Blu-ray region coding - infuriating and ridiculous

I empathise 100% Jonathan, and have long felt that region coding of discs is an absurd infringement of consumer rights.

Just wondered whether you've ever successfully played Region A discs on the Sony's in the past ?  I used to have a hacked player, but when I bought it the friendly dealer explained he could only hack the DVD playback and not the blu-ray side, which proved to be the case.  Possibly this was true in your case too, so it may or may not have been firmware that over-wrote it.....

There are ways to rip blu-rays, and some threads on here go into detail on how to do so, but most (maybe all) require some hardware/software investment.  I have used a vortexbox to do so before, but it's a temperamental beast.  I've now settled on an Oppo player, and the "EU" models handle all regions so the problem has gone away for me.

On a practical level for you -  and without condoning anything not strictly above aboard  ;-)  -  you have paid your actor and production royalties already, so go ahead and do as you suggested.  I buy stacks of discs every year, but locational circumstance often means I have no choice but to do likewise....

Just sorry the fine food and wine went to waste that evening.  Be curious to hear and discuss your thoughts on the movie, as & when......

Almost certainly your player is hacked for multiregion on DVD only Jonathan. I've an Oppo player also and it can play multiregion Blurays but I believe this facility is unusual. I've never seen it offered on anything other than Oppo players.

I do agree it's pretty annoying to have this stupid regional coding but thankfully most Bluray discs, unlike their DVD equivalents, tend not to have regional coding.

it's pretty easy to rip Blurays and DVDs, all you need is a suitable drive & (for PCs) a copy of Slysoft's "Any DVD HD", which works perfectly. However, I do prefer to play the disks themselves than mess about with ripping.

Jonathan,

I sympathise. I spend quite a bit of my time in Canada and quite often find that I have brought North American DVDs or Blu-Ray DVDs back here and vice versa. Its a right pain having to buy two versions of some things in the first place.

Now my Panasonic and Pioneer DVD players will play Standard DVDs from both Regions, but they won't play Blu-Ray DVDs from the wrong regions.

A quick look at the Oppo site (try HiFi Lounge) suggests that you can get the Oppo 105 "hacked" to play multi REGION standard DVDs and multi ZONE Blu-ray DVDS

I'm not sure if other players can be chipped to play Multi Zone Blu-Ray DVDs. Might be worth a call to HiFi Lounge

To Tony above,

You mention a "suitable" drive is required.  Is it not the case that most, maybe all, computer-type optical drives are region restricted (whether on-board or USB style) ?  They tend to offer 5 attempts to change region then lock into that permanently.  Have things changed, ie are there USB blu-ray drives available which are region free ?  Or does Slysoft itself hack the drive to overcome the problem ?

Cheers for your insight,

K

Slysoft completely bypasses the computer's ability to differentiate between regions. Just pop a disk in (I use an old internal LG BluRay drive from a PC that I've mounted in an enclosure) and in a few seconds Slysoft, which runs in the background, pops up a window telling you the disk has been stripped of its copy protection and region coding.

Protectionism in any form sucks for consumers - well, for anyone other than the protected, really.

I use a PC for Blu-ray playback with Slysot's AnyDVD on it for this reason. I've lived in three different DVD/BD regions, so I've got stuff from all over the place. If someone thinks I'm a threat to the media industry they have to be completely mad.

Many thx Tony.

Pretty clear that everyone feels quite strongly about this issue.  Although there are evidently ways round it (with some effort) that doesn't alter the fact it shouldn't happen in the first place.  Given that its most unlikely anyone would buy a blu-ray twice (in different region codes), its hard to see what even the labels themselves have to gain from the whole process......

This. The people most inconvenienced tend to be those people who travel or move a lot, and who are BUYING more than the average amount of media.

Illegal downloaders and pirates? They're not inconvenienced in the slightest by this bu!!$!+. 

And when did the media companies also decide that it was good thing to make the legal purchasers of their products sit through un-skippable warnings and lectures? Oh that's right. it's always been that way. And don't get me started on un-skippable trailers. Whenever I try to skip and get that "illegal function" error message I want to throw something at the TV.

I'm sure you already know this, but the 'reason' for regional coding AFAICS is because the film companies don't release simultaneously in all regions.  About time they did IMO.

Region coding is infuriating to me for 2 reasons :

1. Some items only appear in one region (e.g. Bluray version of The Fifth Element, which is not available for the UK region)

2. Difference between PAL and NTSC.  I am one of those unfortunates (?) who can hear the 4% too speed increase.  Doesn't matter a damn for most films,  but can make music DVDs occasionally almost unlistenable.  Hence I tend to buy my music DVDs as R1 discs.

That's why I own an Oppo hacked to be region free for bluray and DVD.

Incidentally, Winky, I know what you mean about trailers, adverts etc.  Luckily on my Oppo I can usually skip them by using the 'next scene' button on the remote.

Dungassin's right.  Film studios make money from selling cinema seats as well as the subsequent sales of DVDs and Blurays.  Studios typically stagger a film's release date across different major international markets so that actors can do local publicity tours just before release in each market. So, say, a studio might release a film in the US in Sept, Europe in Feb and Asia in June. If the format of the discs were the same around the world by the time the discs were released in the US consumers in Europe and Asia could buy or rent it around the same time the film was being released in their region. That would undermine attendance at the cinemas and hit studios' profits.  

Pain-in-the-arse for us consumers but rational in economic terms.  

It would be better if they did a month of solid promotion in all markets while holding back for a simultaneous world wide release. By the time they release into the secondary markets in the usual way, plenty of folks have already downloaded illegal copies anyway. 

The studios are still losing out. 

Well, they certainly lose out as regards cinema seats as applies to yours truly.  I gave up going to the cinema years ago.  Got fed up of the idiots using phones, talking, eating noisily etc etc.  Not to mention the fact that my bladder would probably make me miss a bit in the middle of any film.  That's the beauty of watching at home - no interruptions, and I can pause it while I go to the loo!

Also - a DVD/Bluray is often cheaper than 2 cinema tickets (well, SWMBO wouldn't let me leave her at home, would she?)

Last film we saw at the cinema was Gravity which the best use of 3D I've seen so far. Spent a small fortune on the home set up so making the best use of it and slowly building up a decent Blu-ray collection courtesy of Sainburys home entertainment section. Just picked up Wolverine for £10 which is way cheaper than 2 cinema tickets!

And the relative low cost of DVDs/Blurays as compared to taking the family to the cinema is why the studios would prefer to maximise their profits from that source before releasing the film on disc.  

Of course this is also why CDs are universal: the label companies get no revenue from the gigs/concerts the artists perform.