kaz19

Does anyone know if blu ray DVD's bought in the UK will work in Canada. I know normal DVD's come in Region 1 and 2 and you need a multi region DVD player to play both but is this the same for Blu Ray.

MarkG

I'm not certain, but I believe Blu-Ray is even more crippled with 'digital rights management' than DVDs; that's why I haven't bought any yet.

bodgerx

DRM is a little different to region encoding. There are less Blu-ray regions than there were with DVD. In fact a lot of Blu-ray discs are region free (unlike DVD) check this list for which discs work on which players:

http://www.thedvdforums.com/forums/s....php?p=7404883

Silverdragon102

When we looked at blu-ray we did see that it was regional coded like DVD's

pcuz

The short answer is yes. Uk is in Zone B and North America is A.

Some titles are not region encoded but to be on the safe side expect discs purchased over in Canada not to work on a player purchesed in europe. Some multi-region players are starting to appear but they are still pretty expensive at the mo.

Hope this helps.

onside

Try unlocking a DVD player because it's not too hard. First, check out the models available for sale on the websites of all the major electronics retailers and then check http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks to see if there is a hack for the model of DVD player. I easily unlocked a Toshiba DVD player this way... though it's not a Blu Ray. I can play any DVD from around the world on my player.

bodgerx

Yes, but like I said there are less regions and studios are free not to follow it. Many don't as a lot of discs play on any player - see my link again for the list.

Tangram

You also need a player which will output NTSC if you are using a standard NTSC Canadian TV as most don't display both in comparison to UK TVs which will display PAL and NTSC.

Ben W Bell

About 70% of blu-ray disks are not region coded. If they are region coded then they have to have the region printed on the packaging. Region codes can be found on the back of the boxes, with a letter in a hexagon. Got a single hexagon with a letter in it (A for Americans, B for Europe and Africa) then it's region coded. No hexagon, or three hexagons with A, B and C then you've got a region free disk.

Oakvillian

Are you sure? I was under the impression blu-ray outputs HDMI signal which, being all-digital, does not use a tuner (the NTSC or PAL bit inside a TV) to carry the signal to the screen. Any HDMI-equipped TV should work with any HDMI-equipped blu-ray player.

Stu-pot

My laptop has blu-ray, it will conect to any hidef tv via a HDMI lead

PaulandNikki

PAL/NTSC is irrelevant for BluRay, it outputs a 1080p signal through HDMI. If you're hooking it up to an old NTSC cathode ray tube TV then I'd suggest you could save quite a bit of money by just buying a VCR

G77

Not strictly true - it's still possible to have a 50hz or 60hz signal, though most if not all blurays are 24fps or 60hz. My experience of Canadian/US TV's is that they won't display a 50hz signal, I have both a Panasonic plasma and a Samsung LCD, neither of which will display a 50hz picture. I know this because I have a UK bought HD camcorder which outputs 1080i/50hz via HDMI and it no worky on either on them

bodgerx

I'm making the assumption that if you are running blu-ray you are running one of the hi-def resolutions (1080p 720p etc) across HDMI etc. in which case NTSC/PAL is irrelevant. If you are running NTSC/PAL standard def out of the player what on earth are you running blu-ray for????

Oakvillian

blu-ray specifications include both 24fps and 60fps (progressive or interlaced) refresh. HDMI specifications also include both these frame rates. Any blu-ray player that complies with the standard's agreed specifications will output via HDMI interconnect to any HDTV that complies with the standard's agreed specifications, regardless of the source.

Of course, that doesn't help with your HD camcorder, but shouldn't be an issue for the OP's bluray player