3D Meet Bob Furmanek: HTF Golden Age 3-D Consultant (2 Viewers)

[Panman40]

Its a shame Redheads is not region free and its certainly limited to A as with my own delivery so we are also unable to play it.
A great shame Paramount have decided to limit the country's who can watch this as it will certainly limit sales for Kino and another nail in the box for future 3D Blu-ray releases which is not really a help to anyone who likes buying them.
At present I'm enjoying looking at the very nice box for it and watching 'invalid region' displayed on my tv.

I had to cancel my order as I no longer have a region free player , I really wanted this release and thought I would purchase anyway Incase I ever change my player but I feel that's not helping this situation, typical really, I only used the region free mod on my Oppo player twice in 3Yrs so thought I would not miss it....

 

[StephenDH]

Its a shame Redheads is not region free and its certainly limited to A as with my own delivery so we are also unable to play it.
A great shame Paramount have decided to limit the country's who can watch this as it will certainly limit sales for Kino and another nail in the box for future 3D Blu-ray releases which is not really a help to anyone who likes buying them.
At present I'm enjoying looking at the very nice box for it and watching 'invalid region' displayed on my tv.

It does seem ludicrous that, when the object is to sell as many discs as possible, the process is totally cattled by archaic marketing voodoo.
It's enough to make a person move to Iceland and join the Pirate Party...

 

[3D Projectionist]

True guys true.. I'm committed to supporting these 3D releases particularly having been filmed with love using real film stock, negative even in the first place being a lover of reel film. In the bigger picture though they need to maximise sales and the reality is limits to A only for whatever reason with do the 3D movement no good whatsoever. We absolutely love these gems coming through on BR in 3D and want to see them. The upside is I will eventually get to see the movie with help from others but its by no means ideal particularly having ordered early at £24. I would urge the powers that be to put the question of limited region coding of future releases near the top of the agenda in order to secure the maximum sales for the end product to succeed.
Very much looking forward to seeing it eventually and displaying my lobby cards.

 

[Quatermass II]

This region coding issue has been around since the advent of DVD and before that it was the troublesome NTSC/PAL situation with VHS. Whatever the reason for it - whether it's to protect theatrical release dates of new films, or whether it's because a region-free licence for a back catalogue title may be much more expensive than a region-locked one, I don't think the problem will go away any time soon.
It had irked me for some time that some of the classic films I'd wanted to see so much were getting region-locked releases, but when some 3D releases were heading the same way, I decided to bite the bullet and get my main player modded for multiregion playback on Blu ray and DVD (it cost £100). I've since purchased a ready-modded player for my loft home cinema as it's no longer practical for my wife and I to visit an actual cinema.
I appreciate that it means shelling out a few quid initially, but it gets you round the region coding obstacle that, I'm sad to say, is probably going to be with us for some time yet.

 

[Interdimensional]

I look forward to playing Those Redheads on my multiregion player. It's an unfortunate necessity, but at least the option is there.

I suppose the reason some studios insist on it is that they're hoping they can sell the rights to different labels across the globe. The studio isn't particularly concerned if the label ends up losing money on a title. Personally speaking, I'd be prepared to show support and buy a second copy if any of the Region B labels were to license vintage 3D movies, even though I will always buy the original Kino release.

 

[John Sparks]

KONG: SKULL ISLAND 3D just went on sale at Amazon...I ordered mine from BB last month.

 

[John Hermes]

Just got my Those Redheads From Seattle 3-D Blu-ray in today. Hooray!

 

[3D Projectionist]

Have our screening this week thanks to a bit of help

Looking forward to seeing Kong as well a little later on as its a film I missed at the flicks.

 

[Bob Furmanek]

In case anyone asks and for the record: MONEY FROM HOME is not a widescreen film.

It was composed and photographed during principal photography (March/April 1953) for 1.37:1.

 

[SFMike]

Watched Red Heads last night and truly enjoyed the film and the terrific restoration. Great job by all concerned! So many fun pop outs!

 

[Panman40]

Watched Red Heads last night and truly enjoyed the film and the terrific restoration. Great job by all concerned! So many fun pop outs!

I was looking forward to this but had to cancel my Amazon.com order when I found out its region A locked,

 

[Bob Furmanek]

Region free 3-D Blu-ray players are available...

 

[ahollis]

Region free 3-D Blu-ray players are available...

One of which I purchased for about $100.00 a year ago.

 

[Bob Furmanek]

Good call, Allen.

Isn't that a lot better than complaining every single time a vintage 3-D release is contractually obligated to be region locked by the copyright holder?

If it weren't for Kino stepping up to the plate and securing the license from Paramount, REDHEADS would have never been seen in 3-D again.

 

[GregK]

If it weren't for Kino stepping up to the plate and securing the license from Paramount, REDHEADS would have never been seen in 3-D again.

So true. And the same goes for GOG, which if not for Kino's help, would still be unrestored and unseen.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I've said it before but perhaps not in this thread...

+1 for the suggestion to buy a region free Blu-ray player.

I realize the extra expense doesn't seem "fair". I realize that region locking doesn't seem "fair" to the consumer. I get all of that. But this is the world we live in and the state of physical media today.

The truth is, as the market becomes increasingly fragmented, as studios start favoring digital sales over physical ones, and as the audience for vintage titles shrinks, we're going to see a lot more of certain catalog titles only being released in certain regions. If you're a collector of discs (as opposed to just being a watcher of films), a region-free player is going to be absolutely essential in the coming years. For international residents, there will be additional titles where the rights holders have only allowed them to be pressed as Zone A discs. For domestic residents, there will be plenty of 3D new releases that get international releases but not domestic ones and some of these will be Zone B locked. Disney doesn't consistently support 3D in the US, but does internationally. Sony no longer supports domestic 3D, but continues to release titles internationally. This isn't going to stop happening and it's not going to get better; we're going to see more and more of that in the future.

A region-free BD player can be had for about $100 - there's no need to spend $500 or more on an Oppo if you don't wish to. New BD purchases are generally around $20. So, for the cost of about five discs, you can futureproof yourself and make discs from everywhere in the world accessible to you. I don't mean to be rude, but if you have the money to keep buying discs, you also have the money to get a low cost region free player.

At this point, not having a region-free player is a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

 

[TJPC]

So far I have been lucky enough not to need a region-free player. I really don't like the idea of having disks in my house which will only play on certain players. I have 4 blu ray players in the house and still make sure that every blu ray disc I own has a matching regular DVD stored with it to preserve universality.
If you have a DVD from another region will it play on every TV even with a region-free player? I think I remember changing the region of a region B DVD, with any DVD only to find that my PS3 would not play it because it was PAL.

 

[Camps]

Isn't that a lot better than complaining every single time a vintage 3-D release is contractually obligated to be region locked by the copyright holder?

If it weren't for Kino stepping up to the plate and securing the license from Paramount, REDHEADS would have never been seen in 3-D again.

Amen, Bob. The ultimate no-brainer for anyone serious about buying classic movies on DVD or blu-ray is to simply google and/or search Amazon for region-free blu-ray players.

BTW, I watched Redheads. Kudos on another great job. Those widescreen '50s color 3D classics sure are an eyeful.

(Said he, pining for Phantom of the Rue Morgue.... )

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Few quick thoughts in response things:
-BD should be different than BD, because the HD standard is the same in all places. There are a very small number of titles that might be encoded at something more exotic like 50i, but that would be more of made-for-television or live events. For movies, they should be in the same picture format regardless of region. Once you defeat the region coding, you should be good to go.

-The exception to that might be certain bonus features - if the bonus features are in SD, they could be in PAL, and if your system won't play PAL material, those specific bonus features may not play.

-TVs are a lot more universal today than they were ten or fifteen years ago. For instance, I believe all LG-branded TVs can play NTSC and PAL, as well as 1080i at 60fps (US) and 1080i at 50fps (UK), even though that functionality isn't advertised.

-Copying the DVD, even if you own the BD, is still illegal; I don't have a moral issue with it under those circumstances and I don't mean to come off as Mr. High & Mighty but you might not want to admit to doing that online in case some overzealous copyright enforcer has nothing better to do today. I like your posts, Terry, and I don't want you to end up behinds bars for them!

-I agree with the premise that it sucks not to have universality in your house. I have a region-free Oppo player (I get some other benefits beyond the region hack that made it worth the extra money to me), but the end result is that I didn't have a desire to upgrade my bedroom player to region-free. In theory, that's a bummer, but in practice, it comes up so rarely for me that it's not an issue. And there have been times where someone might have wanted to borrow one of my discs, and I couldn't loan it out because of the region locking. And yet... every region locked disc that I've ever bought, except for one, has never been re-issued in a region-free or Zone A equivalent. So it wasn't really a choice between the cheapest or most convenient; it was the choice between being able to watch the movie and not being able to watch the movie. My vote is that something is always better than nothing, so I am glad to be able to have those titles in my collection.

 

[TJPC]

Is it technically illegal to purchase DVDs and Blu Rays made for another region and defeat the region lock? I am not being a "smarty pants" here, I seriously don't know. I know that there used to be shady websites which would give you a "secret code" to tap into the remote for your DVD player to remove region locks.

The DVD used for my region lock removal experiment was acquired when I purchased a set of CDs of the radio programs from the "Little Britain" group. Included with the CDs, was a DVD of them performing on the radio. This DVD would not play in any player in the house, although it played on my computer. I discovered that it was region 2. I had read that a program could remove the region coding. This is the disc I had planned to copy and keep with the CDs in the set. As I said before, this did not work, and I threw away the copy.

Copyright laws differ from country to country. I may be wrong, but I believe here in Canada we are allowed to make back up copies of our own discs as well as copy TV shows, as long as this is for our own use and not to sell. As I said before, I may be wrong about this, since things change so quickly. (Josh, I took your advice however and removed the offending passage from my previous entry).