Quote:
Originally Posted by
Nitro67 
Only way is to put it on a server and not use the disc, but you have to remove the region code.
And then have to do likewise with our entire collection to achieve what I was talking about. The goal of us getting the Blu-ray changers was so that we could have everything stored in one place and accessed with a single index (well, two indices, because the changers can't combine their lists), with all the disc features and everything. No more searching through shelves or having orphaned discs lying around loose because we misplaced the box.
I often find myself dealing with unexpected resentment towards the MegaChangers' failure to eliminate the need for that. Every time I think "Oh, I want to watch...", only to remember that I would have to get off my butt, retrieve the disc and case from the next room, and load it in the old single-slot player because "Sony don't play that". We payed a heck of a lot (by our standards) for this equipment; it should do it all from one remote. Sigh.
We very much want to avoid having to deal with purchasing a HTPC and transferring our collection to harddrive (and also lose or break much of the menu functionality and special features of the original discs). If we were going to do that, we never would have purchased the changers in the first place.
Sure, we knew that the MegaChanger wouldn't support, for instance, our 3D Blu-ray discs, but that was a relatively minor issue. I figured that we would still have the PS3 for those rare occasions when we watch those. (I already regret having dropped half a week's wages on four pairs of glasses and a 3D sync transmitter only to find that the inconvenience outweighs the surprisingly slight enhancement of the viewing experience. Maybe it's worth it for porn. . .haven't tried that yet.)
Even though we occasionally still consider watching a 3d movie, the matter of having to locate the disc rather than just enjoy the convenient access to all the 2d titles in the changers has kept us from doing it.
Likewise for non-Region-1 DVDs. We have several Region 2 and many Region 6 (mostly kung fu movies) discs that we would love to be able to browse from the remote, rather than have lying around in a box somewhere (because we really need to recover our bookshelf space to hold our books, rather than discs).
We don't pirate movies, but we own these discs legally and just want to be able to play them. We would love it if we could burn region-stripped copies of them to put in the changers. However, after trying several of the most widely recommended DVD copying programs using dozens of different methods and settings combinations, on a variety of computers and burner drives, with many different brands (Memorex, Taiyo Yuden, etc.) and types (DVD-R, +R, -RW) of media, we haven't succeeded in producing anything that the changer will play (sometimes, they have even caused a freeze that requires resetting the unit to factory defaults).
The same is true even when trying to make a direct copy of the B-side of a Region 1 disc. (The inability to play both sides of a 2-sided DVD without ejecting it, flipping, waiting for GraceNote before watching it, and then having to retype all the custom disc info when done was an annoyance we didn't forsee when purchasing the changer.)
I expect it's possible to make burns that will function in the player (we have a couple of commercial discs that look like they're probably back-alley dupes, but they work), but I haven't found a successful method yet and don't want to drop money blindly on another piece of burning software without details from someone who has succeeded.
If there is anyone who has had success with burning MegaChanger-playable copies of discs they own, I would welcome a private message to point me in the right direction. (Asking several trusted techie friends for advice yielded a few suggestions of "You need X product because it allows such and such which is probably causing your problem; it has never failed me and will handle anything you throw at it". The recommendations raised a lot of hope, but, in the end, just generated more polycarbonate coffee coasters as far as the Sony MegaChanger was concerned.)
Actually, Equilibrium on HD DVD was just released on Bluray. Back in 2008, this was really an advantage with HD DVD and Bluray 2011?. There is still a few HD DVD movies left, that haven't been converted to Bluray. Not all movies were released in USA, but you could acquire it from another country and still watch it in English. That is if you watched it from a server, but the problem then was the audio quality was an issue due to HDMI.
Blu-ray movies are almost exclusively rendered at 24 fps, because that's what movie makers on both sides of the pond use. So Blu-ray movies aren't PAL or NTSC, probably. When the source material is PAL the Blu-ray may still be at 50 fps. I worried about this when I ordered a British copy of Downton Abbey season 2 (I was impatient). Turns out those Blu-rays (anyway) are 1080p24 and quite playable by the CX7000.
