of them will work on my ps3. I just think the blu ray is actually losing out of sales here and is very Inconvenient for customers like myself. There are some rare blu rays I would like to own like the NIN live blu ray but cannot find a pal region version of it.

In the mean time, HD DVD owners are importing their dvds at a cheaper rate and having a larger selection to choose from. Not to mention that the dvd's get delivered to you and most customers would buy more than 1 dvd to reduce delivery cost which equals more sales.

So yeh, if blu ray were region free I think this war would be a landslide to blu ray. The world today is internet shopping, yek PS3 games are region free but not blu ray movies. Thats just not right.

What do you all think?

You do realize that most BDs are region free? Including the NIN disc you refer to in your post. The US release will play in your region B player.

Use these sites:

http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtopic=50447
http://bluray.liesinc.net/

I think one of the biggest misconceptions regarding Blu-ray is the region coding. It is not required and most discs don't use it.

[WickyWoo]

How is that possible, what you download a patch that unlocks the region code off it or do they re-release a updated version that is region free.

All versions pressed after 1 year from original ship date must be region free

[lateralus85]

Sweet, those websites are great. Thanls

[LynxFX]

The Studios have kinda shot themselves in the foot though with releases outside of the US and wanting to avoid canibalizing foreign markets. The release window from US theatrical to DVD is so short that unless they do a worldwide release at the sametime or speed up the release they have no choice but to rely on region coding. Hell Transformers was released on DVD a mear 3 1/2 months after release. That hasn't been done for any movie except those that have completely bombed and were no longer playing in theatres two weeks after release. Transformers is still playing in theatres to this day!

Just be thankful we only have 3 regions now with BD. Too bad they didn't consolidate a few more markets into Region A.

[Redrox]

Originally Posted by lateralus85

Why are companies wanting region code?

If in Australia we had more selection and prices are not so damn high it wouldnt bother me at all.

I think one reason is because they have different theater release dates in different countries. Europe used to be about 6 months later than the U.S. So they would be able to buy the DVD before it even showed in the theater and the studios would lose money.
Lately the release dates are the same world wide though, but I think some releases are still way earlier in the U.S.

[darinp2]

Originally Posted by lateralus85

Why are companies wanting region code?

To give one example, I have read that Disney purposely delayed Ratatouille in certain European countries so that it wouldn't go up against certain big movies in the summer there. And it looks like it is paying off as it has done very well in some countries there and has some chance of passing Transformers for box office take outside the US. But this delay also means that if they released the BD as region free, people could buy it in those countries it was delayed for (Italy, the UK, etc.) while still at a reasonable part of the theatrical run. Some will claim that Disney and other studios just shouldn't release things at different times in different countries, but I'm sure Disney feels that they should be able to chose their release dates in different countries, as the ideal release dates are not the same for every country (like one country may have a local big movie that they don't want to go up against). And that was for a big movie. Imagine smaller movies where money they get early on in some countries is used for releasing the movies in other countries.

As I see it, what Universal has done basically screws the theater owners over to a certain degree. They have released movies in HD that people can buy in certain countries before the theater owners are legally allowed to show it. When this happens with DVD and its lower quality it is one thing, but having HD available for home is likely to be ever worse for theater owners if HD on disc takes off.

It seems to me that the tactic HD DVD is taking is to appeal less to certain studios by not having region encoding and hoping that they take off enough that they can basically force those studios to release on their format. Even considering the Warner decision of what to do, Warner and New Line are reasonably tied (basically sister studios) and New Line is releasing BDs before HD DVDs, where they have said the reason is region encoding. I expect any move toward exclusivity by Warner will also involve New Line and this region encoding thing might help Blu-ray's case, even if Warner themselves doesn't care about that feature.

Also, before people think that Toshiba is looking out for consumers by not having region encoding, it has been said that Toshiba wanted to add region encoding to HD DVD, but didn't find anybody willing to be responsible for overseeing it. I think Toshiba understands that not having it might end up hurting their chances in this war. I have wondered how they feel about Microsoft being against it for HD DVD and then turning around and offering a form of region encoding to studios for the XBOX360 network, where they compete with HD DVD to some degree.

--Darin

[gamer4eva]

i totally agree with the topic poster
prices over here are crazy and the selection isnt that wide as well although we get the sony and the disney titles later if not on the same time but studios such as Fox and WB only release a selected few and while MGM and LIONSGATE dont even bother releasing outside of North America as if the world finishes outside of NA
i mean how does blu-ray expect to win dis war all over the world with studio support like this
and with nov coming HD-Dud has some awesome movies coming over here this month and an average consumer will look at dat compare it with blu-ray releases and he'll make a stupid decision of going with hd-dud
Yeah i know BDA has been saying all this stuff about content and studio support and i totally agree but as long as a normal consumer doesnt see it they're not gonna achieve anything

[lateralus85]

I still dont understand how it can be region coded for a year then not be. How does it unlock its region coding?

[LynxFX]

Originally Posted by lateralus85

I still dont understand how it can be region coded for a year then not be. How does it unlock its region coding?

It doesn't. Only new presses of the disc will then be region free. The old ones will always contain region coding.

[cueman98]

Originally Posted by lateralus85

I still dont understand how it can be region coded for a year then not be. How does it unlock its region coding?

Any new pressings of a disc will be "region free" after 1 year. A disc that is bought today that is "region locked" will always be. But any new pressing of that discs after 1 year will be made "region free"

[lateralus85]

Well I just bought that NIN blu ray dvd because according to this website given here

http://bluray.liesinc.net/

It will play on region B ps3. But the dvd is Region A

[Zyclone]

hey lateralus85 welcome to the forums , as i fellow aussie i understand your wallets pain my small advice is you for aussie releases try online stores such ezydvd.com.au or JB HIFI they are always going to be cheaper then walk in stores. you can get most $45+ movies from online aussies for under $40 easily.

[lateralus85]

Yo Zyclone, thanks. Yeh I know of those 2 stores and they are still pretty expensive. I am still worried about this NIN blu ray that I ordered. It clearly says Region A but according to this site and others that blu ray dvd is actually region free. But it could be older stock which means it wont work.