A copy of the Via-Vision Australian release Blu-ray set for Season 3 arrived in the mail today, so below is a first-look using my PS4 Blu-ray player:

The Packaging

The set comes in a 2 disk case, with a very dark printed sleeve featuring the season 3 poster art. The quality of the printing and layout is not great – rather murky and lacking definition or contrast, and a strange choice of serif font for ‘Season 3’ which doesn’t match the last 2 releases. There are no other inserts, but the inside of the cover has details of other releases from the via-vision catalogue. The back cover features 4 publicity stills (including some spoilers) and a brief blurb about the show.

The Disks

Inside the case the two disks are plain black with the 12 Monkeys lettering and disk details.

Note that the case states the disks are Region B. There was no way for me to verify this on my Region B PS4 player. While it’s likely they are region free, until someone with a Region A player tries them it can’t be confirmed definitively. UPDATE 23 May: The disks have now been tested in a Region A machine and can be confirmed region free.

First Look

As I’m viewing on my PS4, I can’t give any genuinely technical assessment on the picture or audio quality, but can generally say they both seemed very good to this layman’s eye.

the tech specs provided by the distributor are:

1080P 16:9

Dolby True HD Surround 5.1

The disks contain the episodes only, with no special features, and no subtitles, with 5 episodes per disk.

Below are some images of the disk menus. The menu design is the same on both disks. One little oddity is on the Playstation they have Series 1-3 in the thumbnail. Other than that, the menus are easy to use, and look good. The second row of menus below are how they appear while you are within an episode.

All these screenshots are photographs taken off a computer monitor, as I don’t have a built-in Blu-ray drive on my PC. So they definitely shouldn’t be used to judge the picture quality.

Overall

The picture and audio quality of the episodes seems good, but the packaging and lack of any extra features is disappointing. However, If you want to have a physical copy of Season 3, at the moment this set is your only choice. As noted, I was unable to verify the region free status of the disks, so will update this when someone with a Region A player has been able to check. UPDATED 23 May: Disks have been verified region-free.

The Australian season 3 release (Blu-Ray and DVD) by Via-Vision goes on sale on the 23rd May. I have listed some online retailers where this can be bought on the Ways to Watch page, but this is not an endorsement of those sites – you need to do your own due diligence on that.

Give Away *CLOSED*

I’ve been given 2 extra copies of the Blu-ray set to give away. If you are in AUSTRALIA and are one of the first 2 to post a comment below with the name of the actual Detroit hotel where they filmed the John Adams Hotel in S1E01 (the pilot) it is yours! (HINT – the answer can be found HERE) Nb. Your email will only be used to contact you for an address to post the disks.

Congratulations Dirk and Andrea.