Are Blu-Ray Drives region free?

[badwolf13]

Hi

Planning on getting a blu ray drive, but a couple of questions.

Are most/all drives region free? I'll give you the link to the one I'm planning to get it neccessary.

and with 3D Blu Ray on the horizon, will it just be the monitor and perhaps GPU we'll need to change? Or will I need to hunt down a 3D blu ray player as well...although I'm not that bothered about 3D...

 

[howardp6]

Blueray is not region free.

 

[randomizer]

I think there are less regions than with DVD, but they are still there.

 

[Henry Chinaski]

There is a legal program called ANYDVD HD which can help you.

http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvdhd.html

 

[badwolf13]

What, so even if I'm watching the Blu Rays on my PC? I know that BR discs aren't region free, but I was wondering if PCs can bypass this? Say if I use PowerDVD Ultra.

 

[Henry Chinaski]

You can use any program to watch the film, but before you must have installed and running the ANYDVD. Then you have to configure the region in the ANYDVD and you got it. The DVD/BR is region free.

 

[leon2006]

There are 3 defined regions

A. --- North America, Central America, South America, Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia
B. --- Europe, Middle East, Africa, Australia, New Zealand
C. --- Russia India, China, Rest of the world
STAND ALONE PLAYER:
Stand alone Blue Ray Player are programmed to the region it is sold (i.e. A for North America, B- Europe).

There are stand alone player that has no region setting dependency. It’s in the market you just need to ask. They are cheaper models and unknown brands but it works.

Region Settings by PC:
Blue-Ray ROM/WR DRIVES for PC are not limited by Region. It is the software that defines the region. Like powerdvd it automatically reads the time/zone settings the PC. Or the user can program or change the settings manually.

AnyDVD or other 3rd party programs eliminate the region dependency of disc on a PC.

The region settings/definitions are not that significant anymore unless you swap BD Disc say between US and Europe. If you are in one place then it should not be a concern for majority of the time.

If you are a frequent traveler then say you travel between Europe, US, Russia, and China then the Regional Assignments of the DISC will affect you. Most people in sales that I know travel with their notebook and watch on it they deal with in several ways:
- Only buy in one region (i.e. US)
- Change the region settings on their notebook when they purchase disc from a different place (i.e. B for Europe)
- Use 3rd party programs to eliminate region dependency of the disc.

Tools that violate copyright protection laws are another matter and are not recommended on this forum.

 

[randomizer]

I don't think region coding is classified as copy protection since in and of itself it does not prevent copying. The legality of circumventing it depends on the country. I am not sure about US laws. However, using AnyDVD to decrypt AACS copy protection is illegal.

 

[robjohnston]

An alternative to ANYDVD is DVD43 which basically does the same thing. It is primarily intended for removal of copy protection on-the-fly but you can also set the software to make discs region free on-the-fly.

 

[walter plews]

Thank you everyone for your great help. I have Powerdvd 2015 Ultra [purchased] but it DOES NOT play blu ray movies at all without awful audio distortion. and their support is crappy, and totally inrffrctive. I advise any body to avoid them like the plague.