DVD Regions

[Hanse18]

I'm not sure I understand this whole region issue. I don't travel alot, and maybe that has something to do with it, but what is it exactly. Will an American-sold dvd player not play European movies, and vice versa? Also, how come certain dvd players have "secret codes" that allow people to change the region, and most of these have a setting (usually 0) that plays all regions. How come this isn't the default setting? I don't really feel this has any relevancy to me (since all of my DVD's work fine and I don't travel out of country much) but don't you just hate it when there's random stuff you don't understand?

Thanks for the help

 

[racquetman]

I'm not sure I understand this whole region issue. I don't travel alot, and maybe that has something to do with it, but what is it exactly. Will an American-sold dvd player not play European movies, and vice versa? Also, how come certain dvd players have "secret codes" that allow people to change the region, and most of these have a setting (usually 0) that plays all regions. How come this isn't the default setting? I don't really feel this has any relevancy to me (since all of my DVD's work fine and I don't travel out of country much) but don't you just hate it when there's random stuff you don't understand?

Thanks for the help

This link should answer most of your questions - http://hometheater.about.com/cs/dvdlaserdisc/a/aaregioncodesa.htm

If you are still confused, just let us know.

 

[OliverB]

question regarding PAL/NTSC, are DVDs encoded in these systems, or is that something the player "does" when it reads the disk?

I knew some people from the Tcheck Republic that bought a cheap player from either Costco or Target and modded it to play all regions just fine. I doubt they had a multi system TV and those DVDs were in PAL.

But the article that is linked above mentions this as a problem.

Oliver

 

[Tek]

Region 1 (Canada, US & Possessions) uses NTSC... Most of the world uses PAL.

DVDs are optimised (encoded) for one or the other.
Some DVD Players will switch to either output & read either.
(For Instance: read PAL & Output NTSC for standard US TV/Monitor)
A few domestic (US) TV/Monitors will translate PAL or NTSC.
However RCE protection, present on most DVDs, still prohibits the function, on all but certain modified Players.

Wish US & Canada would change to PAL... but won't happen.

I haven't a clue what other Regions offer in the way of translating Non-Region media.

 

[carolo]

You won't find any (as far as I know) American stand-alone DVD players that are region-free out of the box. There are quite a few that have remote hacks though. You can find pretty good ones as low as $60 (Philips DVP642).

It's not so much about traveling, but importing DVDs from these other regions that either aren't out in the US or have a better release elsewhere.

 

[MACCA350]

If you want to make your player multi-region try here

cheers

 

[Buckle-meister]

Additional questions

This link should answer most of your questions...

Thanks for that Alandamp, but the link still doesn't answer one of Hanse18's questions:

...how come certain dvd players have "secret codes" that allow people to change the region...

Is it so that manufacturers need only make a single player and then program each with the relevant code before shipping to any given region?

Also, I would like to know who finds out these codes? I just checked out Macca350's link (cheers) and found the hack for my Yamaha S2500 Universal player. There is no way that somebody could have found the procedure by trial and error, so how did somebody get it? Is there a 'rat' at Yamaha?

Regards