Techies, explain to me. . .
What’s this whole “region” thing all about? If I buy a DVD from Europe and put it into my American DVD player what happens? Is there such a thing as a DVD player that can play all regions? Are there DVDs that are not region specific? Why are DVDs manufactured to be region specific anyway?
http://www.bigfire.com/DVDregions.htm has a fairly good explaination
Because films get released in different countries at different times, studios don’t want a DVD release in, say, the US cutting into the box-office takings from Europe. So, different regional codes on DVDs.
You can get DVD players which are multi-regional (I’m not sure about the actual legality of this in the US - they’re commercially available on this side of the pond, certainly).
Some DVDs are “Region 0” encoded, which means no region coding at all, so they’ll play on any player in the world. If you buy a European (region 2) DVD and put it in an American (region 1) player, it won’t work. (I can’t say specifically what sort of error or error message you’ll get - depends on the player, I imagine.)
You will also have to watch out for the various TV formats around (NTSC in the States, PAL in the UK, SECAM in France, that sort of thing) which may mean a DVD isn’t viewable on your TV even if the player can decode it quite happily.
raspberries all around
I’ll post this anyway. Damn my slow fingers. I’ll also link this site since I love it so.
There are 8 regions. All DVD players are either set to a specific region or to have no region. When you put a disc in if your player has a region set then they make sure that the region encoded on the disc matches that in the player. If they don’t you get a warning screen and can’t play the disc.
There are also a very small amount of discs which come with a program called RCE which checks to make sure your player has a region set. If it finds that the region isn’t set in the player then you’ll get a warning screen and can’t play the disc.
Pornos and many small budget discs have no region. I own “The Gamers” by Dead Gentlement and it’s a region free disc. Most players have simple methods which allow retailers to switch the region freely. If you ever think you might purchase an out of region DVD then you should purchase a player which is easily altered. Often by entering a secret menu through your remote. This is very easy. Although some players need physical alterations to change regions. Don’t buy those ones.
You’ll have a hard time of playing discs from Europe anyway since they use a different format then we do. We use NTSC and they mostly use PAL. If you want to play there discs you have to make sure that you DVD player and TV can handle both. Your computer should be able to handle whatever you throw at it. PAL, NTSC, SECAM. Just so long as your DVD program can handle it you can watch them.
“Finding Nemo” wont be released in Japan until late next year. We’ll have the DVDs in a few months. The powers that be are afraid that the Japanese will have seen the movie a year before it’s expected to arrive in theateres there so they had to find a way to keep them from simply purchasing the DVD from an American retailer and having it mailed there. The whole thing is already screwed since overseas so many retailers sell their players with no region set. That’s why they invented RCE which thankfully has yet to take off. Namely they want to control the way the markets open so they can concentrate there efforts. Releasing movies and DVDs worldwide all at once would be very expensive and time consuming.
Ooh. Here’s a nice rundown of what country uses what standard. Damn those contrarian Europeans. If it weren’t for their contrariness I’d have a whole lot more TV series on DVD then I do now.
The stupidity of the original reason region coding was created is most easily portrayed when a movie that was released 40 years ago is still Region 1, meaning nobody outside of the US should be able to play it, for no good reason at all.
Australia’s Fair Trading Consumer Council (the ACCC) has ruled region coding unfair, and so most DVD players are, I believe, now region-free.
I own a region free DVD player, I can watch any DVD from any part of the world (as long as the TV format is NSTC)
You can get them online and as for the legality of it here in the US, there is no law that I know of saying you cant buy one
(best place to get a region free DVD player is online and are usually around the same price as the mid to high end region one dvd players here in the US)
also if your computer has a DVD player, you can change the region depending on your program of course