We don't usually do news posts to report exclusively about the region encoding of a BD, but this case the exceptional situation warrants it. The retailer Movietyme has confirmed in its blog that the first two Blu-ray titles in Paramount's Sapphire Series, 'Braveheart' and 'Gladiator', will be locked to region A.
Hence, owners of region-B players shouldn't buy those movies from America, and will have to buy it from local retailers instead. There are some North American etailers that ship titles well ahead of release date, so it was important to inform you as soon as possible in case you need to cancel your orders.
This is highly unusual for Paramount, which never region-locks its new releases, let alone its catalog titles. It might be related to the fact that other studios than Paramount hold the rights to the movies in Europe, where 'Braveheart' is managed by Fox and 'Gladiator' by Universal.
The features are identical. Only diff wil be that the Universal edition uses U-control and the paramount edition usese something else. And how many people do you think are really that interested in the steel book? I was persoanlly after the US edition myself until i found out it was region locked. Will have to settle for getting my copy a month later and it being in a fat case. Personally like US slimcases myself.
191 : Neither of these titles will be massive sellers. They will do well im sure but wont sell massive numebrs. They are catalogue titles that will only be of interest to fans of those titles who are happy to re-buy again on BD. If what you say is true then Transformers 2 will be a dead set region locked title as that will sell massive numbers. If it isnt region locked then id say that this is nothing more than a excercise in distibution rights protection.
I miss my original APEX dvd player from so long ago, all region blocking decoded, and could even record from it to computer for great iPod fanfare... sometimes I really question if region coding is really necessary in this trying economy, I would think the studios wouldn't benefit from more buyers, but again, I don't know shit about the movie business
GoodToGo : yea, i agree with you, if they can reduce a little prices of region B blu-ray, it would be great ...
Me too, i have pre-ordered the steelbook edition of Gladiator in the UK (since the US is locked), and i took Braveheart in my country ...
doby, that's what I heard long ago, but I don't think we have seen any region-locked movie reappear as region-free. Not even the earliest ones. I'm sure even Dinosaur is still region A.
Although this does not affect me, it still sucks for those who want to import it. Here is to hoping his is not a trend. I sympathize as I import some titles from the U.K. and have to be careful they are region free.
one reason why I buy bd from america is that the release is much faster and I don't want to go months before the distributor here gets the finger out before they have found out that this film is out on bd.
But guess when bd gets better and better movies I know we will see more of this
Aha, Fox holds the rights of Braveheart! I just returned a Fox disc, because it refused to play on my region-free player (besides the disc itself being region coded, it only accepts a player that is region locked to region A as well). Beware of Fox!
I'm a little confused. The steelbox is only for EU and UK, or US also? If not, does anyone know if they will have a steelbox for US in the future? One last thing: what's the difference in the Saphire and the Steelbox in terms of version and/or special features? Thanks, everyone.
I never understood the logic beyond these moves. If someone really wants a movie and is willing to go to a foreign website to buy it, why not just TAKE THEIR MONEY and give them a region-free disc? It's stuff like this that makes people want to turn to torrent sites and get them for free.
I think the reason people, like myself, do the extra effort to import movies is because imports are a better package
Warner's UK Benjamin Button over Criterion for example:
1. region-free
2. more subtitles
3. more audio tracks
4. same extras as Criterion's
5. digital copy
6. no annoying ads/PSAs/FBI warning
7. movie begins right away
8. Dolby TrueHD track by default (Warner blu's in this country).
Thank you for reporting it! It is newsworthy for the rest of us (non-USA) folk. And if you hear abour more of these a quite story would be greatly appreciated.
photograph17: It's pretty simple, really...not all movies are distributed worldwide by the original studio. Companies in Europe and elsewhere pay Paramount good money for the rights to distribute these movies in their country, and if Paramount offers up a region-free version of the movie on home video, these third-party distributors aren't guaranteed any revenue from releasing their own version of the Blu-ray/DVD.
Not saying I agree with the practice, but the logic behind it is obvious.
I was so happy that at least Paramount and Universal (and of course Warner) kept their HD-DVD politic of no region code. Before this Paramount only locked 2 TV Series that came to Blu. Also because they were distributed by other companies in Europe I guess.. Let's hope this isn't the beginning of an ugly trend. Bad enough that Fox and some other idiots already encode their discs just so that overseas we have to wait longer and .. Can't thing of another reason because it's the same company. Maybe they wan't that the local Fox distributers make more money??? I don't know..
Before I heard this I pre-ordered both the US and the German Version. No I guess I'll have to make due with the german one..
In my case they only lose money from that action.. No one gains anything..
