Make your DVD player multi-regional

[Lesa]

Thanks to Ernie for posting this info!

Jul 7, 2004 14:32:53 GMT -6 Ernie said:

If you put in your DVD player here: www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks it'll tell you if you can make it play region 1 discs. With mine, I had to do something stupidly simple like open then tray and press 1,2,3 on the remote, and now it plays all regions fine. I managed to get hold of the Best Buy versions of the US DVDs for seasons 1-3 brand new off e-bay (and for half the price I payed for the UK ones).

Edited to: add info to top of quote. ~~ Mini-Mia

[A1ecto]

Cool Thanks, Le & Ernie!

[Lesa]

You're welcome, A1ecto, but Ernie's the one who brought the info to Whoosh. I just wanted to make sure everyone would see it.

[Ernie]

Let me add something though (just to confuse everybody). There's two issues, the region code, and the video format. North America and Japan uses the NTSC format, and pretty much everywhere else uses PAL. If you're in a PAL country, then you'll be able to play both PAL and NTSC DVDs (this is in the DVD spec). If you're in an NTSC country, PAL support is optional.

What this means is that people Europe, Australia, etc. will probably be able to play the US DVDs (as long as the region code can be overcome), but people in the US might not be able to play European or other DVDs, even if the region code is defeated.

Confused now?

[Lesa]

I get it. You can cut wood with an axe, and you can cut an apple with an axe. You can also cut an apple with a paring knife, but that paring knife won't cut wood very well.

PAL is like the axe, and NTSC is like the paring knife. So why do we and Japan get stuck with a crummy paring knife, when others get an axe?

Now to fit the code into my analogy... Well, if an axe fits into a locker (the padlock being the code), then a paring knife will fit into it as well. But even if you can unlock a box that contains a paring knife, you won't necessarily be able to fit the axe in there. Oh well, I tried. But I get what you're saying.

[Melodic Mistress]

Hey, thanks for sharing!

Now I can get the West Wing Season Three that's only out for region two...

See, being in region one isn't always great...

Must order WW...

~Jessi

[Lesa]

I hope the PAL/NTSC thing doesn't get in the way of it working in your player. You'd better check that before getting the DVD's.