4k region coding

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

First post in this section, so hi.

I am reading that 4k blu ray discs are not region-coded. Have ordered a couple from eBay where the seller is stating that this is the case, so I know I am safe there (though I know any non-4k discs also included won't play). Has anyone found any exceptions, before I get properly stuck in?

 

[bigboss]

4K discs are not region coded, only the blu rays are.

 

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

4K discs are not region coded, only the blu rays are.

Been expensive advice you've given me there!

 

[bigboss]

Been expensive advice you've given me there!

Took you more than a year! 😀

 

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

Took you more than a year! 😀

'Fraid not - been hoovering stuff up over the last 12 months! The Silence of the Lambs arrived from Canada today.

 

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

The nature of release calendars in 4k baffles me - Dog Soldiers got a German release (which I have) but not a UK one - at least no yet. Just ordered a French version of the original Halloween from Amazon.fr - cheaper than buying from Amazon here or from eBay, even including postage. Who gives a stuff about the menus not being in English?

 

[Deleted member 197450]

The nature of release calendars in 4k baffles me - Dog Soldiers got a German release (which I have) but not a UK one - at least no yet. Just ordered a French version of the original Halloween from Amazon.fr - cheaper than buying from Amazon here or from eBay, even including postage. Who gives a stuff about the menus not being in English?

For sure I don’t. The boxes in a different language doesn’t bother me too. I have been using Amazon in different countries with my English log in for a while now and the pricing is much better. I also get them cheap via iTunes 4K too on Apple TV.

 

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

For sure I don’t. The boxes in a different language doesn’t bother me too. I have been using Amazon in different countries with my English log in for a while now and the pricing is much better. I also get them cheap via iTunes 4K too on Apple TV.

Just have to be wary of not being signed up to Prime in more than one country!

 

[bigboss]

Just have to be wary of not being signed up to Prime in more than one country!

I don't think you can. The condition of joining Prime is you need to have a credit card of that country. It's mainly because Prime Video is priced differently in different countries for mostly similar content.

 

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

Interesting. I got signed up for prime.fr, cancelled and my UK account still shows as active.

 

[bigboss]

Interesting. I got signed up for prime.fr, cancelled and my UK account still shows as active.

Interesting! I tried to sign up for Amazon India but couldn't.

This is what it says: "Credit or debit cards issued outside India can't be used to pay for Prime membership."

Accepted Payment Methods - Amazon Customer Service

Payments on Amazon.in can be made using certain types of credit and debit cards.

www.amazon.in

It may be because Prime content all over Europe is the same.

 

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

I'm not sure - it implied I had signed up for two months' free trial in France, and their website accepted my cancellation. But Prime remains active on my UK account. Who knows?

 

[Arron]

The nature of release calendars in 4k baffles me - Dog Soldiers got a German release (which I have) but not a UK one - at least no yet. Just ordered a French version of the original Halloween from Amazon.fr - cheaper than buying from Amazon here or from eBay, even including postage. Who gives a stuff about the menus not being in English?

It's all to do with sales. Every movie is more successful in some countries than others. For instance, some movie might bomb in most of the world but be a big hit in Denmark. It just happens to touch a Danish cultural funny bone or something. So the distributor will prioritise the discs to that country.

 

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

I understand that, though I think there's sometimes more to it. The Silence of the Lambs, for example, has mastered by a small outfit, not a major studio. And that's a film I'd have thought would be profitable almost anywhere. Who knows?

 

[Arron]

I understand that, though I think there's sometimes more to it. The Silence of the Lambs, for example, has mastered by a small outfit, not a major studio. And that's a film I'd have thought would be profitable almost anywhere. Who knows?

The distie has probably kept it in reserve so they can make their money back on less popular titles. It's why so many early releases on disc are things you stop and ask, "that movie was terrible, who on Earth is going to buy that on 4k?" The same happened with BD and DVD before that.

 

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

There's definitely a 'cult'* element to what seems to have been released on 4k thus far - I guess there's an audience for the obsessive - a category including myself, I hasten to add...

*Things like Pan's Labyrinth, Moon, The Thing, Gattaca. Things you wouldn't have done as money-spinners, unless a large percentage of those few who love them will buy.

 

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

Not sure if it's linked, but I've found stuff on DVD harder to watch - the lack of resolution is more apparent when you watch 4k content regularly - and having bought a bigger screen last year might not have helped.

Mercifully stuff that can't be had on 4k can often be had on blu ray, often quite cheaply now as it's 'yesterday's format' - so stuff that I would have baulked at paying £20 for, I'm happy to pay under a tenner for. Upscaled blu ray is massively, massively better than DVD.

Bluray.com is great for establishing region coding - there are bargains out there!

 

[bigboss]

Not sure if it's linked, but I've found stuff on DVD harder to watch - the lack of resolution is more apparent when you watch 4k content regularly - and having bought a bigger screen last year might not have helped.

Mercifully stuff that can't be had on 4k can often be had on blu ray, often quite cheaply now as it's 'yesterday's format' - so stuff that I would have baulked at paying £20 for, I'm happy to pay under a tenner for. Upscaled blu ray is massively, massively better than DVD.

Bluray.com is great for establishing region coding - there are bargains out there!

DVD resolution has total of 345600 pixels which your 4K TV tries to upscale to fill its 8847360 pixels. That's a lot of artificial processing! Obviously on a 1080p TV, DVDs will look better than on 4K TVs.

 

[Arron]

Not sure if it's linked, but I've found stuff on DVD harder to watch - the lack of resolution is more apparent when you watch 4k content regularly - and having bought a bigger screen last year might not have helped.

Mercifully stuff that can't be had on 4k can often be had on blu ray, often quite cheaply now as it's 'yesterday's format' - so stuff that I would have baulked at paying £20 for, I'm happy to pay under a tenner for. Upscaled blu ray is massively, massively better than DVD.

Bluray.com is great for establishing region coding - there are bargains out there!

Strange, ever since I moved my DVDs over to Plex and stream them through an Apple TV, I've been really enjoying them all over again. Are you sure they're being upscaled properly? Even before through my dpub820 they were pretty darned good.

DVD resolution has total of 345600 pixels which your 4K TV tries to upscale to fill its 8847360 pixels. That's a lot of artificial processing! Obviously on a 1080p TV, DVDs will look better than on 4K TVs.

Resolution has nothing to do with it, it's all about the decoder/upscaler. A good one will make DVDs look better on a 4K TV than on a 1080 TV. Doubly so as the 4K TV should have a much more up-to-date chip. The latest AI ones are really something.

 

[bigboss]

Resolution has nothing to do with it, it's all about the decoder/upscaler. A good one will make DVDs look better on a 4K TV than on a 1080 TV. Doubly so as the 4K TV should have a much more up-to-date chip. The latest AI ones are really something.

Of course quality of upscaling matters. But it's wrong to say resolution has nothing to do with it. At the end of the day, it's still replicating pixels to fill up the 4K screen.

 

[Arron]

Of course quality of upscaling matters. But it's wrong to say resolution has nothing to do with it. At the end of the day, it's still replicating pixels to fill up the 4K screen.

With a decent upscaler, a DVD upscaled to 4K will look better than it does at 1080. Lines will be sharper and gradients will be smoother. (I used to write graphics algorithms for a living.)

 

[bigboss]

With a decent upscaler, a DVD upscaled to 4K will look better than it does at 1080. Lines will be sharper and gradients will be smoother. (I used to write graphics algorithms for a living.)

Can you explain how is it possible? 480p has 4% of the amount of pixels as 4k. There will never be software that can magically fill in 96% of the detail with clarity that better than on 1080p TV, no matter how many marketing buzz acronyms they use, in my view.

 

[Arron]

Can you explain how is it possible? 480p has 4% of the amount of pixels as 4k. There will never be software that can magically fill in 96% of the detail with clarity that better than on 1080p TV, no matter how many marketing buzz acronyms they use, in my view.

Back when I was doing graphics stuff in the early 90s, the big thing was bicubic interpolation:

Bicubic interpolation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Things have moved on enormously since then. Nothing is going to make a DVD look as good as a Blu Ray but even bicubic interpolation will find detail in an image that wasn't obvious at the original resolution.

A similar thing can happen for colour. You can expand the colour space a little algorithmically and get better graduations.

As the processing power of chips has improved, a lot of what used to take minutes or even hours back in the early 90s can now be done in real time. The upscalers now are vastly better than the ones of ten years ago.

Also, not all upscalers are created equal. E.g. the upscalers in my projector and amp are a bit crap but the ones in the Apple TV and my Blu Ray player are excellent.

 

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

Are you sure they're being upscaled properly?

I've tried having the Oppo do it, and the TV - the latter is better, so I think I'm doing all I can. Upscaled BR looks very good indeed. I think it may just be screen size.

 

[bigboss]

Back when I was doing graphics stuff in the early 90s, the big thing was bicubic interpolation:

Bicubic interpolation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Things have moved on enormously since then. Nothing is going to make a DVD look as good as a Blu Ray but even bicubic interpolation will find detail in an image that wasn't obvious at the original resolution.

A similar thing can happen for colour. You can expand the colour space a little algorithmically and get better graduations.

As the processing power of chips has improved, a lot of what used to take minutes or even hours back in the early 90s can now be done in real time. The upscalers now are vastly better than the ones of ten years ago.

Also, not all upscalers are created equal. E.g. the upscalers in my projector and amp are a bit crap but the ones in the Apple TV and my Blu Ray player are excellent.

Thanks. Interpolation is still a guessing game though. Even with proper interpolation, some video can take on “ghosting” after being upscaled. These artefacts also become more apparent when super-low-quality images (720p and lower) are upscaled to 4K resolution.