Re: Godfather Triology HD DVD up for preorder at Amazon UK

Wait, they are still releasing movies on HD DVD????

UPDATE:

just got an email from amazon UK stating the listing as a error and that the Godfather Trilogy is only DVD and not HD-DVD. I knew it was too good to be true.

I have a question about HD DVDs from different regions, for example Japan. If I bought an HD DVD from Japan and put it in my HD DVD player will it look the same as an North American HD DVD, I mean as far as menu's, everything in Japanese and have to watch American subtitles, etc., etc.

Please excuse my ignorance,
Jedi_Soljah

HD DVD's are region free, meaning you can buy one from anywhere in the world and it will play in your HD DVD player. The discs to my knowledge always have the original soundtrack (ie English if that is how it was filmed).

However, the Blu Ray 'superior' format is NOT region free.

[Post edited by Bosshog7 on Feb 29, 2008]

I have a few of the Japanese disks. You just have to slosh through the menus to find the option without the subtitles, audio, etc. For a couple of them, I actually asked a couple of Japanese kids at work to translate. They thought it was pretty funny. Either that or you learn Japanese.

So far the european titles I've bought (Total Recall and T2 UK releases) have a language option at the beginning after the disk loads. T2 has like 3 languages (Eng, Ger, Dutch, etc.) and Total Recall has like 10 different languages.

Bosshog7 said -

Quote:
"However, the Blu Ray 'superior' format is NOT region free."

You obviously must have overlooked the many posts here over the last few months concerning the hi-def disc formats and 'region-coding'. FYI - BOTH formats (along with SD-DVD) have various region-coded playback, but HD-DVD to date does NOT enforce it, and to my knowledge no HD-DVD ever released was 'locked', and all titles are indeed 'region-free'.

Blu-ray's regions are Region A, B, C, and MOST of the titles released are NOT 'locked', and are 'region-free' - but not all (about 10-15%). Usually, a few of the Fox and Disney NEW releases (occasionally a Sony title) will be 'locked', but others from the same studios are NOT 'locked', and will play in any player worldwide.

Again, here's a link (provided by Skyhawk), to keep up with the Region B & C releases (B is the main one to keep an eye on), as there are always some titles released outside of Region A (which the USA is a part of), and can be imported for playback here.

One great website for a company in Ohio, xploitedcinema.com, carries some of the 'region-free' or 'region-all' Blu-ray titles, including several not yet released in Region A.

-JIMI (the Voodoo Child)