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Region-free Blu-Ray at last!

post #1 of 11
12/23/07 at 7:17am
Thread Starter 
Well it looks as if the first of my two requirements for getting into high-def could be here already. Multi-region BD:

Stegen Electronics

Now all I need is a single format (BD obviously!) and HD could finally be a realistic proposition!

Then again, having just seen Beowolf in 3-D I'm starting to think that 2-D, no matter how good quality, is rather "last century"! :-)
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post #2 of 11
12/23/07 at 9:10am

Re: Region-free Blu-Ray at last!

Not quite region free. These players play Region A and B BR titles and Region 1 and 2 dvd titles only.

On top of that, I would be really worried that a simple firmware update(which are often required on HD players) as well as BD+ could simply disable the player and turn it into a worthless player.
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post #3 of 11
12/23/07 at 9:35am

Re: Region-free Blu-Ray at last!

Agreed. If any company offered competing region-free firmware, they would have to be committed to updating it regularly to match the parent company's new firmwares which as Shane stated come out regularly and add new features or fix glitches/incompatibilities.
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post #4 of 11
12/23/07 at 10:29am

Re: Region-free Blu-Ray at last!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shane Martin
Not quite region free. These players play Region A and B BR titles and Region 1 and 2 dvd titles only.
Although this is not a truelly 'Region free' solution, Region A & B covers pretty much all the countries that someone in Europe, or even the US, might be interested in. Out of the 'Region C' countries, India is probably the only major software producing country. Due to the Indian DVD/Blu-Ray target audience being spread out all over the word, to date, no 'Indian' title released on DVD has been region coded. Thus it would be safe to presume the same policy will be adopted for Blu-Ray when Indian software is finally released on Blu-Ray.
  • Region A:
    North America, Central America, South America, Japan, Taiwan, North Korea, South Korea, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand etc.)

    Region B:
    Europe, Greenland, French Territories, Middle East, Africa, Australia, New Zealand

    Region C:
    India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Mainland China, Russia, Central and South Asia
Image:Blu-ray regions with key.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Quote:
Originally Posted by Shane Martin
On top of that, I would be really worried that a simple firmware update(which are often required on HD players) as well as BD+ could simply disable the player and turn it into a worthless player.
It looks like the modifications made to allow Region free Blu-Ray & DVD is independent of the firmware. Atleast that is what can be inferred from what is stated on the site.
Quote:
Even with the modification installed, the players remain fully upgradeable with the latest firmware updates.


Cees are you reading this? Looks like you may finally be able to go Blu.



Source for Blu-Ray 'region coding' list: WiKipedia. (Shockingly the Official BDA site has no information on Region Coding).
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post #5 of 11
12/23/07 at 10:39am
Thread Starter 

Re: Region-free Blu-Ray at last!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sanjay Gupta
It looks like the modifications made to allow Region free Blu-Ray & DVD is independent of the firmware. Atleast that is what can be inferred from what is stated on the site.

Indeed it does. And if the 2 priority regions are broken then you can bet the others will follow. Splendid.
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post #6 of 11
12/23/07 at 1:20pm

Re: Region-free Blu-Ray at last!

Quote:
Originally Posted by John H Ross
Indeed it does. And if the 2 priority regions are broken then you can bet the others will follow. Splendid.
Actually if you read my 'edited' post above, you might see that there may not even be any incentive or reason for them to try and get this to work with 'Region C'.
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post #7 of 11
12/23/07 at 3:40pm

Re: Region-free Blu-Ray at last!

Quote:
t looks like the modifications made to allow Region free Blu-Ray & DVD is independent of the firmware. Atleast that is what can be inferred from what is stated on the site.
Yes but then there's BD+.
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post #8 of 11
12/23/07 at 7:22pm

Re: Region-free Blu-Ray at last!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shane Martin
Yes but then there's BD+.
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't BD+ related to copy protection? I don't see how that would have anything to do with 'Region coding'.
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post #9 of 11
12/25/07 at 3:14pm

Re: Region-free Blu-Ray at last!

BD+ is most often used for an extra layer of copy protection, but could theoretically be used for anything - it's just code that runs on startup. If someone decides to use if for detecting broken region coding, they could.
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post #10 of 11
12/25/07 at 6:31pm

Re: Region-free Blu-Ray at last!

Sanjay,
If the BDA thinks that breaking the region coding is a breach of the players security, they could easily shut it down with BD+. The only player that BD+ doesn't have access to the firmware of the player is the PS3.
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post #11 of 11
12/26/07 at 1:33am

Re: Region-free Blu-Ray at last!

I´m quite sure that the "region free" BD-players will arrive at some point. Just like they did with SD DVD players. At the end of the day, only a few studios really support these region codes anyway. Hell, even the PS3 games are now all "R0".
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