Region B Disney Blu Ray

I live in the UK and my Japanese friend's daughter is mad about Disney so I was hoping to take her a couple of British (Region B) Blu Rays when I head out there next month.

Does anyone know if UK Disney Blu Rays are widely compatible with Japanese BR players? I think I may have to think of a different present...

Any reason why you want to give British ones specifically? They are available in Japan as well.

Sorry, forgot to clarify my reasons!

My friend's daughter is mad about Disney Princess films and knows the Japanese versions inside-out and from start to finish, so I thought giving her the British versions would be an enjoyable way of getting her accustomed to hearing natural (American) English before her interest is brutally murdered by the Japanese education system. The main reason I'd like to take British (Region B) versions as opposed to American (Region A) versions is so that my friend's daughter can see how different things are in each country before she's given completely the wrong idea when she starts school.

Surely the Japanese Blu-rays also have the English tracks available. Sure, the packaging would be different, but you'd largely be giving something they already have.

In any case, Japan and Europe are different Blu-ray regions. It wouldn't work.

That's the conclusion I've come to as well, so back to the drawing board!

Both Japan an the US have the same Blu-Ray region. As such, Amazon some movies to Japan from the US store. This will be way cheaper than buying them in Japan as Blu-Ray's are extremely expensive there. That's what I used to do....

But if you want to downgrade to DVDs I am pretty sure Japan and the UK are the same region code.

I don't know why for Blu - Ray Japan is the same code as the US, but for DVDs it is Europe,but I am 99% sure that is the case.

Many thanks for your posts.

I've only got a couple of weeks left before I head to Japan so, the British postal system in particular being what it is, I don't think I have time to import any discs from the US or Canada but will have a look for imported US discs for sale in the UK.

DVDs add a whole other level of complications! While the UK (and Europe) are in the same region as Japan, Japanese DVDs are NTSC while the majority of UK/EU discs are PAL. The UK and the EU use different standards of PAL signal, so while all UK DVDs can work in the EU (and vice versa) not all of them are also encoded in NTSC!

I know in the past the UK DVDs I've given to friends in Japan have worked on their laptops, but the friend in question doesn't have a laptop. I'm not sure when things got so convoluted!

For some reason I thought Blu Ray was region free, which is why I got my hopes up about Disney Blu Ray. Apparently Disney is one of the publishers that generally never releases region-free discs, though.

Thanks again anyway!

Why not get some Disney read along books instead?

Great minds think alike! I settled on that solution as well. :D

Just stick with the Japanese BR disc or US BR disc, for your info, BR disc are also encoded in NTSC and PAL depending on region.

Actually, for the vast majority of Blu-rays, NTSC and PAL aren't really a thing anymore. There are frame rates that scale to both formats, so they just use those.

Am I right in remembering that one of the HD disc formats (either HD-DVD or Blu Ray) was marketed as being region free? I know it was about 10 years ago now, so maybe I'm remembering wrong. If my memory is correct then presumably it was HD-DVD that was supposed to be region free...

As for the present for my friend's daughter, I eventually settled on a couple of UK-published Disney song CD boxsets (Now That's What I Call Disney/Disney Princess) and some British picture books with read-along audio CDs.

Ultimately I think international English is the best thing my friend's daughter could learn, but on the other hand it'd be nice if she could understand my country yokel accent if I ever talk to her in English! But the simple fact (that British people just don't want to accept) is that at this point in time British English is a linguistic eccentricity, even in the UK.