Blu-ray regions?

[admin_exported]

I'm looking to join the Blu-ray revolution but need to understand a few things first! Although blu-ray is backwards compatible, my DVD collection is 90% Region 1. Will a UK blu-ray player play these? I presume not. Do I need to worry about regional coding on blu-ray? If there is regional coding, are the UK releases coming out at the same time as the US and are they essentially the same? I'm conscious of the fact that, particulalry in the early days of DVD, the R1 versions were frequently better quality than the R2 versions...

All advice welcomed! Thanks

 

[Nick From Philly]

Unfortunatly there is a region coding over here. The EU is Region B usa is region A. Now you can get the Sony BDP-S300 and BDP-S500 chipped and I do mean CHIPPED. there are no region hacks for these 2 players. I can't speak for the other company's but that's the story for sony.

 

[El Hefe]

rjclements,

Blu-ray Discs are digitally encoded with a "region code" (A, B, or C, sometimes referred to as 1, 2, or 3), which allows the disc to play only in a Blu-ray player with the same region code. This system is similar to that for DVDs and was developed to enable studios to control various aspects of a title's release (content, date, price, etc.) according to region. A "region-free" disc is one that can play in all players around the world.

As far as I know, there is no BD player that can play all region discs. The breakdown of the BD is as follows:

[*]Region 1: North America, South America, East Asia except for China (India, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia etc.)
Region 2: Europe and Africa
Region 3: China, Russia and other countries

As for the DVD, usually the BD player will usually only support one DVD region coding. In UK, I suppose it will only support Region 2. Here in Malaysia, my SOny BD players supports Region 3 DVD and Region 1 (A) BD. So, I doubt BD players in UK can play Region 1 DVDs. Have yet to hear any BD player that can play all DVD regions.

As for the BD movies, I have to buy mine from Amazon.com, straight from US as Malaysia receives the movies later than US eventhough it is under the same BD region. Also, its cheaper there than in Malaysia.

However, I am sure the forerunners of this forum can add more info.