Borealis

A question for all Fodor-techies - if I purchased a movie (or even a tourist CD/DVD) in Europe, would I be able to see it using my DVD/CD player at home?
Is there a difference between the two systems as there was with videos?
Or will I have to use my computer to watch it??

KS452

for your reading pleasure:

http://hometheaterinfo.com/dvd3.htm

keb0503

they willnot play on a regular american dvd player. they use a different format. however you can buy a dvd player that has been modified to play international movies. i bought mine at scarecrow video in seattle. they have a website www.scarecrow.com
i'm not sure if they sell they dvd players online though. good luck!

SalB

Audio CDs are fine. DVDs are a problem. If it says on the DVD that it is formatted to work in ALL zones, you can play it in the states. You find these most often in tourist venues. If you walk into a Blockbuster Francais (I made that up), you will get DVDs that only play in the European zone.

BTW, if it won't work in your DVD player, it won't work in your computer. They are zoned too. European DVDs play in Europe . . . DVD players or computer DVD players. Sad, but true.

You are allowed to change the zone your player reads, but only a few times. The solution would be to have two players and set one up for US DVDs and the other for European DVDs.

A man working in a French museum shop told me a couple weeks ago that they are not making the DVDs that play in all zones any more. I don't know if this is correct, and if it is, it's annoying.

I suppose several DVDs that only play in France is a good excuse to buy a house in France, though, isn't it?!

Borealis

Thank you KS452, keb0503, and SalB.
This is enough to really make me angry!!
So is the entertainment industry conrolling this, or is it the "hardware" manufacturers?

Whatever happened to freedom of information (or the freedom to choose what one wants to watch)????

I did notice when in eastern Europe recently that the movies showing there were from any one of 10 to 12 countries (a range of European countries and also American).
So why is it that here we have such a limited choice?

SalB - although I would love to have a house in France, that's an awfully expensive way to see European movies!! AARRRGGGHHHH!!!

By the way - I checked the movie that I own (and can play on my DVD) - it is a video-CD, and not a DVD. I received it as a gift, and without thinking popped it into my DVD player and watched it - no problem!! I don't understand the difference between a DVD and a video-CD, but there must be one.

Clifton

Borealis,

I was reading an article on that and wish I could recall the source, but it's been awhile. My understanding is that it's a cooperative effort to drive us nuts.

In most of these sorts of things, it boils down to a dividing of standards as the US and the rest of the world rarely agree to do anything the same way. Mobile Phone bands, electric voltages, outlet config, etc.

This one though is a concerted, intentional effort to prevent pirated, copywrited material from having value overseas. Foriegn markets are becoming more lucrative than the US, however video that was not yet released in some other market would already be selling like hotcakes before the Hollywood distributors ever arrived, due to copying of US versions. And since the entertainment biz couldn't force certain markets, especially in Asia, to enforce US copyright law, they split up the technology.

So it drives us nuts while people easily figured out how to convert formats as they pirated the next movie.

Clifton

PS - Australian movies don't work in the US either and vice versa.

Marz

The solution is to get your DVD player modified to be multi-region then you can play DVD's from around the world.

JonJon

Nothing has happened to "freedom." You still have the freedom to get your DVD player modified, etc.

Hee_hee_hee

Dvds sold in Europe are mostly region 2 encoded. Most dvd players sold in the US will only play region 1 (N America) encoded discs.

Jennie

Hmmm . . . I just bought my boyfriend a Christmas gift that is an "import" dvd of a British movie. I bought it from an American distributor through Amazon.com.

What do you guys think about that? Think it'll work in our US dvd player? It didn't even occur to me that it might not work.

Jennie

ncgrrl

Jennie, check on the dvd or go back and check on Amazon for the zone. I have a feeling you're okay, but better be safe than sorry. Plus, you still have time to exchange it before Christmas.

Broealis, you shouldn't try to apply American Freedoms to non-American countries. DVD players aren't really a freedom, just a cool gadget.

matthew

As others have said, you can buy Multi region DVD players - they ignore the region coding on the disk that stops a single region DVD player from reading a DVD from anywhere outside that region (eg the US is Region 1 so US single region players will only play Region 1 disks.)
The problem is that even if you buy a multi region player, the different countries in the world use different picture standards.
Eg The US uses NTSC, the UK uses PAL. They have different update rates (the number of pictures per second that make up a moving image) and a different number of lines that make up the picture on the screen, plus a few other differences as well.
Unless your TV can handle the particular standard that the DVD was recorded with, then it will look extremely strange when you try and play it, multiregion DVD or not (I've tried this in the UK and a US DVD displays in black and white, with lines all over the screen.)
Such TV's are quite common in the UK, but I haven't seen too many over in the US.
If you buy a US version of a UK DVD then it will have been converted to both play in a US DVD player and to display properly on your TV.

adoptionisfab

I am looking for clarification on this my boss is in Paris now and he said old DVDs that he purchased in Paris don't work on the DVD player in the apartment he is staying in but do work on his PC.

hopscotch

It looks like the entropy of the world continues to increase, at an increasing rate. Why can't technology bring us together instead of chopping us up.

michelleNYC

What a timely question! I just received a DVD from my parents who bought it in Madrid. Where do I look on the DVD to see if I can view it (aside from popping it in and realizing that I can't)? Will it say if it's encoded for Region 2?

lincasanova

just for everyone's information.. turns out that the very very cheap DVD machines seem to show both zones one and two although they do not state so for licensing reasons.
so...
we know this because my daughter ( we live in spain)bought an extremely cheap machine in CARREFOUR (spain) and she can watch all the dvd's her friends bring her from the USA.

you could try it in USA.. she was told by someone at radio shack that they have found that to be true, also.. the cheaper the machine, the more chance it will read both zones.

Patty

<BTW, if it won't work in your DVD player, it won't work in your computer.>

My experience has been just the opposite. Of the DVD's that won't play in my US player, all of them have played so far on my computer's DVD drive.

crazymina

An article with info on region encoding.

http://hometheater.about.com/cs/dvdl...gioncodesa.htm

MorganB

Most dvd players can be easily hacked either via a firmware update or by punching a sequence of keys on the remote which will deactivate the regional restriction.

However, as Matthew pointed out, you must have a tv that handles the various formats, for europe it is typically PAL and for North America it is NTSC. 99.9 percent of TVs sold in the US will only play NTSC. About 75 percent of the tvs sold in europe will do both.