# DVD format **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 11, 2003, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-format/218393 "2003-12-11T17:33:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lillith\_Fair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bb73d2/32.png) [@Lillith\_Fair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lillith_Fair)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2003, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-format/218393/1 "2003-12-11T17:33:14Z")
Please someone answer this question! I know that videos for the U.S. and Great Britain are not the same format. What about DVD’s? If I order a DVD from GB will work in my DVD player in the States??? There is a set of DVD’s I can only find from British websites. Thanks! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2003, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-format/218393/2 "2003-12-11T18:09:06Z")
The short answer is “Maybe”. Details: The US and the UK use two different (analogue) video formats. The US uses “NTSC”, and the UK uses “PAL”. (I will leave HDTV out of this, as it does not apply to DVDs. Yet.) Fortunately, DVD players exist that will play DVDs using both formats. Unfortunately, these players are more common overseas than in the US. Fortunately, they _can_ be found in the US and Canada, at least in shops in large cities. A web search is also helpful. I, for example, have a JVC player that, while designed for NTSC, will play PAL discs. Unfortunately, because of another wrinkle, I haven’t found any PAL discs to play in it. Hollywood lawyer types introduced a system of “regional codes” or “zone locks”. They wanted to control the flow of movie discs, so that DVDs of a movie released in one zone wouldn’t be taken to another zone where the movie was still in cinemas and cut into cinema sales. Their solution: divide the world up into zones, and assign a number to each. The intent was to label each DVD disc with the numbers of the zones where it was intended to be sold. The DVD player would have a zone number indicating where it was installed. (In practice, the player’s zone number indicates where it was sold.) The Hollywood lawyers pressured the DVD-player makers into making DVD players that would read the zone numbers of the discs, and _refuse to play a disc that did not have a number matching the player’s number_. Then they released their movies on DVDs with different zone numbers in different markets. The US and the UK are in different zones; the US is zone 1 and the UK is zone 2. The upshot of all this is that, even if you bring a disc back from the UK, and even if you have a player that can play UK discs on a US television set, the UK disc must have the US zone number on it; otherwise, the player _will not play it_. I’m still looking for a Zone-1 (North America) PAL disc. Of course, people weren’t going to put up with this nonsense. “Zone-free” or “multi-zone” players soon appeared, which could play discs from any zone. These are available overseas and in specialty stores (although you may need to do quite a bit of digging to find them in the States). It is also important to remember that the zones are completely optional for the makers of discs; it is perfectly possible to release discs worldwide to all zones. More disc producers should do that. Happily, _consumer_-level DVD-production gear doesn’t have to deal with zone locks (although it has other issues, notably a format war among different types of recordable discs). ---
**Author:** ![Lillith\_Fair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bb73d2/32.png) [@Lillith\_Fair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lillith_Fair)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2003, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-format/218393/3 "2003-12-11T19:08:30Z")
Well thanks. I guess I’ll just forget it. I have no idea if my DVD player plays the other kind, or zones, but probably not because we bought it pretty cheap. Darn! ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2003, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-format/218393/4 "2003-12-11T19:37:10Z")
Don’t count your player out! The cheaper ones, especially the Chinese-made ones that you can get for $80 at Wal-Mart, tend to play more types of discs and be more easily adaptable for multi-zone use. This is partly because they’re made of standard PC components rather than parts custom-made for audio or video use. Where the cheap players fall down is that they aren’t as durable\* mechanically\*. Good-quality mechanical stuff–gears and motors and such–is expensive, and is not subject to the kind of progression that has steadily made computer parts of a given capability less and less expensive. There is also more information available on the net for the cheaper models about defeating the zone locks (which as far as I know is still legal in the US, though I’m sure the Motion Picture Association of America would have it otherwise). Try [http://www.dvdrhelp.com/](http://www.dvdrhelp.com/) for more info. Among other things, that site rates DVD players for features and adaptability. ---
**Author:** ![Hodge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Hodge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hodge)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-format/218393/5 "2003-12-12T01:37:05Z")
**Sunspace** is right, you may have lucked out and bought a more versatile player. What’s the make & model? Also, if you’re looking for import DVDs, you might want to check out [Diabolik DVD](http://www.diabolikdvd.com/), an excellent web retailer specializing in import DVDs. Because they’re based in the US they’re very careful to label the PAL/NTSC and REGION settings on all their merchandise. Any player in North America should be able to play region 0, region 1, and region free DVDs but you’re stuck with NTSC unless your player or TV can do PAL to NTSC conversion (very rare in North America). BTW, if the DVDs you’re looking for had a Japanese release (search Diabolik), then you may be in luck. Japan is NTSC, too. ---
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-format/218393/6 "2003-12-12T02:26:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hodge \* > \*\*but you’re stuck with NTSC unless your player or TV can do PAL to NTSC conversion (very rare in North America). \*\* DVD players than can do this are actually more common than you might think. I bought my Mintek for $80 three years ago from Best Buy. I hadn’t researched it beforehand and later found out that the player won’t even do SVCD, but it turns out that it has no problem with Region 0 PAL DVDs and PAL VCDs. Of the 784 players tested for this feature on DVDrHelp’s player database, [80%](http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdplayers.php?DVDname=&Search=Search&multisystem=1&Submit2=Search) have it, including many very cheap players. Even if the DVD is region-restricted, you still have options. If your computer has a DVD-ROM drive (new ones are as cheap as $25), you can use DVD player software on your computer to bypass the restrictions. If watching it on your computer isn’t good enough, you can rip it and burn to DVD-R. If you don’t have a DVD burner, but do have a CD burner, you can re-encode to VCD or SVCD and burn CDs that will play video on your standalone DVD player. Most players support this, but you can burn a [test](http://www.dvdrhelp.com/svcd) [disc](http://www.dvdrhelp.com/vcd) to make sure yours does before buying the DVD. ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-format/218393/7 "2003-12-12T02:26:31Z")
My girlfriend gets a lot of DVD’s from germany which are PAL format and also occasionally regional coding protected. What I did for her was copy the DVD to a blank DVD using my DVD burner minus the regional code 😉 Of course if you have a DVD burner and a computer you can probably connect your PC to your TV (as I do) and watch any type of DVD. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-format/218393/8 "2003-12-12T06:32:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sunspace \* > **The cheaper ones, especially the Chinese-made ones that you can get for $80 at Wal-Mart, tend to play more types of discs and be more easily adaptable for multi-zone use. This is partly because they’re made of standard PC components rather than parts custom-made for audio or video use.** Indeed. I’ll go one step further and say the cheaper the player, the more likely it is to 1) play crazy formats (DVD file structure on a CD, VCD file structure on a DVD, etc.), and 2) play imported discs. > [@](#): > > **There is also more information available on the net for the cheaper models about defeating the zone locks (which as far as I know is still legal in the US, though I’m sure the Motion Picture Association of America would have it otherwise).** Actually, I’d be surprised if defeating the region lock _doesn’t_ violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. After all, region coding is a technological measure that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work. The Electronic Frontier Foundation agrees. Here’s a [letter from the EFF](http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/copyrightoffice/20030515_region_dvd.php) asking the copyright office to make an exception to the DMCA, allowing people to circumvent region codes to watch legally imported DVDs. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-format/218393/9 "2003-12-12T09:25:40Z")
Interesting letter, **Mr2001**. Has any actual legal action in the US against someone who wanted to play their ‘lawfully imported’ DVDs (by defeating the zone lock on their DVD player) succeeded? This is precisely the problem that occurs at my French school. We can’t easily play Zone 2 French movies as part of the courses because Canada is in Zone 1. And that’s with a 20% French population in the country too, so it’s in the national interest to let us do this. But we’re sideswiped by the effects of the laws and policies to the south. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-format/218393/10 "2003-12-12T11:41:34Z")
I haven’t heard of any lawsuits regarding the region codes. The information I could find on Usenet suggests that it’s only illegal to sell region free players, not to convert players to region free, but I don’t think anyone knows for sure.