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[Dez]

If the content itself is at 50hz, you wouldn't want that version anyway.. 50hz to 60 hz conversion can't be pretty.. no matter how nice attenborough's voice is.

 

[Ignis Fatuus]

Bad news for those looking to import the BD for playback on a PS3, I'm afraid.

The UK Blu-ray isn't region coded, but both the menus and the episodes themselves are in 50Hz, so it won't currently play on a region A PS3. Tested it in a multiregion Panasonic DMP-BD60 set to region A and it played without an issue. According to that player's codec info it was 1080i at 50Hz, which is why my US PS3 wouldn't play it.

Despite saying on the back of the box that it's 1080p with a DTS-HD Master Audio logo, it's actually 1080i with DTS-HD High Resolution.

tl;dr: Won't work in a US PS3 but any decent standalone should work fine.

Shit.

Could Sony possibly resolve this with a firmware update?

I guess it's time to look into cheap standalone players.

 

[Naked Snake]

What a bummer!

 

[subzero9285]

Bad news for those looking to import the BD for playback on a PS3, I'm afraid.

The UK Blu-ray isn't region coded, but both the menus and the episodes themselves are in 50Hz, so it won't currently play on a region A PS3. Tested it in a multiregion Panasonic DMP-BD60 set to region A and it played without an issue. According to that player's codec info it was 1080i at 50Hz, which is why my US PS3 wouldn't play it.

Despite saying on the back of the box that it's 1080p with a DTS-HD Master Audio logo, it's actually 1080i with DTS-HD High Resolution.

tl;dr: Won't work in a US PS3 but any decent standalone should work fine.

That's disappointing.

 

[subzero9285]

Episode 8 - Creatures Of The Deep

Spoiler

Marine invertebrates are extraordinarily diverse, outnumbering fish by ten to one. They range from some of the most primitive creatures in the sea to some of the most intelligent.

Many creatures of the deep make a nightly migration to shallower water.

For the first time, a huge number of six-foot long carnivorous Humboldt squid are filmed hunting co-operatively to attack a shoal of fish off the coast of Mexico. Co-ordinating their assault, they herd the fish and drive them onto the reef. They flash their bodies red and white – either to confuse the fish or to signal to each other when they are about to go in for an attack.

Conditions under the ice in Antarctica's Ross Sea are similar to the deep ocean. But, rather surprisingly, the sea bed is carpeted with thousands of sea stars, sea urchins and huge nemertean worms which make this sub-zero world their home. Seen in tracking time lapse for the first time, they swarm across the sea bed to feed on a dead seal pup carcass – a rare bounty.

Off the southern coast of Australia giant spider crabs emerge from the deep to congregate in vast numbers in the shallows to moult. Having shed their old shells, they are soft-bodied for a while before their new shell hardens. This is their opportunity to mate, but it is also a time when they are vulnerable to attack from stingrays.

Giant Australian cuttlefish also emerge from deep water to mate in the shallows. A large male will attract and mate with a female, and then guard her from his rivals. If another large male challenges him, he flashes colours and stripes that pulse along his side to tell the rival to keep off. However, devious smaller males have a different approach. They change their colour to look like a female and hold their tentacles just like a female who wants to mate. With this disguise, they slowly swim towards the female, and right under the larger male's nose, quickly mate with her!

The female Pacific giant octopus is a dedicated parent – she finds a cave and blocks herself and her eggs in with rocks. For the next six months she does not leave her den but guards her eggs, keeping them oxygenated and free from disease and predators. Gradually she starves, and her last act of devotion is blowing water over her eggs to help them hatch. And then she dies.

In the warm but nutrient-poor seas of the tropics, microscopic coral polyps multiply and grow, creating the largest living structures in the world that, staggeringly, harbour a quarter of all marine life. And yet coral reefs are built by the tiniest of creatures, occupying less than half of one per cent of the oceans' floor.

The Life team travelled to the freezing waters of the Antarctic to film the slow motion world of the creatures living under the ice.

First they drilled a huge hole in the ice to feed all the equipment through. It took more than 150 dives to gradually construct and operate a tracking time lapse rig.

And, finally, they could film the behaviour of starfish, sea urchins and giant worms swarming over a dead seal pup, speeded up 500 times.

The Life team also discovered creating their very own ship wreck in the Bahamas was much more difficult than they imagined – but in the end the boat sank perfectly, settling upright on the bottom. The team returned several times during the next two years to watch nature take a hold on the rusting hulk.

 

[gofreak]

Boo. So I guess this won't work on my JPN PS3.

It has the same problems with PAL PSone games I've downloaded off UK stores.

Surely it can't be such a big deal for it to handle 50hz output?

 

[NekoFever]

Surely it can't be such a big deal for it to handle 50hz output?

No, it wouldn't, and it's clearly a deliberate thing. PS3s from PAL territories manage it fine and if you rip the videos and play them from a USB drive or copy them to the PS3 it'll play them; it only won't play nice with them when they're on a DVD or BD.

Stupidly, you could actually rip the video files from the BD and burn them to a BD-R as a plain data disc (as opposed to a video disc) and the PS3 would play them.

 

[Zaptruder]

No, it wouldn't, and it's clearly a deliberate thing. PS3s from PAL territories manage it fine and if you rip the videos and play them from a USB drive or copy them to the PS3 it'll play them; it only won't play nice with them when they're on a DVD or BD.

Stupidly, you could actually rip the video files from the BD and burn them to a BD-R as a plain data disc (as opposed to a video disc) and the PS3 would play them.

I wonder who's making these decisions... and where they are... so people can telegram them slaps and punches.

 

[grap3fruitman]

I wonder who's making these decisions... and where they are... so people can telegram them slaps and punches.

Telegram the "Dear Playstation" guy.

 

[mclem]

It may have just been hearsay - and it dates back from the early '00s, so the situations may have changed - but I seem to remember hearing that an oddity about importing from the EU to the US is that while it's quite rare to find an EU television that's incapable of taking a 60Hz signal and doing the right thing with it, it's fairly uncommon for a US one to cope with a 50Hz transmission; is it possible that it's your telly that's throwing a wobbly, rather than the Blu-ray or PS3?

 

[NekoFever]

I'm in the UK and it works on my standalone, so it's definitely not my TV.

It's true that in the good old days it was harder to import from PAL to NTSC than vice versa because any decent PAL TV could handle an NTSC signal, whereas very few NTSC signals could take PAL. That's pretty much not an issue any more with HDTVs, though, because there's no PAL and NTSC as such and the HD standards allow for both 50 and 60Hz content, as well as 24Hz.

 

[xBerserker]

Bad news for those looking to import the BD for playback on a PS3, I'm afraid.

The UK Blu-ray isn't region coded, but both the menus and the episodes themselves are in 50Hz, so it won't currently play on a region A PS3. Tested it in a multiregion Panasonic DMP-BD60 set to region A and it played without an issue. According to that player's codec info it was 1080i at 50Hz, which is why my US PS3 wouldn't play it.

Despite saying on the back of the box that it's 1080p with a DTS-HD Master Audio logo, it's actually 1080i with DTS-HD High Resolution.

tl;dr: Won't work in a US PS3 but any decent standalone should work fine.

Much sadness

So nothing you can tweek settings wise on a US PS3 to make it work??

 

[Timbuktu]

Bad news for those looking to import the BD for playback on a PS3, I'm afraid.

The UK Blu-ray isn't region coded, but both the menus and the episodes themselves are in 50Hz, so it won't currently play on a region A PS3. Tested it in a multiregion Panasonic DMP-BD60 set to region A and it played without an issue. According to that player's codec info it was 1080i at 50Hz, which is why my US PS3 wouldn't play it.

Despite saying on the back of the box that it's 1080p with a DTS-HD Master Audio logo, it's actually 1080i with DTS-HD High Resolution.

tl;dr: Won't work in a US PS3 but any decent standalone should work fine.

I'm in the UK with a HK PS3, which is also region A. Bought Life at a store today and it plays fine on my PS3. Don't know much about the technical stuff, but it's playing and looks good.

 

[Varion]

I'm in the UK with a HK PS3, which is also region A. Bought Life at a store today and it plays fine on my PS3. Don't know much about the technical stuff, but it's playing and looks good.

Weird... so it works fine on a HK PS3 and not on a US PS3, apparently.

Anyone going to be trying this with a Japanese PS3? Was hoping to pick this up (been avoiding watching it on TV for that reason, seen as I don't have BBC HD) so this is pretty disappointing news. I don't have the money to be a guinea pig

 

[alr1ght]

Is HK 60hz standard or 50hz?

 

[Rentahamster]

Wow, those incompatibilities are pretty lame. Good job Sony, give people more legitimate reasons to rip Blurays *rolleyes*

 

[Ikopi]

Episode 8 - Creatures Of The Deep

Amazing episode tonight. This must have been one of the best hours of television ever. It showed a whole new world of which we have only scratched the surface.

The flashing squids especially were magical, and they proved to have at least as much intelligence as mammals. The deception involved in the mating ritual was almost genious.

 

[captive]

so what's the deal here. Sorry if this has already been discussed.
For Planet Earth didn't BBC release its own version along side the Discovery Sigourney Weaver in the US? Are they not doing that this time around?(i know about the oprah version, excuse me while i barf.) I didn't do anything special to get the BBC version, just ordered from amazon.com.
Or is all this fuss about people trying to get it now even though its not released in the US yet?

 

[Cyan]

There's no reason one couldn't get the DVD version from Amazon UK, right?

For those of us who don't have Bluray.

 

[Reno7728]

Fantastic episode - I was always looking forward as i love the deep sea stuff.

Also, i can't wait until we have advanced far enough to film stuff like this in Lake Vostok, a huge lake under around 3km of ice that could be similar in creatures to places like europa

 

[alr1ght]

so what's the deal here. Sorry if this has already been discussed.
For Planet Earth didn't BBC release its own version along side the Discovery Sigourney Weaver in the US? Are they not doing that this time around?(i know about the oprah version, excuse me while i barf.) I didn't do anything special to get the BBC version, just ordered from amazon.com.
Or is all this fuss about people trying to get it now even though its not released in the US yet?

The UK release has 50hz (PAL) content on it (menus, boot video, etc), which is unplayable right now on US (NTSC) PS3s. It's a firmware issue, as the machine itself is capable of playing it, but won't due to firmware issues.

I don't think the Planet Earth UK BD has any 50hz content on it.

 

[Robin]

These episodes go by so quickly. Brilliant episode again and some of the image clarity tonight was astounding.

My favourite part was the young cuttlefish getting ninja sex :lol

 

[Naked Snake]

Apparently the blu-ray is 1080i not 1080p

despite the packaging saying it is 1080p, the BBC nature documentary series, Life (released today in the UK), is actually 1080i50.

It still looks great, but if your system is not 50hz compatible, you won't be able to watch it.

Also, the packaging also lists the soundtrack as DTS-HD Master Audio, when it's actually DTS-HD High Resolution at 1200kbps (don't quote me, that's from memory).

http://forums.highdefdigest.com/blu-ray-imports-subforum/96277-alert-bbc-life-uk-blu-ray-50hz.html

All I can think of is: Why? Could the source material really be maxed at 1080i? I thought this was recently shot using the latest high def cameras.

 

[alr1ght]

Even stranger that Planet Earth was shot at 24fps, and I think this is the same crew. Shame.

 

[Timbuktu]

Is HK 60hz standard or 50hz?

It's the same region as the US and I can play region A blu ray on it, but I guess since Hong Kong follows UK in most standards, it would be PAL as well.

 

[alr1ght]

yerp, HK is PAL. We just need someone with a US or JPN PS3 to test it out.

 

[Naked Snake]

yerp, HK is PAL. We just need someone with a US or JPN PS3 to test it out.

NekoFever already confirmed it doesn't play on US PS3.

 

[subzero9285]

Amazing episode tonight. This must have been one of the best hours of television ever. It showed a whole new world of which we have only scratched the surface.

The flashing squids especially were magical, and they proved to have at least as much intelligence as mammals. The deception involved in the mating ritual was almost genious.

Yes, it was a mesmerizing hour of TV, loved the deception by that sneaky little cuttlefish, the time-lapse scenes are some of the best I've witnessed, this tops the insects episode for me.
Brilliant stuff.

 

[subzero9285]

There's no reason one couldn't get the DVD version from Amazon UK, right?

For those of us who don't have Bluray.

If you're in the US and have a multi format, multi region DVD player you should be fine.

 

[Valkyr Junkie]

Apparently the blu-ray is 1080i not 1080p

All I can think of is: Why? Could the source material really be maxed at 1080i? I thought this was recently shot using the latest high def cameras.

At least it's a step up from Planet Earth which from the behind the scenes footage was shot using 720p video. I mean, these are the same people that just now started shooting Top Gear in HD....... fuckers.

 

[subzero9285]

so what's the deal here. Sorry if this has already been discussed.
For Planet Earth didn't BBC release its own version along side the Discovery Sigourney Weaver in the US? Are they not doing that this time around?(i know about the oprah version, excuse me while i barf.) I didn't do anything special to get the BBC version, just ordered from amazon.com.
Or is all this fuss about people trying to get it now even though its not released in the US yet?

No confirmation of that yet, the only thing that's confirmed for the US is that it's airing on the Discovery Channel in March, and Oprah is narrating it. Whether or not the BBC decides to release the David Attenborough narrated version in the US is unknown. There is the possibility of alternate narration in the US Blu-ray release, but you'll just have to wait and see.

 

[Naked Snake]

At least it's a step up from Planet Earth which from the behind the scenes footage was shot using 720p video. I mean, these are the same people that just now started shooting Top Gear in HD....... fuckers.

I don't think 1080i is a step up from 720p, they're virtually the same effective resolution, which is 50% of 1080p

I'm wondering, wouldn't converting the 50Hz episodes to 60Hz for the US market cause the video to run faster? Which also affects the audio pitch, right? Or is it slower? I need to sleep...

 

[subzero9285]

A few shots from yesterday's episode.

Also the time-lapse sequence in HD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG17TsgV_qI

 

[Bit-Bit]

I cannot wait for the blu-ray to drop in the US! Importing the UK version seems less and less like an option now with people reporting it not working on their ps3s. Like most, that's my only blu-ray player.

 

[xBerserker]

I cannot wait for the blu-ray to drop in the US! Importing the UK version seems less and less like an option now with people reporting it not working on their ps3s. Like most, that's my only blu-ray player.

I really hope they offer both narrated versions in the US .. no way in hell I'm contributing to Oprah's paycheck.

 

[Igo]

I was under the impression that the only reason it says 1080i on the box of Planet Earth is because a couple of the night scenes weren't 1080p. Something like that anyway.

 

[krioto]

Got my blu-ray copy in the mail yesterday.

4 discs - looks great in HD!

 

[Ignis Fatuus]

Stupidly, you could actually rip the video files from the BD and burn them to a BD-R as a plain data disc (as opposed to a video disc) and the PS3 would play them.

Not if the resulting file were over 4gb.

At any rate I'm crossing my fingers that it'll work. If not, I guess I have to invest in the cheapest standalone I can find--any recommendations?

 

[gofreak]

Creatures of the deep was amazing.

Couldn't believe the coral reef sequence. I thought they actually used CG for all that, but then it turns out they really did sink a boat and leave it for 2+ years..

 

[NekoFever]

I watched some of the BD last night. It's not as impressive as Planet Earth but it still looks very good.

 

[Dizzan]

I watched some of the BD last night. It's not as impressive as Planet Earth but it still looks very good.

In what ways?

 

[NekoFever]

In what ways?

Just lacks a bit of pop to me. My friend who was watching it with me said the same thing - he said it looked "softer".

The insect episode with lots of close detail looked very impressive, but it didn't impress me as much on the epic wide shots. Admittedly there are less of those than Planet Earth, though.

Oh, and stoats are evil.

 

[Veidt]

A few shots from yesterday's episode.

How amazing is this.

 

[subzero9285]

How amazing is this.

Looks even better in motion.

 

[Schattenjäger]

I just got the discs in the US and it is not working on my standalone br player =( =( =( - it boots up fine but when I get to the title screen everything is black and it continues after I press play - audio is fine though =(

 

[bigswords]

IS this on Bluray? Please please tell meeee i will pay monnnieeesssss~~

 

[Schattenjäger]

ugh its region free but plays in 1080i50 and my player (panasonic BD35) is not compatible... grrrrrrrrrrrr

 

[alr1ght]

That sucks they didn't film at 24fps. That probably means the US release will have slight judder.

 

[Benjamin_MFF]

Alright, the series is going to be broadcast with the new narration March 2010.
Source (Discovery)
Then the BBC will release the dvd and blu ray in the "spring" of 2010 to coincide with earth day, which is April 22nd.
Source (BBC.co.uk)
Make sure to mark your calenders.

 

[subzero9285]

Vine seeds become 'giant gliders'

Remarkable footage has been captured of falling Alsomitra vine seeds, which use paper-thin wings to disperse like giant gliders. The seeds, which are produced by a football-sized pod, can glide hundreds of metres across the forest.

That ensures that the seeds fall far from their parent, giving the next generation of vines a head start. A BBC team team captured the film of the gliding seeds for the natural history series Life.

The Alsomitra (Alsomitra macrocarpa) vine is a type of climbing gourd, and is also known as the Javan cucumber. It grows in the forests of Java, Indonesia. Each pod contains up to 400 individual seeds, each of which peels away from the parent tree in the wind.

Dispersing its seeds in this way is vital to the vine, which must avoid producing new plants that land close, competing for sunlight and soil nutrients.

The aerodynamics of the giant Alsomitra seeds were studied by two Japanese engineers, Akira Azuma and Yoshinori Okuno more than 20 years ago. They found that design of the seed is so good that it achieves a descent angle of just 12 degrees, a property that has led to the seed's shape inspiring the design of aircraft.

That means it falls just 0.4m each second, compared to 1m per second for many winged seeds that rotate as they fall. Once the seed has fallen to the ground, the wings decay, rotting away to leave the germinating seed.

A new vine then grows skyward toward the canopy and sunlight. At up to 15cm across, and weighing around 300g, they are among the largest winged seeds produced by any plant. Yet the seed's wings are less than 1mm thick. Generally, the seeds fall to the ground in broad circles up to 6m across.

However, compared to many other plant seeds, those of the Alsomitra vine can glide in a relatively straight line with a following wind, helping them fall further away from the parent plant.

"Gliding seeds" is broadcast within the Plants episode of the BBC series Life at 2100GMT on BBC One on Monday 7 December.

Link