Mansfield Park 2007, Northanger Abbey 2007 Region 2 DVDs available for preorder
Alert Janeite Heather L. uncovered links to the missing two Jane Austen season DVDs at Amazon.co.uk. Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey Region 2 DVDs are both available for preorder, as is a set of MP, NA and the Kate Beckinsale Emma. Release date is April 2 for MP07 and NA07 as well as the set.
As previously announced, the Region 2 DVD for Persuasion 2007 (which, it appears, will be distributed separately from the other two new films) will be released on March 26 and also is available for preorder.
Please note: These are Region 2 DVDs in PAL format. Unless you have the proper equipment, you won’t be able to play these. ETA: Check out Tony A.’s excellent explanation in the comments to learn how to adapt your setup to view different regions/formats–it’s easier than you think.
More clues as to the broadcast dates, perhaps? But since MP and NA are coming out on the same date, it probably is not a good idea to place too much construction upon the dates, except that it looks more and more like the films will be broadcast in the UK in March.
February 14th, 2007 at 12:44 am
Hmm. The collection has the new Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey, but instead of Persuasion, you get Emma (which I’m guessing is the old one). I see Persuasion has a different distributor from MP or NA, so that’s probably why it’s not part of the box set.
February 14th, 2007 at 12:47 am
Oops. I didn’t read carefully. Thanks, the post is fixed.
February 14th, 2007 at 4:55 am
Here are a few words of encouragement for those fans residing outside of Region 2. There are a number of ways you can watch these DVDs with equipment that you already own. For starters, if you are reading this, you probably own a personal computer. If it is equipped with a DVD drive then you should be able to play DVDs outside your region, regardless of format (PAL or NTSC).
If, for example, your player is set for Region 1 and you insert a Region 2 DVD, you will be prompted to allow the computer to switch the region setting for your drive. Now you are only allowed to make this switch five times, after which your player will be permanently set to the last region setting. (There are utilities for resetting this feature four or five times, I cannot recall exactly, so you in effect are allowed to switch settings some 20 to 25 times.)
For the more adventurous, there are utilities that allow you to “flash” the firmware of your drive which will then make your player permanently region-free, forever. Or you can purchase an external DVD player/burner and set it to play, say, Region 2 discs, while your built-in one is used for your local region discs.
But you may not wish to watch DVDs on your computer at all, (although I know some people who mainly use their PCs for watching movies and their TVs for surfing—to each her/his own). The good news is that there are now a number of regular DVD players that can play both PAL and NTSC discs on either PAL or NTSC TVs. This will not necessarily solve the Region encoding problem; however, I know of one player (the very one I own) that has a secret code to enable playing ALL regions without the need to switch. And it has other wonderful features to boot, especially for HDTV sets.
Since I am in no way connected with the manufacturer of this magic bullet player, I will not advertise it here. Those who wish to find out may send me an email (tony AT tlc-graphics DOT com) and I will give you the information (including the secret code!).
Hey, you can be watching Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and Northanger Abbey 2007 even before you have to pay your income taxes!
February 14th, 2007 at 5:00 am
Oh, one more thing, I almost forgot.
Happy Valentine’s Day, Janeites!
February 14th, 2007 at 7:38 am
I’m surprised and delighted at how soon these DVDs are available to buy. For example the new BBC version of Jane Eyre was screened in the UK in September 2007, but has only just come on the market for Region 2 DVD (this week, in fact). I’d assumed that the same would apply for the new JA adaptations and my husband was really happy because he thought he’d got Christmas 2007 sorted as far as I was concerned. If he thinks I’m waiting til Christmas now though, he’s got another think coming!!
I can’t help wondering why things have moved so quickly. Perhaps some clueless marketing type thinks there isn’t a great deal of interest in all things Austen and wants to strike while the iron is hot and the screening fresh in our goldfish type memories, LOL!
Happy Valentine’s day, everyone!
February 14th, 2007 at 7:39 am
OOPS, I meant, of course, that Jane Eyre was screened in September 2006. Sorry, must be the effect of too much coffee or something!!
February 14th, 2007 at 8:10 am
Gotta love how Amazon can have the DVD release date but ITV won’t cough up the air date
At least someone is on top of things!
February 14th, 2007 at 10:28 am
Actually I think it’s savvy marketing. Any viewer, whether a dedicated Austen fan who has been waiting since last summer to see these films, or someone flipping channels who thinks “ooh, pretty” can watch — give the film a try, making it in a way its own best advertisement — and if they like it, they can buy it. Instant gratification, and more money for ITV. The dedicated fans may be willing to wait six months for the DVD, but ITV will lose out on those casual browser pounds if they delay. There’s been some debate amongst small-scale, independent filmmakers over making their DVDs available in theater lobbies or at film festivals to boost their profits.
February 14th, 2007 at 10:35 am
My computer only allows me to switch regions 4 times. But I have hacked my regular DVD player anyway, so I’ll be on the market for these DVDs shortly. But not all the news we hear about them is promising, so I will wait to hear reviews of the productions before taking my tax refund and ordering.
February 14th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Thanks, Tony! I updated the post with a link to your comment. I am set up to view “outside” DVDs myself (still working on the computer) but wasn’t that comfortable explaning it–you did a great job.
February 15th, 2007 at 3:09 am
I’m on the other side of the Region 1/Region 2 problem, but as I live in Europe and have many Region 1 DVDs which I usually watch on my DVD player, here is my advice (Tony has already explained very well what to do with your computer). Sometimes you can buy region free or multiregion DVD players, but it is becoming more and more difficult to find one in normal stores. Basically, all DVD players are built to play all regions, but they manipulate the software so that they are limited to one.
This is what I did when my region free DVD player stopped working a few months ago: Go to a store with a good assortment of DVD players. Write down those who claim to play both NTSC and PAL (NTSC if you are in Europe and PAL if you are in the US). You will usually find that they are the cheaper, unknown brands (better forget about state-of-the-art players). Browse in the internet, entering “hack dvd player” “region free dvd player” etc., there are many sites specialising on this. Look if one of the DVD players you wrote down has an easy way of making it region free (that is, entering a string of numbers on the remote; better forget about more difficult methods like using a PDA). The probability that you will find it is quite high.
Then buy the DVD player and enjoy! Just enter the code following the instructions, it will take you less than a minute. As far as I know, making your DVD player region free is not illegal, as regional encoding is not based on legislation but on studio policy. I mean, I am still buying original DVDs, but sometimes months before the release date in my country or editions which are not available here. Please correct me if I am wrong.
February 15th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Thought you might like to read this:
This has come from the Guardian Unlimited - see website too for some comments
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/organgrinder/2007/02/can_itvs_jane_austen_season_re.html:
Any new Jane Austen adaptations are inevitably going to be overshadowed by ‘that’ scene in Pride and Prejudice.
You know the one. Where Colin Firth emerged from the lake in a wet shirt and breeches. The question is, how do you top that?
That’s pretty much what everyone wanted to know at the launch of ITV’s new Jane Austen season today.
Many have tried and failed to re-kindle that Colin Firth phwoar factor. Think Matthew Macfadyen and Keira Knightly in the recent Pride and Prejudice. Far too obvious.
Well ITV might have found a successor to Firth in the shape of Spooks star Rupert Penry-Jones. He plays Captain Frederick Wentworth in the adaptation of Austen’s more mature novel Persuasion (due to air in the spring). Ciaran Hinds played the same role for the BBC in the nineties and was brilliant. But Rupert plays it a bit racier and with some of the hard-edged, smouldering charm that Colin Firth gave Mr D’Arcy.
And the trembling kiss between Wentworth and Anne Elliott - played by the brilliant Sally Hawkins - after years of suppressed emotion, had the audience transfixed.
Judging by the large number of female journalists who flocked to chat to Rupert after the screening, ITV may have found someone to step into Colin Firth’s breeches…as it were.
Let the Rupert versus Colin debate begin.
February 15th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Hey Carol! I think I was moblogging that article as you were commenting!
February 15th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Check out this site: http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks for DVD hacking information. It worked on my Phillips DVP 642. But make sure to read through the entire thread — my player’s real hack wasn’t the first one listed.
February 15th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Thank you, Mags. I’m flattered. Actually my head was not very clear when I wrote that. I was in the middle of doing an all-nighter and wrote the message at 2:00 a.m. Julie was accurate about the four changes allowed: A-B-A-B-A, resulting in five region states in total by the time it needs a reset. I’m on a very busy schedule right now, hence my fewer posts, which I’m sure nobody misses.
Here is probably the most complete source of firmware patches for DVD players/writers. For the adventurous/foolhardy users only. There are no clear instructions here, just download links to the RPC-1 flashers for most brands.
http://tdb.rpc1.org/
So, yes, check the site that Julie mentions, then compare the revision numbers of the firmware for your particular player on both sites to see which is the more current one. The majority of the time, the newest flashers are the most bug-free.
And if you think about it, even with the risk involved in flashing, drives are now going for about $30 or so. Ruining one for the sake of being able to watch these DVDs is, to me, well worth the risk. (I have ruined one so far, after having flashed about a dozen and a half drives.)
To ElizabethN, let me just go ahead and name-drop. Hands down, the best PAL/NTSC player now that can be made region-free using a “secret code” is the Oppo. But, this is only for high definition TVs. 1080p/1080i upscaling of standard DVDs is comparable, if not superior to, the HD-DVD and Bluray players in the market.
February 23rd, 2007 at 5:05 pm
[...] DVDs cannot be played on most DVD players sold in North America without modification. Read Tony A.’s comment for information about these [...]