I just saw the post about batteries in Europe and frankly I have a similar question about cd-roms...if I find a photo shop to download photos from my compact flash card to cd I assume there is no compatibility problems when I get back to the U.S., such as we've found in the past with DVD's?

Just tell them that you need it put on the US format. The place in Rome where we had out images uploaded to a CD had the capability to do either. Not a dumb question at all.

>put on the US format
Never heared of that. A photo is a photo, isn't it?

The format is the same everywhere in the world. There are no compatibility problems.

The same is true for DVDs, incidentally, except for the artificial zone system insisted upon by Hollywood.

I hope you don't mind my tacking a question on to your thread,DiAblo. But is there a difference in audio CDs? There are a couple of traditional music CDs I'm hoping to buy in Ireland that I can't get here (at least not without paying a fortune for them). Until recently, it never crossed my mind that there could be a difference in CDs. But now that I know European DVDs are different, I'm wondering...

Thanks!

No difference, just that as in the US the best sold titles are copy protected. The CD format was invented by Philips and Sony. (A Euro-Japanese co-production ;-) ). No worries.

European CDs are identical to American ones. I have hundreds of foreign CDs and have never had any trouble playing any of them.

Some CDs from large companies with overly aggressive copy protection (Sony comes to mind) may not play properly in a computer's CD player, but all audio CDs, even copy-protected ones) will play in any ordinary audio CD player.

The situation with DVDs is different. There are two issues, the region code and the broadcast standard (how it talks to the TV). The region code is purely artificial and put on there by the Hollywood studios; the USA is region 1, Western Europe is region 2, etc. Some DVDs are encoded "region 0" which means they will play anywhere, and you can buy a "region-free" DVD player that will play anyone's DVDs. I have one, and play British and French DVDs all the time.

There are three broadcast standards: PAL (Britain, most of Asia, part of Africa and South America), SECAM (France, Russia, part of Africa), and NTSC (US, Canada, part of South America and Asia). These have to do with things like lines per inch and other exciting technical details. If you have a region-free DVD player, it can translate these for you as well. The only time you run into trouble with these video standards is with VHS tapes, which unlike DVDs are not region-protected, but are specific to PAL/SECAM/NTSC, meaning that if you play one your TV will not understand the signal and will give you garble or snow.

Thanks, logos and fnarf! And, DiAblo, for giving me a chance to ask this question!

Mucis CD's should be fine. The problem is with DVD's. The are zone (regions of the world) protected by the moviemakers. They do that to protect and increase profit!!!

That's true. I guess when I was asking them about this I was thinking DVD in my mind. Oh well...better safe than sorry! That would have sucked if I put my images on something I couldn't read at home then cleared them off my card!

If YOU make your own DVD, it will not have a region code (unless you want it to for some unfathomable reason).

You can buy a region-free player that will play any DVD on any TV for about $100 these days.

Hi Di,

>...a photo shop to download photos from my compact flash card to cd ...<

If you do that, make sure that the CD works before you erase your CF card.

Considering how low the prices for CF cards are (about $18 for 1 gb), I suggest buying one or two more and downloading them when you get home.