Help, criterion.com says:
26. Are Criterion’s Blu-ray discs region-encoded?
Yes. Criterion is licensed to sell most of its editions only in North America.
How can this be good business, I can’t get it to work? I could understand if they where to sell them in EU as well, and wanted to region-encode them. But not allowing people to import when they are only being sold in the US is just shit, plain and simple. No wonder piracy is increasing..
That’s not why piracy is increasing. It’s unfortunate these region codes exist, I wish more went into fighting them but for now take it with a grain of salt.
“That’s not why piracy is increasing”
You mean these things, region codes and the like, aren’t factors? What is, in your oppinion, the reason then, since you didn’t specify any?
But yeah, it is a shame, as it makes people like me unable to buy these lovely editions.
I hate the whole region code thing myself. Why don’t you buy a DVD player that can read discs from all regions, PAL & NTSC? That’s what I did… They’re very cheap now.
Yeah well, blu-ray is a lot more expensive (which is the format of discussion), especially since I already have a Playstation 3.
Right, my bad, I was thinking of “old-fashioned” DVDs. I’m behind the times, and too poor to even consider upgrading yet. The PS3 only reads Region 1 Blu-Rays? Bummer.
Well, region 2 in my case, since I’m from Sweden. :P Hence my questioning this decision of only making the Criterion Collection blu-ray editions for the US market.
I wonder if there’s any trick to making PS3s region-free. Just did a bit of research. I didn’t realize that Blu-Rays use a different set of region codes (see below). Why does it all have to be so complicated? In case you didn’t know, this site lists all region-free Blu-Ray discs.
Region Code A : North America, Central America, South America, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.
Region Code B : Europe, Greenland, French territories, Middle East, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Region Code C : India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Mainland China, Pakistan, Russia, Central and South Asia.
If I’m not mistaken, the Criterion DVD’s are all region-free. Seems odd they’d switch to region coding now. Rather lame, in my opinion.
You could always buy the Denon BR player when it comes out, as it will be Universal. And shit, it’s only $3000. Peanuts.
I don’t think criterions are region free. I think they are Region 1.
Because, well…when you read a description, it usually says “Criterion Collection Dvds are region 1 dvds…blahblah”
But yeah, dude. That sucks. I got alot of “Criterion” movies from bangladesh for about 70 taka each. That’s about a dollar each. And they are the same quality and stuff.
Well, there is a certain amount of the Criterion DVDs that are codefree, but most are not. No Problem, my player was easy to be modidied. But with blu-ray – the code thing, especially criterion, is the only reason I do restrain from changing to the new format. Seems I will stick to DVD for quite some time. I am ok with that, by the way. Saves a lot of money.
Blu-ray Criterions are equally priced to the DVD editions. But the experience is night and day. So you would only have to invest in a 1080p television set and a Blu-ray player; it all depends on how much you value the viewing experience of a film.
My copy of In The Mood For Love is region 1, which sucks because I’m in Australia.
The vast majority of Criterion releases used to be region-free, though from the start they were occasionally compelled to region-code them (this is particularly true of their Japanese and major studio titles like ARMAGEDDON). However, at some point in the last few years – 2006 or thereabouts – they seem to have adopted a policy of region-coding ALL their releases: I honestly can’t think of a recent Criterion release that’s region-free. And the same seems to be true of their Blu-Rays – sadly, as I’m in Region B.
I’ve no idea why they adopted this policy (which would seem to fly in the face of common sense, given that Criterion doesn’t own the vast majority of its catalogue, at least in terms of permanent representation of the underlying rights), but my guess is that it’s because they’ve spent a fortune on brand new HD restorations, and are quite keen to recoup some of that investment by licensing said transfers elsewhere – for instance, Masters of Cinema’s F FOR FAKE is based on the Criterion transfer. And it’s much easier to negotiate a good price if you can demonstrate that you’ve taken steps to ensure that your own sales are largely restricted to your own territory.
the real problem here is the inability to hack a blu-ray player, therefore making it region-free and region encoding not actually being an issue. the nature of the online capabilities and constant updating of the hardware’s software dictates that this is a pretty much impossible hurdle for one to jump over, unlike dvd which was beyond easy. i have a ps3, but am considering buying an american blu-ray player, just for criterion releases. the most annoying factor is the fact that over half of regular studio blu ray discs come without any kind of region protection, alas criterion choose to do so.
I suspect this is because the major studios are (usually) free to release their product anywhere, as they own the worldwide rights. Criterion doesn’t, and HD transfers are expensive, so there’s a strong business case for region-coding and licensing their masters elsewhere.
It works both ways, though – the BFI’s RED DESERT Blu-ray is coded for Region B at the insistence of the rightsholder, presumably because they’re quite keen to license the HD rights to an American distributor.
I guess, “.”, this would explain why my copy of Down By Law doesn’t have a reigon symbol on the jacket. That was a 2002 CC release, so I guess it’s old enough to be reigon-free.
peder
Will these blu-rays be coded by region, or will I be able to import this and watch on my Ps3?