Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Viewing Region A BDs if you live in Region B

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 09-11-2012, 05:19 PM:

Thought the following anecdote was worth putting on the web in case anyone else - either an F-T regular or Google-directed visitor - is in a similar situation.

As some of you know, I'm a native Brit who has been travelling back and forth from Southern California on work for 5-6 years now and, on one of these trips, met who is now my fiancee, and as a result of that, has been making these trips even more frequently since 2010. Being a university, geeky type (sorry!), I have a load of colleagues and students who want to order Region A BDs from the US arthouse publishers (Milestone, Kino, Criterion etc.) that are not available either at all or of any similar quality on this side of the Atlantic, and have been asked repeatedly for possible solutions for playing these BDs here.

For some reason, all region DVD players cost in effect no more than Region 2-tied ones in Britain, either region free out of the box or with a hack code only a Google search away. But the same is not true for BD players - the last I looked, no UK retailer was selling an all region player for less than £300.

So I decided on an experiment - is it possible to buy a bargain basement player in America, take it home with me in my suitcase and use the thing to play Region A BDs in England?

The answer is yes - worked like a charm. Last week I bought a Hitachi HBD361 for $86 (including sales tax) at the Target in Citrus Plaza, Redlands, CA, and took it back with me in my checked baggage. The mains transformer inside the unit is for US voltage only, so I bought one of these via Ebay UK. Just plugged it in, connected the player to the HDMI socket in my PC monitor and inserted a Region A BD disc which I've tried in a Region B player without success, and it played without any problem.

So the moral of this story is that (1) your typical supermarket BD player will withstand handling in checked airline baggage, and (b) it'll also work fine with a cheap, low wattage power supply converter.

Given the price of BD region hacking software that actually works, I thought this was worth a mention. The bottom line - if you want to watch Region A discs bought on Amazon etc., and either you or anyone you know is planning a visit to the United States, just buy a player there, bring it back and get a low wattage power supply converter to run it on here - far cheaper and less hassle than any software option I know of.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 09-11-2012, 05:32 PM:

I'm actually amazed that the BD player you bought didn't have a "wide range" power supply as most things do now...that is, a supply that would work with 100-240V and 50 or 60Hz.

Posted by Cameron Glendinning (Member # 3516) on 09-12-2012, 12:59 AM:

I accidently changed the region of my first BD player by downloading a software update from the US rather than from my native Australian site. At the time most discs were all region and it took me a while to realise why the Disney titles didn't play! It was slightly tricky to convert back and involved burning a disc as the thumb drive would recognise the US upgrade number as current and not accept it.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 09-12-2012, 02:08 AM:

quote: Steve Guttag
I'm actually amazed that the BD player you bought didn't have a "wide range" power supply as most things do now...that is, a supply that would work with 100-240V and 50 or 60Hz.

I was hoping that it would too, but the printed legend on the back of the machine said 120v/60hz. It may be that this was just the printing template for the US market, and that in fact there's an worldwide-compatible transformer inside - in other words, if I'd chopped the US mains plug off and fitted a British one it would have worked without any converter. But as low wattage converters are available for only £10, it didn't seem worth the risk of sacrificing the player for the experiment.

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 09-14-2012, 10:42 AM:

It's worth pointing out that, while there's no television compatibility problem with HD content on BD's (I have a few BD's that are branded Region B only but don't really have the region coding on them at all), supplemental features in SD will have the usual PAL/NTSC issues.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 09-14-2012, 11:29 AM:

Good point. My player is connected using an HDMI to DVI lead to a PC monitor, and NTSC SD extras play OK: I'm guessing because the player uprezzes them. Thankfully, it woudl appear that HDCP can't recognise region codes and get in the way on that score. But if the player was connected by some sort of analogue video (composite, S-video or component) to a PAL TV, it would probably be a different story.

And yes, I've got a few BDs that I bought in the US and which have a Region A logo on the back of the sleeve (Invasion of the Body Snatchers being the latest acquisition I can think of), but where the actual disc is region-free. The bugger of it is that there's no way of knowing whether there's a region code on the disc until you actually buy it: I suspect that some publishers print the logo on the sleeve to discourage people from buying them over the Internet from overseas, but don't want to go to the expense of licensing the actual region code and thus encoding the disc.

Posted by Gary Wachter (Member # 5833) on 10-24-2012, 11:41 PM:

Yes, the power supply sticker is something that needs to be observed. I also assumed that universal power supplies were the norm these days.

I bought a Sony BD at Sam's for $68 and took it to Europe. As soon as it was plugged into 220v/50hz it went "poof" and white smoke curled out! The rear sticker indicated 120v/60hz. Fortunately it was just the MOV protecting the input.

I bought the exact same looking unit (different model number) and brought it back to the US. That label indicated 240v, 50/60hz. Just to be sure I used a step down transformer ordered from Amazon for $12.

As for the content; BDs from EU play just fine over here, but PAL DVDs do not ("video format not supported" on most TVs).

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 10-28-2012, 04:34 AM:

quote: Gary Wachter
but PAL DVDs do not ("video format not supported" on most TVs).

Oh, I don't know, it works some time. I play PAL DVDs all the time, as long as they are Region 0. This is from a Denon 2930ci to a Sony 40XBR4 with an HDMI cable. Works fine.