BD region free players now available (it was just a matter of time) (1 Viewer)

[RickER]

Jeff, this probably doesnt help much, but i thought i would toss it at you. I have Dune on Blu-ray, from France. The movie plays great, but the extras dont play, because they are PAL standard def. Now if the extras were HD, they would have played as well. However, i hear, and i dont know if its true, but some HD discs that are region free may not play, if the menu, intro, warning, are in standard def PAL. The disc cant read the menu, so you cant actually "play" the disc.
I have the Sony BDP350, and a Sony LCD, and i would bet money the Blu-ray player is the weak link, and not the TV.
I would be afraid any firmware update would brick your player, if you try to "re-write" its region.
You would not be able to hook it up to the internet, or get official firmware updates from your players manufacturer.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Hey Jeff,

there will only be a problem if your region free BD player doesn't "upconvert" the various standard-definition disc types to 1080p.

If you have a US HDTV, chances are it can't accept 50Hz PAL input, and some European sets can't accept the US 60Hz 480p either (though in general EU TVs are better about accepting more signal types than US sets).

But all of that won't matter if your BD player upconverts whatever SD content it gets (whether NTSC or PAL native) to 1080p. If it upconverts, then the TV would just see it as a normal 1080p signal and it should play fine.

The catch is how the player might handle PAL upconversion to 1080p since PAL starts out as 50Hz... not sure if the player could easily output a 1080p60 signal from that or not. But in any case, that's the real question... will the player output a 1080p60 signal from a PAL DVD as well as an NTSC DVD? If so, then no problem.

 

[Jari K]

Most newer TV-sets (and DVD/Blu-ray-players) in Europe (at least from the "known brands") support also 60hz/NTSC. So we can pretty much order every DVD/Blu-ray from the U.S. if we want (of course there might be some region code-issues).

 

[Jeff Willis]

All,

Thanks for your posts! This BR PAL R-Free thing is beginning to clear up for me.


Jari,

I have some contacts in the U.K. and I know that you're right about the "region" issues being more convenient and accessable overseas. I've always thought it interesting that in the U.S. there's a different attitude regarding the region-free players. I have enjoyed my Std R-Free player and several PAL DVD's during the past couple of years. It has allowed me to watch some TV/DVD sets that aren't available at home here in the U.S.

I eventually want to enter the BR market but I would need to get confirmation about these R-free BR players before making the purchase. For me, it's not a need to enter the BR format as yet since the BR title catalog is still in its early stage, particularly in the TV/DVD group of the DVD sector. If I see a "must-have" release in an exclusive BR availability, that probably would be the "deal-maker" for me. I guess I would still be able to view any DVD in my collection if it required me to purchase an external PAL/NTSC Converter. I'm also waiting for prices to drop with these BR (R-free mod) players.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Jeff,

that's right. Very few american HD sets will accept anything coming in at 50Hz, while EU sets generally are happy with both 50 and 60Hz input (at a variety of resolutions).

So yes, if you're paring the region-free player with a US HD set, then definitely try to find one that will output 1080p60 regardless of whether the native signal is 50Hz PAL or not. Blu-ray doesn't support 1080p25 so generally all Blu-ray, regardless of which region it's intended for, will be output at 1080p60 (HD DVD allowed for 1080p25 but I'm not sure if any discs were ever authored that way or not).

 

[TonyTone]

There are two parts to the equation if you're looking for a (region-free) BD player than can also play PAL-format SD DVDs (whether region-free or region-locked)--one, the player will need to be able to read/play back PAL DVDs; not all (U.S.-spec) BD players support this capability, however this capability can be "unlocked" in some BD players (Panny BD30 is one of them IIRC) by sending it specific IR commands. The other part of the equation is, even if your BD player can read PAL DVDs you'll need to find out if your player can either output PAL signals (in which case you'll need a display capable of 50 Hz) and/or internally convert the PAL signal to NTSC (60 Hz) for output to a NTSC display. I don't know of many BD players that can internally convert PAL signal to NTSC for output by default; the ones that could even support such a feature require some sort of internal hardware modification to the BD player.

Hope my explanation helps clear up the mystery about the whole PAL/NTSC converter thing.

 

[Jeff Willis]

Tony,

Thanks for the info. I'm looking for an internally-mod BR player that can play both NTSC & PAL formats for both SDVD & BR, and play all regions in both formats. There are hardwire-mod players available but the question is whether most (or all HD?) US-sold TV displays are capable of displaying the 50 Hz PAL format without an external PAL/NTSC Converter.

Regarding the currently-available BR internally-mod players, I haven't seen one as yet that has an internal PAL/NTSC Converter in it.

Some of the feedback that I'm getting on this subject is that any TV display that is HD 1080P capable will display either NTSC or PAL format DVD's as long as the 1080P HDMI output from the DVD is used going into the same input to the TV display. If that's true, then any of the internally-mod BR players will work for me. The larger online R-Free stores are all guaranteeing that the internal mods do not affect the BR player's ability to accept future firmware upgrades.

Bottom line is that I'm trying to determine if I would need an external PAL/NTSC Converter to view DVD's from either format (PAL/NTSC) on a US-bought Panasonic Plasma HD set.

I'm in no hurry to get a BR player as yet since my SDVD Pioneer R-Free Upconvert player (internally-mod) is working great. I'm just trying to see what I'd need when I upgrade to one of the internally-mod R-Free BR players.

 

[David Norman]

It was only for the first 3-4 months then the switches were removed for the later 7000's. The US models were NTSC only and there was no way to play PAL which sort of limited the choices. The other unique switch on those players which I found (actually still find since I'm still using my original 7000) is the MAcrovision Off.