Back To The Future Trilogy UK Blu-Ray Set - Will It Play In US Players? (1 Viewer)

[spookcentral]

I've read online (in many places) that it's region-free, but I can't find anything about whether it's NTSC or PAL. I've read that the UK set has been repurposed for release in Mexico, where NTSC is the video format, so I'm thinking that the UK set might be NTSC. However, PAL is the prevalent format in the UK, so I don't know what to think. Can anyone who owns the UK set, and is preferably in the US, tell me if all of the video content on the three discs (movies and ALL bonus features) will play on an American Region A player. Thanks.

 

[cafink]

Blu-rays are neither NTSC nor PAL. It's a worldwide standard. You still have to be concerned about region coding (but there are a lot of region free Blu-ray discs; I don't know whether Back to the Future is or not, though), and some Blu-ray discs contain standard-def extras in NTSC or PAL. But you shouldn't have any problem playing back the main feature.

 

[Worth]

Originally Posted by cafink

Blu-rays are neither NTSC nor PAL. It's a worldwide standard. You still have to be concerned about region coding (but there are a lot of region free Blu-ray discs; I don't know whether Back to the Future is or not, though), and some Blu-ray discs contain standard-def extras in NTSC or PAL. But you shouldn't have any problem playing back the main feature.

Generally true, but not always. A few European discs are encoded as 1080i/50, which many North American players can't handle. Also, many blu-ray players don't accept a PAL signal at all, which can be a problem if there are PAL menus or trailers - even if the main feature is 1080p/24 or 1080p/60, these machines won't be able to play the discs.

 

[cafink]

I didn't realize that, thanks for the correction.

 

[Ferdinand Hudson]

To get right to the point, the UK BttF blu-ray is perfectly fine to play on US machines. Firstly, Universal's blu-ray releases are region-free so you are all set in that regard.


Secondly, the major studios (Universal, Warner, Sony, Fox, Paramount) don't do PAL-formatted extras on their releases so they are 480i regardless if they are sold in the US, UK, Sweden or you name it. As long as the distributor isn't some local company for that country/region you will have very few if any worries regarding PAL-formatted SD extras.

 

[Charles Smith]

This probably reflects yet another gross lack of understanding on my part, but if extras aren't PAL-formatted, how do people over there watch them? Or do you not mean DVD extras ... ?

 

[Worth]

European blu-ray players handle all flavours of HD formats and SD formats (PAL, SECAM and NTSC). Unfortunately, most North American players don't.

 

[Ferdinand Hudson]

Originally Posted by Chas in CT

European blu-ray players handle all flavours of HD formats and SD formats (PAL, SECAM and NTSC). Unfortunately, most North American players don't.

As Worth said, blu-ray players sold here (as well as DVD players) can easily handle NTSC signals and not even needing to convert to PAL. TV sets have been multistandard as well for a couple of decades so we don't have the same issues playing NTSC material the way you have with PAL.

 

[spookcentral]

To get right to the point, the UK BttF blu-ray is perfectly fine to play on US machines. Firstly, Universal's blu-ray releases are region-free so you are all set in that regard.



Secondly, the major studios (Universal, Warner, Sony, Fox, Paramount) don't do PAL-formatted extras on their releases so they are 480i regardless if they are sold in the US, UK, Sweden or you name it. As long as the distributor isn't some local company for that country/region you will have very few if any worries regarding PAL-formatted SD extras.

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for putting my worries to rest. The whole NTSC/PAL nonsense is the whole reason why I don't buy import DVDs, except for a few from NTSC areas like Japan (and the two I have are bonus discs that came with video game soundtrack audio CDs). Region coding isn't much of a problem anymore - worst case, I make a region-free DVD-R copy - but the different NTSC and PAL formats presents a huge problem. I know practically nothing in regards to Blu-ray and NTSC/PAL, so I figured that the best thing to do would be to get advice from the more-knowledgeable people here on the forum. After seeing pictures online and reading reviews of the horrible US BTTF packaging and plain-looking discs, I'm dipping my feet into the waters of Blu-ray import buying just to get the UK set. If it wouldn't be so overpriced on eBay, I would even get the set in the tin case with pack-in bonus items. Why Universal didn't feel that was worth releasing in the US, is beyond me.

European blu-ray players handle all flavours of HD formats and SD formats (PAL, SECAM and NTSC). Unfortunately, most North American players don't.

Reading that makes me miffed that we North American citizens don't have players capable of handling multiple video formats. I'm sure there are some out there if you know where to look - think "black market" - but I doubt that I could get one in any major electronics store.

 

[Marko Berg]

To clarify further, no disc media released anywhere has ever been encoded in SECAM which is an analogue broadcast format. All DVDs released outside NTSC markets are in PAL format.

 

[Ferdinand Hudson]

Originally Posted by Marko Berg

To clarify further, no disc media released anywhere has ever been encoded in SECAM which is an analogue broadcast format. All DVDs released outside NTSC markets are in PAL format.

Although there has been SECAM VHS tapes, not that I have come across them myself but then I'm in PAL territory.

 

[cafink]

One thing that has really surprised me about the Blu-ray format is that it's actually much easier to import discs from around the world than it was with DVD. Since they don't use NTSC/PAL for the main feature, that's rarely an issue, and even though Blu-ray supports region coding, it has fewer regions than DVD (and specifically, puts the US in the same region as Japan, which is known for high-quality video products, and from which I've imported a lot of DVDs), and something like half the major studios don't even bother with region-coding their disc. This is a lot different than the recent trend of increasingly restricting where and how consumers can use the media they purchase, and I'm thankful for it.

 

[rayman1701]

Originally Posted by cafink

One thing that has really surprised me about the Blu-ray format is that it's actually much easier to import discs from around the world than it was with DVD. This is a lot different than the recent trend of increasingly restricting where and how consumers can use the media they purchase, and I'm thankful for it.

Totally agree!! Who would have thought that with the (potentially, since it doesn't always happen) better picture & sound, that we'd end up with more buying options. That seems to never happen.

 

[Ferdinand Hudson]

While Blu-ray and 1080p/24 have pretty much done away with that type of restrictions some smaller distributors around Europe and Australia have a nasty habit of occasionally using HD transfers of theatrical movies intended for TV broadcast for their BD releases (and in certain cases also have had their ratios changed from 2.35:1 to 1.78:1). Unless you have a BD-player and TV capable of showing 1080i/50 material then receiving one of those may not be the greatest experience after taking time, effort and money to import. Among the known offenders are Entertainment in Video (UK), Noble Entertainment (Sweden), SME (Norway), Future Film (Finland), Scanbox (Scandinavia), Atlantic Film (Scandinavia) and Icon (Australia) to name a few. There are threads on other boards that highlight this issue. Some slight restraint before you put an item in your cart and hit "Pay" is still recommended. Never hurts to look up online reviews or check sites like Blu-ray Region Code Info for information regarding playability issues.

 

[spookcentral]

One thing that has really surprised me about the Blu-ray format is that it's actually much easier to import discs from around the world than it was with DVD. Since they don't use NTSC/PAL for the main feature, that's rarely an issue, and even though Blu-ray supports region coding, it has fewer regions than DVD (and specifically, puts the US in the same region as Japan, which is known for high-quality video products, and from which I've imported a lot of DVDs), and something like half the major studios don't even bother with region-coding their disc. This is a lot different than the recent trend of increasingly restricting where and how consumers can use the media they purchase, and I'm thankful for it.

That's definitely giving me something to think about. I might do more Blu-ray importing if I find the U.S. releases not to my liking, or non-existent in some cases Right not the only imported Blu-rays I have are from Canada, which I don't really consider to be imports since it's the same region and video format - and we all know that Canada is really just another one of the U.S. Territories, like Puerto Rico and Guam. I kid, I kid. I got these Canadian Blu-rays from, of all places, my local Pathmark supermarket. They have a pretty large DVD section - pretty large for a supermarket, that is - and just started carrying Blu-rays last September. They're all from Canada, and priced between $8.99 and $14.99. I have to put up with English/French packaging in most cases, but that doesn't bother me much anymore. The only thing I have to worry about, and I check DVDCompare.net if I have doubts, are instances where the Canadian disc has less bonus features than the US disc. I make it a point not to buy those titles, which includes movies like Lost In Space and Seven.

While Blu-ray and 1080p/24 have pretty much done away with that type of restrictions some smaller distributors around Europe and Australia have a nasty habit of occasionally using HD transfers of theatrical movies intended for TV broadcast for their BD releases (and in certain cases also have had their ratios changed from 2.35:1 to 1.78:1). Unless you have a BD-player and TV capable of showing 1080i/50 material then receiving one of those may not be the greatest experience after taking time, effort and money to import. Among the known offenders are Entertainment in Video (UK), Noble Entertainment (Sweden), SME (Norway), Future Film (Finland), Scanbox (Scandinavia), Atlantic Film (Scandinavia) and Icon (Australia) to name a few. There are threads on other boards that highlight this issue. Some slight restraint before you put an item in your cart and hit "Pay" is still recommended. Never hurts to look up online reviews or check sites like Blu-ray Region Code Info for information regarding playability issues.

I appreciate that you shared that information. If/when I decided to do more Blu-ray importing, this information will be very helpful in telling me what I should avoid.

 

[James Luckard]

There are quite a few brand-name DVD players that will play multi-region and can be found in regular stores. Most Phillips players, for example. You usually just need to enter a code to unlock the region programming, super simple.


I'm not so familiar with Blu-Ray players because, frankly, I've yet to encounter a Blu-Ray I wanted from a foreign country that wouldn't play on a normal American player, so I haven't investigated the issue.

Originally Posted by spookcentral

Reading that makes me miffed that we North American citizens don't have players capable of handling multiple video formats. I'm sure there are some out there if you know where to look - think "black market" - but I doubt that I could get one in any major electronics store.

 

[Ferdinand Hudson]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

There are quite a few brand-name DVD players that will play multi-region and can be found in regular stores. Most Phillips players, for example. You usually just need to enter a code to unlock the region programming, super simple.


I'm not so familiar with Blu-Ray players because, frankly, I've yet to encounter a Blu-Ray I wanted from a foreign country that wouldn't play on a normal American player, so I haven't investigated the issue.

Those codes will only work for playing DVDs other than Region 1 on your blu-ray players, not blu-ray discs region encoded for Regions B or C. So, not so simple after all.

 

[spookcentral]

Just wanted to write in to let everyone know that the Back To The Future U.K. set I ordered on eBay arrived in the mail today. It only cost me $42.26 (with free shipping), which makes it on par, if not cheaper than the US set - depending on where you buy the US set, of course. The seller, "gradedexchange", has more copies available (http://cgi.ebay.com/360327408704/), but as of right now, he bumped up the price to $48.99 (with free shipping), so I'm glad I got my order in at the right time last week. Anyway, I didn't really watch anything yet, but I popped in the first disc to make sure it played without any problems. I'm happy to report, like Ferdinand Hudson said, the movie and what few special features I checked so far all played beautifully. I didn't check anything on Discs 2 and 3 yet, but I can't imagine there being any problems. The back of the case DOES state that the special features are "1080i/p & 480i/p", so as long as that's the case, I know there won't be any problems with anything I haven't checked yet I am curious about one thing, and THIS QUESTION IS DIRECTED TO ANYONE WHO OWNS THE U.S. BACK TO THE FUTURE TRILOGY SET: When disc 1 boots up, is there a screen to select the menu language; and if yes, what is the language listed at the top? Also, for the movie audio languages, what is on audio track #1, and if it isn't English, which audio track houses the English audio? The reason I ask is because the first menu language option is Japanese, with English being number two; and the first two movie audio tracks are Japanese (5.1 and 2.0) with the original English audio being track #3 (thankfully it's the default). Since this set was made for an English speaking country, I find it odd that Japanese would get the first slots instead of English.

 

[Marko Berg]

While I don't own the US set... I ordered my set from Amazon.co.uk directly (not from a third-party merchant seller) and I can say with absolute certainty that my set is not a pirated copy. The set was made not only for an English-speaking country. The authoring of the discs is the same in various countries, only the disc art and the packaging differ.


My discs behave as you describe. A language selection menu is shown first (this is standard on many Universal discs intended for European distribution, not just BTTF). Selecting a language will show the copyright warnings in that language and set the film subtitle option for convenience. In the case of the BTTF, English is the default spoken language, located exactly halfway through the list with two other language options above it and two below. I think this is, again, for convenience's sake to avoid users having to scroll through a lengthy list.

 

[spookcentral]

Thanks for the confirmation, Marko. I still find it a bit odd that, just from the perspective of the film's original language, English isn't listed first for both menu language selection and movie audio tracks. At least the English menu language item is near the top and not WAY down the list. And the original English audio is selected by default. So I'm not complaining. I was just curious. Oh, and, yes, my set is an original, too, and not pirated. Kudos to the Universal UK art department for the great packaging. They can teach the US Universal art department a thing or two. I love the shiny effect on the cover. Simple, but very cool. Nice fold-out digipack with lots more artwork on both sides, artwork on the discs, and no useless digital copy discs to get in the way. And no need to read instructions to learn how to take discs in and out of the case. Hey Universal US - If you have to give out instructions to your customers telling them how to use your DVD/Blu-ray packaging, then it's a clear sign that your packaging failed.