Compatibility of European DVDs on U.S, Players

[Carnac_the_Magnificent]

I’m in the market for a set of DVD’s on an old popular Brit programme, and noticed the seller’s annotation: “Region 1.”

S/he also noted that European buyers should have a multi-region DVD player.

Are you telling me that a DVD purchased in, say, Bonn, Rome or Paris wouldn’t work on my US-manufactured DVD?

[Duckster]

Motion picture studios want to control the home release of movies in different countries because theater releases aren’t simultaneous (a movie may come out on video in the U.S. when it’s just hitting screens in Europe). Also, studios sell distribution rights to different foreign distributors and would like to guarantee an exclusive market. Therefore they required that the DVD standard include codes to prevent playback of certain discs in certain geographical regions. Each player is given a code for the region in which it’s sold. The player will refuse to play discs that are not coded for its region. This means that a disc bought in one country may not play on a player bought in another country. Some people believe that region codes are an illegal restraint of trade, but no legal cases have established this.

Regional codes are entirely optional for the maker of a disc. Discs without region locks will play on any player in any country. It’s not an encryption system, it’s just one byte of information on the disc that the player checks. Some studios originally announced that only their new releases would have regional codes, but so far almost all Hollywood releases play in only one region. Region codes are a permanent part of the disc, they won’t “unlock” after a period of time. Region codes don’t apply to DVD-Audio, DVD-ROM, or recordable DVD (see below for more detail).

Seven regions (also called locales or zones) have been defined, and each one is assigned a number. Players and discs are often identified by their region number superimposed on a world globe. If a disc plays in more than one region it will have more than one number on the globe.
1: U.S., Canada, U.S. Territories
2: Japan, Europe, South Africa, and Middle East (including Egypt)
3: Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong)
4: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean
5: Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union), Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia
6: China
7: Reserved
8: Special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.)

Source: DVD FAQ

[Q.E.D]

@Carnac the Magnificent!

Are you telling me that a DVD purchased in, say, Bonn, Rome or Paris wouldn’t work on my US-manufactured DVD?

It depends on the region-recognition of the player. Players coded to recognized a fixed region whill only play DVDs coded for that region (or Region 0, which is equivalent to an uncoded DVD). Some DVD players are multiregion, which means that they will play DVDs encoded for any region. Some single region players can be hacked (sometimes quite easily) to play all regions - there’s a large number of websites and discussion forums out there detailing how to do this for various makes and models of players.

[SavageNarce]

Probably not. Certainly I know that European videotapes won’t play in American players, or vice-versa.

The difference is in the video signals. North American televisions use a standard called NTSC, while Europeans use PAL/SECAM. They are not compatible. See this site for a list of “who uses what”.

[Dancing_Fool]

@SavageNarce

Probably not. Certainly I know that European videotapes won’t play in American players, or vice-versa.

The difference is in the video signals. North American televisions use a standard called NTSC, while Europeans use PAL/SECAM. They are not compatible. See this site for a list of “who uses what”.

No, regional coding on DVD’s is different from the video signals. Besides, on modern (non US) machinery, PAL and the various NTSC variants don’t matter much anymore. The rest of the world has just acknowledged that the US uses a different (inferior) system, and built support for it into their products. My 10+ year old TV supports both, my last three video recorders play either, and convert on the fly if I so request, and so on. It wouldn’t surprise me if US manufacturers are insular enough that they don’t support anything except NTSC, though.

[Carnac_the_Magnificent]

@Dancing Fool

It wouldn’t surprise me if US manufacturers are insular enough that they don’t support anything except NTSC, though.

You might want to address your concerns to China.

[Popup]

The OP mentions that the discs in question claim region 1. That is North America, and the reason the seller pointed out that you needed a multi-region player is probably that otherwise it would be difficult to use them in Europe (where one’s supposed to use region 2 only).
[Aside]
It seems to me like this region thingy is becoming less and less of a problem. Most DVD-players I see advertised are region-free and the DVD’s on sale seem to be a mix of region1 and region2. (I’m in Europe, where it’s supposed to be only region2.)
[/Aside]