Universal Region B release

[alphadec]

Willl there be any difrence in the discs that Universal will release on Region A to the same titels on Region B.

If you look on a films like The Thing on the Region A release it will have Live-BD. Willl this also be included on the region B release. ?

[quexos]

I certainly hope so. So far BD-Live features have not appeared in European releases but this has better change or lots of sales will be skipped.

[2099net]

So far, only Heroes and Doomsday have been released. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is out tomorrow, and some people will have a copy of that already.

However, I only have Heroes S2, and in the UK at least, the discs are the US discs, even down to the US FBI copyright warning rather than the European Non-Branded or Interpol one. So they should be 100% the same. I also suspect most UK Universal discs will be the same as their US releases.

It's not unusual for companies to do this. Some Warner BDs in the UK are clearly marked with initials NA/UK/EU, or variations of, and Paramount's UK HD DVDs were the same discs as their US releases.

Oddly, on HD DVD, Universal did make European discs, and often had 6-8 soundtracks on them and as many as 16 subtitle tracks! These were released in the UK as well as mainland Europe. So I don't know what happened with Heroes S2!

However, I doubt all of Europe will get the same discs for Heroes S2, as the UK ones only have a spoken English soundtrack and English, Spanish and French subtitles. So non-UK Universal discs may have different supplements.

[alphadec]

Reason I ask this question is that I see now that Universal is going to start to release most of their BD in europe. And the movie I am waiting for is the thing. But on region B they have no extras but if u look at the region A they have some extra including BD-Live so u can get extra content.

[Sky_Captain]

I'd say that it's far too early to worry about the UK release not getting the same extras. UK distributors are a joke at getting accurate specs out into the wild. I'm not buying The Thing at all, as the 80min doc appears to be missing. If you're that bothered about the BD-Live, just buy the US disc as Universal are Region Free.

[Russell22]

I have the U.K Heroes s2 boxset and there are no FBI titles on mine at all.

[Russell22]

I hope the 80 Min doc on The Thing isn't missing? It was on the HD-DVD disc so should be on the Blu-Ray..if it isnt i'll be seriously cheesed off..Im not bothered about BD-Live stuff..that too me is just a gimmick that people will tire of. But i hope all the features which were originally on the DVD are ported over.

[2099net]

Originally Posted by Russell22

I have the U.K Heroes s2 boxset and there are no FBI titles on mine at all.

Yes there is, just before the disclaimer about commentary liability. It only plays the first time you select an episode on a disc, not when the disc is first inserted.

[Sky_Captain]

Originally Posted by Russell22

I hope the 80 Min doc on The Thing isn't missing? It was on the HD-DVD disc so should be on the Blu-Ray..if it isnt i'll be seriously cheesed off..Im not bothered about BD-Live stuff..that too me is just a gimmick that people will tire of. But i hope all the features which were originally on the DVD are ported over.

It isn't. Not unless it's being put on as part on the U-Control.

[2099net]

Just to add I got my Forgetting Sarah Marshall today and even without opening the packet I can tell its the same disc as the US as it only lists English, Canadian French and Latin American Spanish as the soundtracks and subtitle tracks.

[johnno1986]

So they'll be like all region B Warner Bros. Blu-ray movies. With American warnings, etc. Like the region B 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'. It say's 'Philosopher's Stone' on the packaging but 'Sorcerer's Stone' on the disc and in the movie they say Sorcerer's stone. Cheeses me off.

[2099net]

I know most UK Warner discs (both HD DVD at the time and Blu-ray) were the American discs. They don't particularly hide this fact, as the disc art normally has NA/UK/EU (or variations) printed on it. For example 10,000 BC has a "NA/UK" on the disc art (but still no movie title! Even though the target audience all have English as their first language!)

However, when they were HD DVD Universal used to make specific European (and even Global) discs, often full of soundtracks (up to 8!) and subtitles (up to 18!) I'm not sure why they don't appear to be doing this now for their Blu-ray releases.

[Russell22]

This was posted as a review off of Amazon by someone. It explains some issues with the confusion over the special features. Hope this helps....




The movie has already been released in HD at the same 1080p resolution the Blu-ray will have, so the transfer should be of similar quality. The HD transfer is very good, with strong color and good detail and sharpness, definitely improved over the standard DVD. The sound will be English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, with French DTS 5.1. There will be English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitles.

There has been some confusion over the special features announced for this release, but Universal has said in its promotional material that it will include the extra material from the current DVD. First, here are the special features announced in the main press release:

-- audio commentary with star Kurt Russell and director John Carpenter
-- U Control Picture in Picture
-- U Control tutorial
-- BD-Live

The fact that none of the old extras was listed except for the commentary has led to speculation that they'll be incorporated into the Picture in Picture (PIP) feature, which has been done with some of Universal's other recent Blu-ray releases. That could mean that some of the features, such as the 84-minute making-of documentary, will be chopped up to play with certain parts of the movie. Or it could mean that the PIP feature will be more flexible than it has been before, or maybe they just didn't announce all the separate features separately. In any case, we have their word that they'll be there. Just as a reminder of what those old features are, here are the other special features that are on the standard DVD that should be included in some fashion on this one:

-- John Carpenter's The Thing: Terror Takes Shape documentary
-- outtakes
-- deleted stop-motion animation
-- work-in-progress visual effects footage
-- behind-the-scenes location footage
-- behind-the-scenes photos
-- storyboard and conceptual art
-- annotated production archive
-- original theatrical trailer

Again, those are the old features, which Universal has implied will be on the Blu-ray.

[stargazeruk]

Universal UK when it was HD DVD did there own disks and encodes and did not use the US disks at all. For blu-ray so far from what I seen they have used the US disks.

Paramount HD DVD used the same as the US when was HD DVD and still is for blu-ray from what I seen so far.

Warner UK uses the same disks as the US

Fox I see mostly use simular specs from the US but seem to do their own encodes and have different languages. I got devil wears parada and the UK disks was region (A B C on the disk and box) and encoded in H264 and not MPEG2.

Sony in EU seem to use simular specs to US but have different languages