Are DVD players still 'regionalised' ??

[johnny_t]

A few years ago, my brother bought me my first DVD player (having always reacted with horro when I said that I didn't have one) which was a Toshiba. At the time, he said that it was multi-region and so, on a trip to the US, I bought a cheap DVD to test it out. It played after a fashion, but was black and white and a bit fuzzy, so I didn't really bother looking into it much further.

Last Christmas, I puchased a cheap portable from Tesco, which had an integral DVD player (£69, from the world-renowned Hikona stable) and over the weekend idly tried putting my Region 1 Muppets From Space in it and it played perfectly.

Now I can't imagine that it was multi-regional, if that is still an extra option, so was wondering if they still bothered assigning regions to DVDs at all, or have they just given up ??

 

[2scoops0406]

They are still regionalised, but there are moves afoot to remove the regionalisation. The reason your region one DVD was fuzzy and in black and white is almost certainly due to the fact that your television can't cope with NTSC signals, (we use PAL over here)

 

[Steve]

wasn't the whole point of DVD players being divided into regions, so that pirates could no longer distribute illegal material all over the world?

therefore wasn't the industry being a bit dumb by introducing multi-region dvd players?

 

[2scoops0406]

wasn't the whole point of DVD players being divided into regions, so that pirates could no longer distribute illegal material all over the world?

therefore wasn't the industry being a bit dumb by introducing multi-region dvd players?

Worked well didn't it. Due to the increasing "globalisation" regionalising DVD's, is not really worth it anymore.

 

[Moz]

I am sure its multi region players now,

btw the Dvd recorders are all coming down in price you can get them for 70 notes

 

[Spark123]

The DVD recorder I just brought is Region locked (region 2), as most on sale in the shops still are. I can get a remote control (1 shot) which will unlock it but as I don't have many region 1 DVDs this isn't really a problem as my other DVD player is unlocked.
For some DVD players you may find a remote control hack on the internet which will remove the region lock.
AFAIK the region lock is used so a film can be released (for example) in the USA first, then later in the UK. Same with PS2 games.

 

[AdamW]

therefore wasn't the industry being a bit dumb by introducing multi-region dvd players?

Only in the same way that a car manufacturer would be dumb if it released a car that runs on diesel, petrol, LPG and veggie oil... They don't sell the fuel or collect the tax... they just sell the thing you put the fuel in.

The film industry and the consumer electronics industry are closely linked (just look at Sony, and their influence with Blu-Ray), but not so closely that one won't do something the other doesn't like. Quite simply, the electronics industry realised that multi-region DVD players cost the same to make but can be sold for £10 more, so that's what they did!

RCE (Regional Coding Enhancement) is meant to prevent multi-region DVD players from working. However, provided you don't mind watching on your PC there are DVD softwares now that bypass all that rubbish altogether, even lets you skip the "don't pirate" adverts on the DVDs you just paid lots of money for. Seriously, I don't pay good money on a DVD in order to waste 2 minutes a time being told I better not copy the disc, and not even letting me fastforward that bit. If I was copying it, wouldn't I just have removed that bit?! It's not brain surgery!

 

[notb665]

How come when I bought "Kath and Kim Series 1, 2 and 3" from Australia (region 4) it works perfectly in my Region 2 Playstation2?

 

[johnny_t]

They are still regionalised, but there are moves afoot to remove the regionalisation. The reason your region one DVD was fuzzy and in black and white is almost certainly due to the fact that your television can't cope with NTSC signals, (we use PAL over here)

Could be as my telly is 8 years old (which counts as old these days, so I'm told).

I always thought PAL and NTSC were just modulation schemes, but I guess there's more to it than that. I've seen boxes that will take an NTSC composite video input and convert it to a PAL composite video output. Would that work ?
.

 

[Steve]

I thought the film industry and the dvd industry had worked together on the regional encoding. Has their agreement lapsed?

And multi-region DVD players are often the cheapest of the cheap, the £20 ones at Asda "Durabrand" and the like, where the regionalisation stuff has been left out altogether.

I wonder if it was the big 2 or 3, Panasonic, Sony etc, who had the agreement with the film industry in the first place, then cheapo brands started producing multi-regions, and they had to compete.

A car that could run on any fuel? what would that do to forecourt prices?

 

[ferdinanddebargos]

Try looking here: http://www.videohelp.com There are more, just do a search on Google or whatever. Usually it is just a matter of entering a code with your handset. Sometimes it is necessary to dowload to a disc and then play in your player. Read the disclaimer on the site first though.

 

[Cilldara1]

As Stated earlier you can be lucky enought to get a code over the Net to Unlock your DVD, my Sony Dav 400 needs to be sent to a shop to be Chipped to remove the region lock , cost involved does'nt make it worthwhile,

I paid a Pitence for a dansai DVD player from Tesco last year, went into Google typed in DVD Unlock Hacks, found Site Called http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks the site explained full details of how to unlock it through the Handset RESULT.......................................

Poss same Site as above .......

 

[AdamW]

My mate's (admittedly old) Sony DVD player doesn't even play CD-Rs and DVD-Rs... Which means I can shoot footage on my Sony camcorder, edit it on a Sony Vaio PC (hypothetically), burn it to a DVD... but it won't work on a Sony DVD player

 

[bathroomswap]

I've used this site twice with success...

http://www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk/info/multiregion/

 

[securespark]

Richer Sounds only sell multi-region DVD players.

There is usually a trick included in the instructions about how to set it up for multi-region.