Technical Issues and Questions

[fdm]

The R2 part got in my way because Mac OS wants its dvd drive to be single region, so was hampered by repeated desire by the Mac OS to want to change its region setting from R1 to R2 (which I refuse to do, it supposedly limits the number of times you can change it to 5, but I have no desire to find out), plus lots of complaints about region mismatch along the way. But finally prevailed, thanks to the blu-ray drive being a little more accommodating, as I recall.

In the end I have 2 PAL speed films from (German) R2 dvds with subtitles, albeit on a flash drive, that can be played from my HT's blu-ray player. Finally got to see Die bleierne Zeit again after 30 years of wanting to; Rosa Luxemburg, which I've yet to see, is on deck. I'll have to check out MPlayer and see how it behaves...

I don't have any fansub needy blu-rays at this time. But I'm curious to see if I can at least do similar with one if/when the time comes.

You might want to contact MacGo support about fansubs not working with blu-rays... I did a bit of contact with them early on when certain blu-rays weren't working, and I think they did fix some of them (I don't use my computer to watch movies, although I was ready to with the 2 above, so don't really use their blu-ray player software much at all any more). Maybe I'll bug them about certain dvds and fansubs.

[repeat]

The R2 part got in my way because Mac OS wants its dvd drive to be single region

That's true, I forgot about that - my internal drive broke down (as is their wont) & replaced it with a region-free external BD. Been very happy with that solution, I don't really use my actual DVD player anymore.

After spending more desperate hours than I care to admit wrestling with the fansubs, I finally found a foolproof solution - I'll post it here in case someone else is struggling with similar problems: I chanced upon this small app called SrtViewer, a transparent standalone viewer for .srt subs. There are probably others, but this one works like a charm: with a little bit of tinkering you can make it completely transparent, so that all you see of it are the subs (that can be customised and placed anywhere you want) floating on top of the video. This also eliminates the problems with some double-layered discs where the subs drop out at the layer break point. Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to FINALLY watch my French Fassbinder Blu-ray

[jindianajonz]

Anyone have any idea why the volume on my receiver sometimes gets limited? I have a Denon AVR-X1000 hooked up to a region free Oppo-103. I'm watching the Funimation FLCL right now, and can't turn the volume up past -20.5dB. I've had other discs get stuck at the same volume level, but doesn't happen all the time- I can listen to most discs at -18dB. The "Limit" option in the Volume menu of the receiver is set to "Off", so it's not that. Any ideas?

[Gregory]

I've come across two Blu-rays now that will not play in my Sharp BD-HP24U. The Mandingo Blu from Legend Films spins around for about ten seconds and then the player spits it out saying "Incompatible disc." This player is supposed to be able to play everything.
Then I got Searching for Sugar Man and found that it would load the disc and play all the previews and then freeze up on a black screen. I bought a more recently produced copy of the same disc and that copy did the same thing.
I've updated the latest firmware. I haven't tried the discs in another player yet, as I only have one friend in town who has a Blu-ray player (the rest stream everything or just don't care about films).
I wonder if there's a possible answer to this problem other than my player just being a piece of shit. Any suggestions will be much appreciated.

[warren oates]

I have one of the newer Oppo players and I'm constantly upgrading to the latest firmware. And even then, I once had to report an incompatibility issue to the company directly regarding Soderbergh's Contagion and wait for it to be fixed a few weeks before I could play the disc.

[Roger Ryan]

...Then I got Searching for Sugar Man and found that it would load the disc and play all the previews and then freeze up on a black screen...

I experienced something similar with the Blu-ray of THE BLUES BROTHERS where it would play all the downloaded "fresh previews" but never boot up the menu to allow the feature to play. I switched off the player function that allowed discs to access on-line content and the menu finally loaded properly (allowing me to play the feature). I should have done this sooner, but was in the habit of using the remote to simply skip the previews on other discs. Not sure if the SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN disc is coded the same way, so switching off on-line access may not help in your case.

[Gregory]

Thanks. I went into the player's settings and the only thing like that I saw was to restrict internet access by prohibiting BD-Live discs, which I did, but the playback problem persists.

[warren oates]

One other thing you might try is emptying the player's memory cache and/or resetting to factory defaults.

[Calvin]

I see that the Japanese Studio Ghibli Blu-Rays in the new Miyazaki box set have been encoded using MGVC. Am I right in saying that you'll only be able to tell a difference if you use specific MGVC players?

[David M.]

Correct.

[glenster]

I just received the 5 disk Criterion set in Pittsburgh, PA from Amazon. My
PC has an LG WH14NS40 Internal Blu-ray Writer. Is there a way to play
the Blu Ray disks on that?

[manicsounds]

I don't see why not. Does it not play back when you put them in the disc drive?

[David M.]

Yes, just grab playback software like PowerDVD.

[manicsounds]

Question about PAL and 50hz

I let my friend who knows nothing about tech borrow some movies of varying region codes, and she told me her "DVD" player could only play NTSC region 2 discs (Japan). PAL disc didn't work, which was pretty much expected.

I tried to help her find out if her machine could be made region free, at least, but ends up she doesn't know what "model number" meant, so I had her take a picture of her player.

Turns out she has a 3D Blu-ray Recorder....

So, I let her borrow some blu-rays instead, including the UK "Sherlock" set which is in 1080i50hz, which I assumed if the machine can't play PAL DVDs, it wouldn't play 50hz. But surprise! She said it played back.

I always assumed that 1080i50hz is just "HD PAL", the 25fps framerate of DVDs doubled. Either I'm wrong, or my friend who has no tech knowledge played the PAL DVD upside down or something and so it didn't play back...

So the question,
Anyone else have this problem? Being able to play 50hz on your blu-ray player but NOT PAL content?

[David M.]

Not personally, but it's not impossible that a player could allow playback of 1080i@50 but not 576i@50.

[JamesF]

Wasn't sure where else to post this (so mods, please move if it's better off in a Hitchcock thread or something) - on my Warner Blu of Strangers On A Train (purchased as part of this boxset), when the main menu comes up, the various menu buttons ("PLAY" etc) don't appear at all, so there's no way to play the film! I haven't seen anyone else report this issue, so don't know if it's likely something with the disc (perhaps a BD-J issue?) that my Oppo BDP-80 doesn't like? As ever with these things, I'm reluctant to try a firmware upgrade in case it stops the player being region free.

[David M.]

I've seen that happen occasionally where the disc is either dirty or badly manufactured; parts of it won't load. Have Warners replace it, it's likely an issue with that one disc.

[Feego]

I recently tried to watch the region 1 Warner/MK2 edition of The Circus on my Panasonic DMP-BD30, and my player automatically zooms in everything (the menus, the feature) to 16x9. I tried changing multiple settings on my TV and player, but nothing changed. I tried another disc from the Chaplin box, A Woman of Paris, and the same thing happened. My Sherwood region-free player displayed the disc correctly. Does anyone know what might be causing this issue? This has happened twice before that I can remember, with Criterion's The Element of Crime disc (where just the menu screen and special features were auto zoomed), and on MGM's non-anamorphic Showgirls disc. Every other DVD I play is displayed correctly.

[EddieLarkin]

Settings>TV Device Connection>TV Aspect> make sure you have it on 16:9 as it sounds like you have it on 16:9 Full instead.

[Feego]

Nope, I checked that and it is definitely on 16:9, not 16:9 full. As I said, it plays all of my other 4:3 DVDs correctly. These Chaplin discs are the first to display incorrectly in a long time.

[swo17]

I've had the same problem with the Warner Chaplin DVDs, presumably having something to do with how they were authored. The only solution I could find was to play them on a DVD player instead of a Blu-ray player. (Or buy the Criterions!)

[EddieLarkin]

It's obviously something unique to the discs but if they display correctly on a different player then I don't know how to explain it.

[cdnchris]

A couple of the old Disney full screen DVDs I have do this on my blu-ray players as well, zoom in and crop the top and bottom.

[Feego]

I just checked it on my Panasonic DVD player, and it plays fine there. So it seems as long as I use either my DVD player or Sherwood Blu, it's okay. For some reason (it must be the authoring as Swo said) they are just not compatible with my Panasonic Blu-ray player. Oh well, once Criterion releases these titles that won't be an issue.

[David M.]

Sherwood Blu

Oh god, not the Sherwood!