[quote name='blakhawkjohn']I ordered "life" from amazon uk that I was told was region free and lo and behold it would not play in any of my region 1 players. I never could figure out where I made the mistake. Needless to say I'm leery ordering from amazon uk again. I'm sure it was my error but anyways.[/QUOTE]
The problem with Life (as with the Planet Earth SE) is that it was created for British TV (which runs at 50hz, as opposed to US TVs which run at 60hz), and is therefore encoded on the disc at 1080i50, which many US blu-ray players (and TVs) cannot play. Here's a post that I made on a thread about Planet Earth regarding the issue with some more info:
[quote name='arcane93']Be aware that the special edition is encoded in 1080i50, and a US PS3 (and many other US blu-ray players) won't be able to play it because they can't do 50hz playback.
There's a (now somewhat outdated) list here of US blu-ray players that will be able to play the special edition:
http://forum.blu-ray.com/blu-ray-players-recorders/95245-us-blu-ray-players-50hz-compatibility.html If your blu-ray player isn't on that list, I would make the assumption that your blu-ray player
can't play it unless you can specifically find out otherwise. Keep in mind that even if your player
is on the list, you will also need either a TV that supports 50hz, or a video processor to convert it to a frame rate that your TV does support (unless your blu-ray player is capable of doing the frame rate conversion to 60hz itself, which a few models are).
Also, while the blu-rays are region-free, the included DVD
is region locked to region 2. You'll need a region-free DVD player in order to play it.
The original set (the one in the OP here) is 1080p24, so it will play on US players without an issue. Unfortunately, it has several problems of its own (which the special edition was meant to fix). It seems that we just can't get a break on the issues with this title over here.[/QUOTE]
Movies, for the most part, won't be a problem, as they are generally encoded at 24fps. Still, it's one more thing to watch out for when importing discs.
[quote name='Jodou']Ugh, $40 is my sweet spot for this but I'd rather use up some Amazon credit to get it. Really wish this was in the US. :\[/QUOTE]
Worth noting, the packaging for the UK version is somewhat different from the US version (the UK version has actual digipack trays, whereas with the US version, the discs are slid in and out of slots in the cardboard). Personally, I strongly prefer the UK packaging and have been waiting for a deal on the UK version. I may have to order this.