So I've been waiting for this movie called 'La Planète Sauvage' (Fantastic Planet) to come out on Blu-ray for a long time now. I recently discovered that it finally came out on Blu-ray, but only in the UK on a Region B disc. It doesn't look like it will be coming out in the US anytime soon, so I just purchased the movie anyway figuring I could eventually figure out a way around this.

Is there an easy way around region locks on blu-ray players? I read somewhere that there is a way around this by installing something onto your BR player, but is there a possibility of bricking my player?

I want to watch this movie on Blu-ray very very badly, and if this doesn't work then I might have to move to the UK.

I don't know about the legality of that, but I certainly wouldn't look at reference #123 on this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Region_codes

Install AnyDVDHD on your computer and worry no more about regions.

Doesn't that only help if you're watching on your computer? I'd rather watch on my large plasma screen instead of my small computer screen

... quite a few HDTVs have VGA input and many newer video cards come with HDMI output

easiest/cheapest would be PC with bluray drive and anydvd hd

Sure, I agree. I rip all my media to hard drives on the desktop and access it over the home network on the main entertainment center. Although I haven't done that with Bluray yet. I finally ordered a bluray player along with Iron Man 2 and Unforgiven the other day. Some day I'll upgrade to a desktop with bluray (probably somewhat soon). Anyway, he just seemed desperate to watch it and AnyDVD, which is a must own, is the easiest [somewhat legal] way to accomplish that.

Yeah I rip all my blurays and then play them on my HDTV via a dedicated laptop running XBMC. And I control it with my phone.

I messed around a little with XBMC but it just didn't click with me. I did like that it allowed me to correct a display issue I have. Still, I really like Media Browser in Windows Media Center but to get it to play right with the 360 I need Windows 7. I'm thinking about building a desktop with a QAM tuner card and bluray and returning my digital cable box.

How long does it take to rip a bluray? Do you do that because you like to have copies or that's the only way you can watch it on your tv (don't have a regular bluray player or something?).

XBMC is superior because unlike WMC it actually plays everything I own. It'll even play DVDs straight from the ISO, it does surround sound properly, and it can scrape for TV/Movie info which looks impressive.



It's as fast as your bluray drive.

I rip it for various reasons, but mainly I rip everything including DVDs so that I can play them on XBMC wirelessly without ever needing to grab a disc. I've got my entire library of movies, TV shows, and Anime in XBMC that I can control with my phone and play literally in a couple seconds on my HDTV. Best part is, besides the actual process of ripping, everything's automatic. XBMC automatically finds new movies when it starts up, and grabs information on them.

I especially love the number of formats it supports (literally, if you can play it in mplayer, you can play it in XBMC).

I'm aware of the benefits of XBMC but it is my understanding that WMC bundled with Windows 7 "ungimped" the Xbox 360 file playback abilities (with the exception of ISOs or disc structure files but I don't care about that because I convert to high quality video files to save space), at least when used with the free Media Browser plugin which provides the similar utility you mention above. I just like it because my 360 is already sitting under my TV and it eliminates the need for me to keep a computer connected to it.

Do you have any sort of tuner card integrated into your system?

The X-Box 360 can only play a few file types, it is extremely picky. It recently became able to play DIVX, but even then it isn't perfect and it actually lacks more in the audio codec area. I don't think Windows 7 does anything to change that, I don't see how it could.

I used to have a tuner that I used with WMC. Once everything went digital it was obsolete, but I ditched it anyway. There's really no decent way to record cable TV anymore, with all the encrypted nonsense.

IS THAT FRENCH!!? It sounds French... Why would you want to see a french movie?

French films are the worst, didn't you see, "Amélie"?

How incredibly unhelpful. Don't have have to grab the disk to rip them in the first place? I only ever watch movies from netflix, and if I ever want to watch it again, I just order it again. I guess I'm not one to "own" movies.

About 3% of the movies I like are on netflix streaming. That's hardly a replacement right now. Also, yes, that was the answer for your rip speed question. If your drive is 1x, it'll rip at movie speed. 2x is twice as fast, 4x is four times, etc.

From what I've been reading over the last couple years that Windows 7 has been out in one form or another is that the WMC Extender functionality of the 360 was improved to allow more file types to play out of the box with no tweaking required. My desktop is still a 2005 Media Center so I don't even mess with it anymore, hence my desire to upgrade. I have read different things about MKVs but some people report all of their MKVs play fine. I haven't had a need to mess with those yet.

Comparing WMC with XBMC, though, it really is purely a matter of which interface you prefer along with do you prefer open source type stuff or the closed nature of Microsoft products. Both can play all your media and look fantastic.



Yeah, I have HD cable now but I don't really watch that much of it. If I go back to basic cable and build a new desktop with a clear qam tuner card I can at least DVR the local HD channels that cable providers are required to provide.

I've never ripped bluray since my first two blurays and player are in the mail now. I do know that AnyDVD is always improving and I've noticed much quicker rip times with DVDs now. AnyDVD also seems much faster than some of the old school free programs I used in the past. Of course drive speed is a huge factor but I think the decryption is another factor.



I used to buy a lot of movies but much more rarely now. I do have quite abit, though, and rather than flipping through the discs what I do now is browse the directories in the Xbox 360 video library. What CM alluded to earlier is that what he browses in XBMC (and what I could browse on the 360 if I had Windows 7) is a quite fantastic presentation that displays coverart, detailed movie information, cast, beautiful backgrounds, etc. It really makes your library of movies and/or tv shows much more interesting.

*punches baby Joseph*

I rent my blurays from netflix. I guess I don't get the point of ripping them all unless you want to "keep them forever" but that still seems like a PITA if you only ever rewatch 5% of the movies, you can just rent them again. *shrug*