My DVD's in a DVD player in the UK?

Factual Questions
1

When my family goes to Ireland, will DVDs we currently own (i.e. bought and watched in the USA) be unlikely to be playable in our hotel room’s DVD player?

-FrL-

2

I think the UK uses a different region than the US. Your hotel would have to have a region-free DVD player.

…

UK uses Region 2. US uses Region 1.

So the answer is yes, your DVDs will very likely be unplayable.

3

It’s not just the region encoding, it’s the TV system too - PAL is the standard for most of Europe - so the TV will have to be multi-standard, unless the DVD player does scan conversion on the fly.

It’s not impossible to find home entertainment setups that will play any DVD region and format (mine does) - they’re not uncommon here in the UK, but not universal either - dunno about Ireland*.

(*Ireland isn’t part of the UK, but it is PAL and in region 2.)

Edited to add: Are you sure your hotel room will have a DVD player? I don’t think that’s a standard item in most hotels in this general part of the world.

4

I’m an American living in England with many US (Region 1) DVD’s. Non-name brand local DVD players have no problem running them.* While the cheapo ones you get at Tesco (grocery store like Kroger) for £19.99 don’t seem to check the region, the big names like Sony, Toshiba, and the like will balk. It’s not just my experience: my landlord just about plotzed when I told him the price of the “worldwide” machine I planned to buy. He told me to just get a cheapie for this exact reason. As usual, he’s right.

So you have a chance of enjoying your discs in your room. Pray the hotel was cheap when it added the DVD players. If it’s a Best Western property you have a good chance of that.**

  • Some American-market cheapo DVD players are this way, too, running my European Region 2 or Asian Region 3 DVD’s. I had one I bought for $30 that ran fine for months on 220VAC into a PAL TV.

** No aspersions cast to Best Western. Best Western isn’t very strict about the brand names of the electronics used in their franchisees’ rooms.

5

American DVDs usually work in my DVD player and I’ve never had trouble getting some machine around here to play them. Vice Versa is a pain in the arse however. By the way, your hotel room is unlikely to have a DVD player. You can purchase one for $30 if you’re so inclined though.

6

Thanks for the information, that’s encouraging to hear. (If you’re curious, we’re wondering about this because our oldest is very much in love with the idea that when the youngest takes a nap, he gets to watch The Neverending Story, and we’re basically okay with keeping that going for now.)

Also for the record the chance that there will be a DVD player in my hotel room is one hundred percent. :wink:

-FrL-

7

Ah right. Alternative suggestion would be to bring your own laptop for viewing movies, just need a power adaptor. Have fun, and get on to Yojimbo or myself if you’re in this fair city of Dublin. :wink: