BD region code A to region code B

[jappe]

I have bought some BD's from the US (Criterion Collelction) since they're not released with European Region Code. My blu-ray players; Panasonic and LG will only play Region B disks. So, is there a way to make a 1:1 copy of my BD Region A to a Region B? I have both AnyDVD HD and DVDRanger.
Panasonic/LG didn't accept a region free copy I made - as far as I know this disk is region free.
Is there a way to check a bd disk for it's region code?


- LG BD670N / Panasonic DMP-BD85 -

[Baldrick]

How did you made the copy? Did you just use anydvdhd and then burned(with for example imgburn)?

Do you get any error code from the blu-ray players? It could be something else that cause the playback problem.

[jman98]

I have absolutely no idea what DVDRanger is, so if that was part of your process it might be part of the problem. You will need to explain exactly what you did to burn after you ripped. AnyDVD HD will remove region coding so whatever your problem is, it shouldn't be a region code issue.

If you burned to a single layer BD-R, note that some older players have problems with BD-R LTH discs. If you use LTH discs, the only ones I recommend are Verbatim's. My personal testing shows that they work better even than the Taiyo Yuden ones, which are no longer as good as they original LTH discs they made about 3 years ago, then stopped making, and then finally started making again, but with a different media code. If you used BD-R DL discs, those can be problematic too. Every player I've tested those on has had at least minor issues with playback and those problems have been very inconsistent. I've taken the disc out of the player, put it back in, and had the problems disappear. Verbatim makes the ONLY BD-R DL discs that I would trust to use. BD-RW playback has been OK for me but only if I use Verbatim. I've tried Sony and those sometimes play and sometimes don't in my players.

[jappe]

I used AnyDVD to rip the BD to HD and then burnt it with ImgBurn onto TDK Blu-ray 50GB 4X BD-R DL full face printable. Both Panasonic and LG warned about the disc not being correct region code.

Reading the disk on my pc, AnyDVD says the disk is Region Free. I'm not very familiar with AnyDVD, but perhaps I can set the disk to Region A and that might make it possible to use it on my Panasonic?

This is the very first BD copy I've made.

DVDRanger: http://www.dvd2hd.com/product/

[jman98]

TDK BD media is low grade Ritek stuff. I do not recommend using it.

AnyDVD is supposed to be able to remove region codes when ripping, but the tools to examine region codes on BD discs are not like they are for DVDs and I have to admit that I personally do not know of a way to verify that a rip actually did remove the code. I don't know of any way that you can set a region code on a BD disc you burn yourself.

What file system did you burn the disc to? You need to use UDF 2.5 for BD.

[jappe]

ImgBurn sets the proper format so it should be the proper one.

In this case my players can't have problems reading the disk, else I wouldn't get the message about wrong Region Code.

[jman98]

It is possible with ImgBurn to burn BluRay using the wrong UDF format unless maybe the author has changed it so it provides a warning if you try to do this. In the past there was no such warning.

Many players are known to give out "Wrong region" error messages for ANY type of error, including "Your disc is in a video format that I cannot play even though there is no region code" when the player can't play PAL video, for example.

Name one or two of your Criterion BluRays. Maybe these were made in an unusual way (ie. 29 fps 1080i video) and that's the real problem. We can find out if we know what some of the titles are.

[DB83]

Do you have a software BD player such as Power DVD ?

If so, close down the Any DVD HD driver (which may be fooling your system to report a Zone Free disk) and see what the other software says about your new disk.

[jappe]

The movie is: Au revoir les enfants, http://www.criterion.com/films/549-au-revoir-les-enfants
MediaInfo:
General
ID : 0 (0x0)
Complete name : D:\BDMV\STREAM\00304.m2ts
Format : BDAV
Format/Info : Blu-ray Video
File size : 275 MiB
Duration : 1mn 8s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 33.6 Mbps
Maximum Overall bit rate : 48.0 Mbps

Video
ID : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : 27
Duration : 1mn 8s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 32.1 Mbps
Maximum bit rate : 37.0 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.645
Stream size : 262 MiB (95%)

Audio
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 1mn 8s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 1 channel
Channel positions : Front: C
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 1.57 MiB (1%)

I don't know if this pic from DVDInfo Pro is of any help.

Nope, I don't have PowerDVD

[wulf109]

Dumb question,did you check Remove BD Region code in AnydvdHD setup?
Also I looked at DVD Ranger and it appears to be transcoder not a ripper, If you have AnydvdHD and BDRB why use a payware ripoff like DVD Ranger?

[DB83]

Pity about the lack of a software BD player.

Of course the report from DVD info pro does not give any details of the zone so one could reasonably accept that this new disk is zone-free.

To be sure, I would also run the original Criterion disk through the same report just to see if there are any differences in the report - I notice a blank line.

If you were to invest in PowerDVD Platinum, you could play the original disk in your PC assuming, naturally, that it has a BD drive.

[jappe]

The copy disk is region free so there's something with these darn players conforming to this shit of region denial players.
I've solved the problem by ordering a player that is both zone and region free so I can enjoy movies not available in my region's format,

Thanks for all help!

[mazinz]

although it is doubtful Criterion is doing this (then again you never know) you may want to read the article here. Basically you can have a region free BD disc but if the player you are using is not set to the same country in the player settings that the disc was made for, it trips up and acts just like region protection would:

http://www.criterionforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=12612

[jman98]

Thanks, mazinz. I'm shocked because theoretically this is not how region coding is supposed to work. Region A is supposed to mean ALL of region A, not "whatever the hell part of it I want it to mean". This is the first I've ever heard of this. I guess maybe there is some kind of secret subcode that refers to country that the rippers don't know how to remove (maybe they also didn't know it existed or maybe it didn't exist until recently). This certainly explains the baffling experience of the OP in that he made a disc we all think is region free but it still refuses to play. I'm wondering if this is a firmware extension that the industry has been keeping secret.

[mazinz]

Thanks, mazinz. I'm shocked because theoretically this is not how region coding is supposed to work. Region A is supposed to mean ALL of region A, not "whatever the hell part of it I want it to mean". This is the first I've ever heard of this. I guess maybe there is some kind of secret subcode that refers to country that the rippers don't know how to remove (maybe they also didn't know it existed or maybe it didn't exist until recently). This certainly explains the baffling experience of the OP in that he made a disc we all think is region free but it still refuses to play. I'm wondering if this is a firmware extension that the industry has been keeping secret.

yeah still too many variables to really pinpoint the original posters problem, but when I was reading this thread it reminded me of the issue some were having with Japanese blus. It also made me think that this sort of "cheat" would not really be something rippers would remove or even be aware of. It is certainly new being only about 3 months or so and if it does become widespread, I am sure the ripper software companies can fix that by just having your rip disc change to whatever country you need it to.

You would be correct in that there has to be some sort of sub code that it checks in addition to the region. (

[KBeee]

Hmmmm.. reminds me a bit of Japan being DVD Region2, and US being Region1, despite both being NTSC-land. I heard it was to prevent Japanese DVD buyers buying (much) cheaper DVD's from US, instead of very expensive Japanese ones. Maybe now they've found a way to do the same for Blu's.

[jman98]

Hmmmm.. reminds me a bit of Japan being DVD Region2, and US being Region1, despite both being NTSC-land. I heard it was to prevent Japanese DVD buyers buying (much) cheaper DVD's from US, instead of very expensive Japanese ones. Maybe now they've found a way to do the same for Blu's.

Essentially yes, although the motivation is not to force one nation to pay more than another. Hollywood in part used DVD region codes because they may have foreign partners who pay for local distribution rights and it's protect those partners who paid good money for the rights to distribute some big budget Hollywood film in Japan, an an example. Another part of it, and originally it was the biggest reason, was that Hollywood used to have a crazy distribution system where big films would open in Asia up to one year later than in the USA. There were many cases of DVD rips from region 1 DVDs being available in Asia before the film ever even played in theaters. That kind of thing forced Hollywood to mostly open big films at the same time or close to it around the world. It's a control thing where Hollywood doesn't per se want to prevent dirty foreigners from being cheap US made DVDs so much as they want to force people to buy DVDs in their home country because somebody paid good money for the local rights there and that money will go down if it becomes easy to buy cheap imports instead of local product. Similarly, the anime and Criterion BluRay issue is a rights thing because both have specific rights just for the countries where they are located (Japan for anime and the US and Canada for Criterion) and those rights do NOT include other countries.

[dvd3500]

You can get a Blu-ray player that handles 220 V for around 30 USD$ these days. They can be quite small too so won't take up too much space.