Bionic Woman BD Turbine (1 Viewer)

[HubbaBubbaKid]

Hey guys and gals , i ordered the Bionic Woman BD —(SD on Blu Ray) from Turbine and i cant get it to play the episodes. it will get to the menu but once you hit play on an episode it pauses then highlights the next episode. every disc does this. i was told this and the SMDM set was region free. i ordered both from Amazon germany and the SMDM set plays great but this is doing what i described. i immediately thought it was bc it was region locked but everything i‘ve researched about region locked sets say that you can’t play the disc at all, there will be a warning saying its incompatible , is that not correct? i don’t have a region free player so i can’t test it to see if that’s the problem. whats weird is that both sets say region B on them but the Bionic Woman also says PAL , is it a PAL compatibility issue? i know that sometimes some companies have descriptions on the sets that don’t align with what the actual product is -like the SMDM set and i just wanted to make sure its not a manufacturers defect before i get a region free player. i emailed Turbine and am waiting on a response. any help would be greatly appreciated. —frankie

 

[smithbrad]

No, it does not sound like a region code issue since you wouldn't get to the menu. The PAL part could definitely be an issue. It sounds like SMDM might be NTSC while BW was only available in PAL. Most TV's in the US do not support PAL. It may come down to whether your player can convert on the fly. Many of the cheap Phillips DVD players do, but it could be your blu-ray player can't for blu-rays.

 

[B-ROLL]

Hey guys and gals , i ordered the Bionic Woman BD —(SD on Blu Ray) from Turbine and i cant get it to play the episodes. it will get to the menu but once you hit play on an episode it pauses then highlights the next episode. every disc does this. i was told this and the SMDM set was region free. i ordered both from Amazon germany and the SMDM set plays great but this is doing what i described. i immediately thought it was bc it was region locked but everything i‘ve researched about region locked sets say that you can’t play the disc at all, there will be a warning saying its incompatible , is that not correct? i don’t have a region free player so i can’t test it to see if that’s the problem. whats weird is that both sets say region B on them but the Bionic Woman also says PAL , is it a PAL compatibility issue? i know that sometimes some companies have descriptions on the sets that don’t align with what the actual product is -like the SMDM set and i just wanted to make sure its not a manufacturers defect before i get a region free player. i emailed Turbine and am waiting on a response. any help would be greatly appreciated. —frankie

In general, on Region A players there will be a "Nag" screen advising that the disc cannot be played in your area (or region) when a Region B disc starts to play.(Depending on how the disc was authored, this can be before or after a Main Menu screen is displayed.) Sometimes this can be be overcome by hitting the "Top Menu" key on your remote after the nag screen appears. If the discs are in PAL and it is an unmodified Region A player you are not able to play PAL material.

If you have a blu-ray drive in your computer, you may be able to play the disc on the computer CyberLink software does usually work with non-region compatible discs. However, at last check, VLC player will and will do the PAL conversion.

 

[HubbaBubbaKid]

thanks guys . i got a reply from Turbine and they said the same thing as you guys about the PAL issue. really strange that they would have one set PAL and the other in NTSC when both sets would sell just as well overseas as in the home market (in this case) or maybe they thought bc the Bionic Woman is not HD (its 720 ) that it would’nt sell as well or maybe its a licensing issue. would love to find out the reasons why some sets are region free and others aren’t. this is the first time i’ve come across the region free but PAL / NTSC issue.

 

[MBrousseau]

thanks guys . i got a reply from Turbine and they said the same thing as you guys about the PAL issue. really strange that they would have one set PAL and the other in NTSC when both sets would sell just as well overseas as in the home market (in this case) or maybe they thought bc the Bionic Woman is not HD (its 720 ) that it would’nt sell as well or maybe its a licensing issue. would love to find out the reasons why some sets are region free and others aren’t. this is the first time i’ve come across the region free but PAL / NTSC issue.

Yes well, the SD Bionic Woman is 720 X 576 in the PAL system 50Hz. It might be that your DVD ou BD player doesn't output a converted NTSC for your TV monitor. Have you tried the discs in your PC? I have been said that the picture quality was better than the US DVD release. I am still waiting the the Elephant Films Blu-ray release (France) pushed back next year...

 

[HubbaBubbaKid]

i was able to try it out in a region free player and it worked , so it was a PAL conversion issue. The disc is region free but PAL , that’s why it plays all the way till the menu but the episodes themselves are in PAL , whereas the SMDM set is in NTSC . Turbine confirmed this via email, also they said it was bc of the source used/ given to them. also, on the SMDM set , the tv movie, Bionic Ever After is in PAL

 

[MBrousseau]

The Bionic Woman is playing on Paramount Channel France since sept. 28th. All I can say is that, unfortunately, the HD isn't that much of improvement since it shows the same recent high definition source that was used for the US DVD release of 2010 or so. The should have scanned the original negatives in 4k to get it right. The trailer of the DVD here: