To: Professional Authoring Engineers, Facilities, Producers, and Content Owners
Topic:
Non-compliant Utilization of Region Codes on Ultra HD Blu-ray titles
Focus:
The Blu-ray Disc Association has notified its members that consumer complaints have been received regarding incidents of Ultra HD Blu-ray titles containing region locks that prevent playback of the title. The Ultra HD Blu-ray specification eliminates the use of region codes to block or stop playback of an Ultra HD Blu-ray title. This means that an Ultra HD Blu-ray format disc must be playable in any licensed Ultra HD Blu-ray player anywhere in the world. Ultra HD Blu-ray titles that apply region codes to prevent playback are non-spec compliant and cause consumer confusion resulting in a negative growth potential for the format.
Key Information:
The Ultra HD Blu-ray format shares many of the same parameters, functions, and capabilities with the Blu-ray Disc format. An Ultra HD Blu-ray player has a region code stored in Player System Register (PSR) 20; just the same as Blu-ray Disc player. However it is prohibited by the Ultra HD Blu-ray Specification that navigation commands and/or BD-J application programming stop playback of an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc, such as the main feature, by checking PSR20. To be spec compliant, an Ultra HD Blu-ray title must not use the region code of the player to prevent playback of the title.
Best Practices:
Ultra HD Blu-ray authoring software must not allow authoring engineers to apply a region code while setting premastering/CMF parameters; and this must also be true if a previous Blu-ray Disc project was used as a starting point for the new Ultra HD Blu-ray title. However, an authoring engineer may program a MovieObject to read [PSR:20 Region] from the player and then tailor playback of the Ultra HD Blu-ray title based on the player’s region code, which may be desirable or required from the content owner’s perspective, and such programming would be considered compliant under the Ultra HD Blu-ray specification.
The Blu-ray Disc Association and those supporting the industry we all share rely on professional authoring engineers, facilities, and producers to work with content holders to understand the differences between the Blu-ray Disc and Ultra HD Blu-ray formats, and especially to ensure that titles created for the Ultra HD Blu-ray specification are compliant in the use of region codes.
Contact Information:
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the information, please feel free to reach out to:
- Scenarist, LLC: info@scenarist.com; or
- Blu-ray Disc Association Licensing Office: agent@blu-raydisc.info
With best regards,
Scenarist Support
SCENARIST, LLC
Technical Support: support2@scenarist.com
Licensing Questions: licensing@scenarist.com
http://www.scenarist.com
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