http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/ Engadget Comments for First region free Blu-ray players available http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/Jun 26th 2008 10:55AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/
For Blu-ray, there's BD+, which will allow pretty much every disc to include code to say "Is this one of the BD players that has a region-free hack for it, and if so has this player been altered? Oh yes it has, shut it down". And, joy of joys, this'll mean BD+ will be on even more discs, which will increase the amount of content where you have a random chance of seeing it play on your player.

They - the technology side of the BD group - should have done what the HD DVD people did: realize region encoding is yet another inane scheme that causes more harm than good, and kept it out of Blu-ray. Unfortunately the Blu-ray people were too keen to "win" against HD DVD and ended up giving Hollywood pretty much everything they wanted, knowing full well it'd damage the experience for end-users. So we have BD+, and we still have region encoding.

This is one major reason why I don't like Sony.]]>Jun 26th 2008 1:28PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/
Does Blu-ray require content providers to put a region code on a disc? If I wanted to release a movie on Blu-ray would I be forced to release 3 versions if I didn't want to?]]>Jun 26th 2008 3:25PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/
The two formats really ended up trying to appeal by going in radically different directions. HD DVD tried to be as versatile as possible, both to create a platform that allowed publishers to add a lot of value to each disk and make it a genuine step-up from DVD in every area, not just quality, and also creating a platform that would neatly scale well when the inevitable transfer from hard media to downloads would come about.

Blu-ray focussed on copy-control issues, listening to Hollywood's concerns that HD meant the death of cinema and, thus, that piracy would invade every area of revenue, not just DVD sales which are little more than sugar in terms of how you build revenue to fund a movie. The problem, for me, is that Blu-ray went too far. Things that should have been mandatory - such as managed copy - were made optional. Things that should be optional - such as AACS - were made mandatory. Options were given to publishers that can and will cause hardship for customers. Essentially, the only way Blu-ray - in its present form - can work is if everyone buys the PS3 and no other model of Blu-ray player, because it's safe to say Hollywood will always make BD+ work with the most popular player.

So, in practical terms, until the online systems are settled and standardized, there's no reliable HD media format available right now that everyone supports. And that's a crying shame.

Region-free players? Prepare for everything to get worse before it gets better. About the best we can hope for now is for things to get so bad, they'll be forced to announce "Blu-ray lite", with the excesses of the access controls removed, at some point in the near future.]]>Jun 27th 2008 10:49AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/Jun 26th 2008 11:02AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/@Nfinity

Region locks lost you the studios and subsequently the format war. How's that working out for you now?

Also, please post a list of movies we can't see in the USA region that anyone would want. I'm actually curious about what I'm missing.]]>Jun 26th 2008 8:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/I love japanese horror films like Ringu, Ringu 2, Raisen, Ringu 0: Birthday and Korean horror films like Cellphone. Not to mention, there are those people out there who are anime fans whom might like anime in hd.

Some of those may likely never be released locally in North America in hd in the original language. I'm sure the hollywood remakes or heavily cut/editing hd versions might be released. You know like Sailor Moon where they changed Lesbian sailor scouts into 'cousins' who are 'close' and 'hug alot'.]]>Jun 26th 2008 9:48PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/
€500 is £395 or $786.

That's a hell of a lot of money for a region free DVD player no matter what res it can work to
(and IIRC the DVD upscaled playback is nothing to get excited over either......and yes this is still important as the DVD catalogue will still be vastly greater than Blu-rays can ever possibly be for years to come).

In short, once again, we're seeing nothing to interest or trouble the a/v mass-market.]]>Jun 26th 2008 11:34AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/Jun 26th 2008 11:41AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/
Hmmmm, where all the complaint & outraged posters about that, huh?

Pathetic.

What's up dave, does it take the 'gloss' off of the article if someone dares to put up the prices in the various currencies so everyone can see how outrageously over-priced this is?

LMAO]]>Jun 26th 2008 1:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/
Largely because we have a market now extremely well & long used to disc media and players at a tiny fraction of this price.

No-one cares about your whine which boils down (as usual) to a fanboy rant in 'support' of the CE corp(s) & format you claim 'love' for.

.....oh, and not forgetting your laughably predictable pathetic mewing.

LMAO]]>Jun 26th 2008 1:56PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/
News at 11! Old established technology is cheaper than new technology! Technology adoption curve proven!

Can your arguments get any more stupid? A device costs what it costs. The manufacturer and retailer slaps a margin on top of that. The tax man slaps a tax on top of that. The result is the price it sells to the consumer. As economies of scale kick in and production becomes cheaper and competition intensifiesso the price lowers to the consumer.

I just demonstrated to baby that DVD players were expensive in their time, yet they are cheap now, illustrating perfectly how this works in practice. A DVD player I bought this Christmas from Lidl cost less than 1/10th of my original DVD player.

Of course in baby's lalala-land, every manufacturer should heavily subsidize the player from the get-go, incur a substantial loss, and the retailer should mark them down to firesale prices just to clear them out of stock. Sound familiar?

Grow up baby, your precious format lost.]]>Jun 26th 2008 2:23PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/
All you did there was write a little justification for your sucking up & believing anything 'the industry' cares to throw at you.

The world has moved on, the market has moved on and my comments about this price-tag are right on the money.

A €500/ £395/ $786 DVD player will not be troubling the a/v mass-market anytime soon.

I know it, you know it (tho you obviously can't bear to admit it) and everybody else knows it.

Do keep up the risible & pathetic attempt to hide behind HD DVD and your laughably feeble jibes
(it's actually you being led by the nose, not that you'd ever notice, fool). ]]>Jun 26th 2008 9:09PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/Jun 29th 2008 1:26AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/Jun 26th 2008 12:31PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/Jun 26th 2008 1:02PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/Jun 26th 2008 1:17PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/I would definitely be interested in this if I didn't already have two BD players.]]>Jun 26th 2008 1:22PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/Jun 26th 2008 1:25PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/
First of all, great, you import, I included you in the caveat. Didn't apply to you.

Second, Tim implied by my avatar that my blu-ray preference somehow invalidates my question, hence, he took the first shot and I took the liberty to retort.

Take it like this. Region Coding protects to some degree the publishers rights to control how a film is distributed in a world market. They have the absolute right to do so. And for the very vast majority of consumers, this has no effect on them whatsoever. Only a small sliver of consumers have a legitimate reason to be free of region coding, importing for example.

Now, for this sliver of users, it may be worth (or not worth it to the distributors) to make is easy. They may see you as such a very small niche market that's not worth it. They may also decide to open up regions to make it easier. That is their call. But it all amounts to how much cost and revenue is involved. They want to sell movie tickets first then discs. So if they think it will cost box office $$$ then they will not make it easy for different regions to share movies....plain and simple.]]>Jun 26th 2008 1:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/
I'm a European and I do play DVD imports and so do others, although most of my import collection is from the early days. In the last 5 years there isn't much point to importing, especially as most delivery companies will helpfully invoice you the import duty on top of the store prices.

I expect my BD usage will be similar to DVD - imports during the early days and domestic later. Approximately 50% of region A titles are actually region free so I'm selectively purchasing import titles. Once the EU market matures and stops charging stupid money I will probably just buy the local disks. Places like Play.com are already fairly reasonable but they've got further to drop yet.

]]>Jun 26th 2008 2:11PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/
Example: Equilibrium. If you're looking for it in HD, it's only available from Japan in HD DVD. If it had been released there in Blu-Ray, it might or might not have been region encoded. If it were, then those of us that really wanted it in hi-def would still be waiting for Miramax (Disney) to publish it over here.

IMHO, even if blu-ray were region free, it would have meant a lot less than it could have for hd dvd until blu capacity ramped up. ]]>Jun 28th 2008 12:43PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/Jun 28th 2008 3:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/Jun 26th 2008 1:47PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/Jun 26th 2008 1:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/Jun 26th 2008 1:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/
So you're striking out left and right here TT. Might be time to just let it die....]]>Jun 26th 2008 2:13PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/Jun 26th 2008 6:29PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/A lot of companies backed it for a few reasons. They basically weighed the cons like no region coding with the positives:

A. Easy to market as hd-dvd just sounded like successor of dvd.

B. Low price points on hardware. Cheaper initial prices on hardware units, continued lower prices on hardware. I mean, remember that $99.00 black friday hd-dvd sale LAST YEAR? A year later and I have never seen a blu-ray player on sale for $99.99. I wish I had.

C. Cheaper prices on hardware means a potential for a larger install base. A larger install base has potential for more unit sales on discs. More disc sales equates to more profit. Companies like profit.

D. Finished spec on all players so movies released 5 years into hd-dvd's lifespan(if it wasn't dead) would work on players bought the first day. Where as blu-ray hardware has become outdated by newer specs such that there's a possibility 5 years from now that new blu-ray disc might not play on your day-1 player. You could need to buy another blu-ray disc.

E. There are other reasons too which people like Truth Teller could list off for you.

These are just a few of the potential advantages hd-dvd might have had over blu-ray and there were its cons to. Don't get my wrong, hd-dvd wasn't perfect. Like the probability/chance, some blu-ray exclusive studios were likely to never switch camp sides such as Sony Pictures.

Overall though when companies weighed the pros and cons, there were sufficent pros and chance for profit that companies decided to invest their sources in the hd-dvd format. So region coding must not have been that much of a priority to them.]]>Jun 26th 2008 9:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/Plz fix reply system. Thanks.]]>Jun 26th 2008 9:59PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/first-region-free-blu-ray-players-available/
a) HD DVD is an amazingly simple name for people to get. Everyone knows what a DVD is, so an "HD" DVD must be a DVD in HD. What the hell is a Blu Ray disc? I'm sure the BDA is constantly struggling to explain without accidentally calling it an HD DVD.

b) Toshiba massively subsidized their players. They weren't cheaper to make. If you think about it both formats have virtually identically requirements to output 1080p24/25/30, decode AVC & VC-1, read from blue-violet laser diodes, show interactive content. HD DVD players only sold so cheap from sheer desperation by Toshiba. You'll see $99 BD players when somebody can make a profit selling them at that price. I wouldn't be surprised if it happens in a couple of years. For now content yourself with the $200 barrier which will be broken by at least one player this Christmas.

c) Potentially, but as Toshiba found out, it didn't work out that way. Blu Ray standalones consistently outsold HD DVD even at marked down prices. Maybe they should have been working on the early adopters instead of appealing to the mass market which wasn't ready for the format yet.

d) All blu ray discs from now until the format dies will play on a 1.0 player. I'm not ruling out some quality control goof which means issues occur but you'd be fully in your rights to demand a replacement disk. As for HD DVD being "finalized", no it wasn't. The HD DVD specification was tagged version 1.0. The implication being there could have been more. Issues could have also arisen if the HD DVD spec was ambiguous in places and had to be revised to 1.1 to address those issues. This happens all the time with specs (e.g. HTML, bluetooth, USB etc.)

e) Truth Teller is an idiot with a track record of being consistently wrong about everything. If you want to argue rationally you would do well to steer clear of everything he says.

I think at the end of the day, both formats are so much of a muchness, that it wouldn't have mattered greatly which had won. Both formats had more in common than things that separated them. But in the end it was Blu Ray and that's the world we now live in. ]]>Jun 27th 2008 7:48AM