Region B/free bluray disc playing only audio..but wait there's more!

I recently bought a copy of a German bluray issue of the show Amazing Stories. I have a Panasonic UB420 connected via HDMI to a Sony Bravia.
The disc package says "Region B PAL" However, a youtube reviewer said it played in non-region free players he has with no problem. Odd.

When first playing, all the intros,disclaimers play. The disc menu comes up as well. Upon playing an episode, the screen goes black, yet there is the audio. The playback info(time,resolution,etc) can also be viewed. It has not mattered if I set the player to Region B or not. Same result.
I've been happy with this player and it's played everything fine until this disc. Tried changing the output resolution and other things that shouldn't matter and didn't work.
Any ideas?

 

Could be an hdmi handshake issue between devices. Try unplugging the hdmi cable from one device and then after reattaching, unplug from the other device and then plug back in. Reboot both devices as well.

 

Is your TV Pal or NTSc?

 

So that hasn't worked but will try unplugging for longer periods or something. Thank you though!

 

NTSC

 

Sorry it didn't work. I had an issue with the new Black Widow 4k disc. When we watched it it was outputting 1080p only and no hdr. Did the unplug thing the next day and everything was golden

 

Connecting the tv before the player is supposed to be important in some cases so will try that. Otherwise maybe one or both of the devices are just confused.

 

I thought about region coding for you, but every outside my region disc I've ever tried won't do anything. Error message on the player regarding region. Audio and no video makes me think handshake issue

 

The Blu-ray player has had the quick start option on. Wonder if that affects the disconnect/reconnect hdmi. I’ll give it a shot.

 

There’s your problem. You said your disc is PAL, so you need either a PAL-capable display or a player capable of converting PAL to NTSC (or to an HD format that’s neither PAL nor NTSC). As it is, you’re sending the display a video signal it can’t decode.

 

I have other discs, dvd and bluray, that are PAL format and play no problem. I'm planning to just returns the discs, not worth the headache or money spent.

 

The show on the BluRay is probably 1080i/25fps, rather than the expected 1080p/24fps or 1080p/30fps.

There are a few a British BluRays that use 1080i/25fps, and very few American BluRay players can handle it.

HD content is not really PAL or NTSC, but 1080i/25fps can be thought of as a similar to PAL.

Update: I just checked Blu-Ray.com and saw that the German BluRay of Amazing Stories that you have is one of those freaky “SD on BluRay” releases, where they did indeed put SD content (PAL in this case) onto a BluRay for no apparent reason.

 

It must be either the frame rate or my tv can't display it. Given there are enough people out there saying it played fine on their Region A player and presumably NTSC tv, maybe my tv just doesn't like it. I noticed when the screen goes dark during playback, a few seconds in it goes pitch black. As if it's trying to display then gives up. I know I give up! Thank you for the info!