DVD Region Encoding Question

[b4u]

I live in Europe, so my region encoding should be Region 2. That is, if I buy a Region 1 DVD, I can't play it on a regular DVD player, unless the DVD player is a multi-region. Am I right about this?

If I buy a multi-region DVD player I should play ANY DVD with no problems? (Within a couple of months, I'll enter the process of choosing a home theater (I love this name) to my living room, so DVD, AV, TVSet will all be choosen carefully)

Because I'm seriously thinking about purchasing a DVD from www.amazon.com (USA).


Thanks

 

[Hubris]

Actually, I believe only Western Europe is Region 2, so depending on where in Europe you live, you might be a different one. But yes, all your other assumptions are correct. If you buy a multi-region player, you shouldn't have any trouble watching DVDs from any region.

 

[b4u]

Thanks for the reply

Do you know if normally there is any big diference between subtitles in USA English (Region1) and UK English (Region2)? (not that it will make any diference, just to feed my mind)


Thanks

 

[FeathersMcGraw]

Originally posted by: b4u

Do you know if normally there is any big diference between subtitles in USA English (Region1) and UK English (Region2)? (not that it will make any diference, just to feed my mind)

Not necessarily subtitles, but I have noticed that the language tracks sometimes differ between regions.

You'll want to be sure if you get a region-free DVD player that the region is switchable, and not just set to region 0 (region 0 is the "any region setting), as those players are typically the ones which have issues with RCE discs (a format designed to foil region-free solutions).

There may also be PAL/NTSC/SCART encoding issues. Region 1 discs will be NTSC encoded, so your TV or DVD player will need to be able to handle the conversion.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Also consider censorship. If you import a movie from the States (or Canada, tends to be cheaper) you should make sure it still contains all the juicy scenes.

 

[b4u]

Originally posted by: FeathersMcGraw
Not necessarily subtitles, but I have noticed that the language tracks sometimes differ between regions.

What do you mean by language tracks? The speech sound? Because that should always be the same ...

Originally posted by: FeathersMcGraw
You'll want to be sure if you get a region-free DVD player that the region is switchable, and not just set to region 0 (region 0 is the "any region setting), as those players are typically the ones which have issues with RCE discs (a format designed to foil region-free solutions).

Shouldn't multi-region DVDs be "legal"? Because that sounds like the DVD manufacturers make them multi-region when they should'n be ...

Originally posted by: FeathersMcGraw
There may also be PAL/NTSC/SCART encoding issues. Region 1 discs will be NTSC encoded, so your TV or DVD player will need to be able to handle the conversion.

Uhm ... what you're saying is that, if I whant to buy a full home theatre system, I much check the specifications of BOTH TV Set AND DVD?

What kind of encodings there is? Which countries/regions/continents use them as standard? PAL for Europe and NTSC for USA? SCART is only the connection link between DVD and TV, right?


Personal Thought: And I thought the creation of the DVD standard would make life easier! What a mess!!!

 

[b4u]

* bump of luck *

 

[GoingUp]

Is it a single layer dvd? If it is, you can rip it to a hard drive and edit the vob file (i think thats the proper one) to make it region free. Then reburn it to a dvd that will play in your player

 

[kami333]

It depends on your player but many can read both NTSC and PAL fine and you can switch the output between NTSC and PAL in the setup menu. I hacked my Daewoo player with a region-free and macrovision free firmware and after that I had no problems viewing the dvds I bought in Europe.

I would do some research and ask around at places like Nerd-out forums before you pick which DVD player you go with.

 

[SaturnX]

If multi region players were legit, then there wouldn't be any need for Regions in the first place. Technically, you're not supposed to be able to have multi-region DVD players, and this is because some discs are released at different times at different points in the world (ie: maybe UK might get a disc prior to North America), and it's the job of the region to stop people from bringing them over. That's why if you get a multi-region player, ensure that you can switch regions, and like mentioned above, not only be set to Region 0.

As for PAL, and NTSC, I believe you TV will need to support the NTSC signal, if you'll be purchasing DVDs from North America. NTSC runs at a different frame rate and resolution than PAL does. I'm not positive but if someone could correct me if I'm wrong, I believe the DVD player will also have to be able to support both PAL, and NTSC discs (not entirely sure).

--Mark

 

[FeathersMcGraw]

Originally posted by: b4u

What do you mean by language tracks? The speech sound? Because that should always be the same ...

No, the foreign language selection varies. For example, I have a region 3 (Asia) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon disc that features Cantonese and Mandarin language tracks. The Region 1 release features French instead of Cantonese.

Shouldn't multi-region DVDs be "legal"? Because that sounds like the DVD manufacturers make them multi-region when they should'n be ...

Multi-region discs are legal and are included in the DVD spec. However, most content providers won't release region-free versions to prevent people from getting import DVDs "prematurely" (i.e. before the movie opens locally).

Uhm ... what you're saying is that, if I whant to buy a full home theatre system, I much check the specifications of BOTH TV Set AND DVD?

What kind of encodings there is? Which countries/regions/continents use them as standard? PAL for Europe and NTSC for USA? SCART is only the connection link between DVD and TV, right?

If you plan on regularly importing DVDs, yes. Although there are DVD players which can convert from NTSC format to PAL and vice-versa, which greatly helps. I always thought that PAL was primarily a European standard (I think Japan/Asia uses NTSC).

SCART is your DVD/cable connection, but obviously if your TV uses SCART, you'll need some sort of multi-region DVD player that also handles it.

 

[yukichigai]

Most DVDs with region-free or region-switchable features also have PAL<=>NTSC conversion firmware built in. The reason why you would possibly need to check your TV would be if you bought a DVD player from a US store. I know of a limited number of US DVD players that will output PAL. I do know that many CyberHome players support multiple output formats as well as region switching. This forum has various topics on CyberHome players. At the moment it looks like the CyberHome DVD-500 would be your best bet, as it has (unofficial) region-switching options, can be made Macrovision-free and can be set to either PAL or NTSC output. At $80 it's a damn good deal too.

As far as your other questions go:

Some DVDs will play different audio tracks based on your region setting. Usually this is just a minor annoyance, since you can change audio tracks with your remote on several models. Same goes for subtitles.

Multi-region DVDs are legal. I have an all-region copy of Battle Royale, perfectly legit. Most DVDs are released single-region however. The best reason of why would be shown by 28 Days Later, which was out on DVD in the UK almost a year prior to the American movie release.

 

[kami333]

yukichigai:
Question to you about your Battle Royale disd. Are the subtitles in yellow and kind of blurry? Mine are and it's been bothering me.

 

[b4u]

Originally posted by: kami333
It depends on your player but many can read both NTSC and PAL fine and you can switch the output between NTSC and PAL in the setup menu. I hacked my Daewoo player with a region-free and macrovision free firmware and after that I had no problems viewing the dvds I bought in Europe.

I would do some research and ask around at places like Nerd-out forums before you pick which DVD player you go with.

So a DVD Disc is created with a specific "output" in mind (like NTSC or PAL), then it's the DVD Player's jog to read and display it correctly on a TV Set, right? So a multi-region DVD player with NTSC and PAL capabilities, would output fine through a SCART cable to a TV-Set, right? (even if I have to set the DVD Player to read NTSC or PAL - but wait ... if a DVD player can read both, shouldn't the selection be automatic?)

Originally posted by: kami333
I hacked my Daewoo player with a region-free and macrovision free firmware and after that I had no problems viewing the dvds I bought in Europe.

Are u talking about a DVD player on a PC, or a separate DVD player system? Because in the PC I understand we can twist/crack/update a firmware, but on a hi-fi DVD player, I don't know how to do it, unless I am an electronics expert, to change a chip, or something like that ...

Originally posted by: yukichigai
Some DVDs will play different audio tracks based on your region setting. Usually this is just a minor annoyance, since you can change audio tracks with your remote on several models. Same goes for subtitles.

Uhm ... I'm not really undestanding how a movie can "sound" different from region to region. Are we talking about [Available Audio Tracks: English (DTS), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
] (for example), or really the soundtracks themselfs, the voices, ... ?



So concluding, IF I buy a DVD with multi-region switching (not just general Region 0), I can get ANY DVD Disc Region1 or Region2 to play in it, with no problem (regarding that NTFS and PAL situations I ask above). Right?

I'm such a n00b at this!

 

[kami333]

So a DVD Disc is created with a specific "output" in mind (like NTSC or PAL), then it's the DVD Player's jog to read and display it correctly on a TV Set, right? So a multi-region DVD player with NTSC and PAL capabilities, would output fine through a SCART cable to a TV-Set, right? (even if I have to set the DVD Player to read NTSC or PAL - but wait ... if a DVD player can read both, shouldn't the selection be automatic?)

First part, yes.
Second part, not necessarily. Assuming we are talking about a player that reads both NSTC and PAL and can be hooked up to both NTSC and PAL tvs. The player reads the disc, then when it sends the signals to the tv it has to know whether the signals need to be in NTSC or PAL. However, the only way it would know is if the tv was sending a signal back to the dvd player, telling it that it is a NTSC tv. As far as I know there are no tv/dvd players that do that so you would need to set it manually.

Are u talking about a DVD player on a PC, or a separate DVD player system? Because in the PC I understand we can twist/crack/update a firmware, but on a hi-fi DVD player, I don't know how to do it, unless I am an electronics expert, to change a chip, or something like that ...

I'm talking about a standalone player. It's just like with a PC, flash updating the firmware. DVD players are really are just stripped down PCs in many ways (APEX even uses standard IDE dvd drives in some of their models). Depends on the dvd player, some need to have a new chip soldered in, others just require a firmware flash. If you check out the nerd-out forums you'll be able to see which players are the ones you can hack with a firmware upgrade. Took me about 20min to do mine (10 of which was spent trying to get the drive to read the cd I created, apparently it doesn't like the black bottomed ones). I just downloaded the new firmware, burned it onto a cd with NERO with ISO9660 and all that specifically set (follow the directions exactly, just like you would flashing your BIOS), loaded the cd into the dvd player, and followed more instructions to get it to read the cd and update.

Yeah, it's a bit unnerving at first but once you do it, you realize that it's no different that updating your BIOS or similar. This was the 10+ one I've hacked.

Uhm ... I'm not really undestanding how a movie can "sound" different from region to region. Are we talking about [Available Audio Tracks: English (DTS), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)

I think he means that if there are different language soundtracks on the disc, it may read the wrong one. Say you wanted to watch Brotherhood of the Wolves (French movie), the player may always try to play the French soundtrack and French subtitles even though you want it to play the English ones. So just go to the menu to change it. Like he says, minor inconvinience. Many players also have a setup where you can pick the default language so you can set it to whatever you want.

So concluding, IF I buy a DVD with multi-region switching (not just general Region 0), I can get ANY DVD Disc Region1 or Region2 to play in it, with no problem (regarding that NTFS and PAL situations I ask above). Right?

Yes, you should be able to. But as always with stuff like this, there are no guarantees. Not that I've ever had a problem, Chinese/Russian <-hint, hint, region 1 discs, RCE discs like Charlies Angels, Japanese porn, it's faithfully played everything so far.


Man it's getting late. 4am, need to wake up in a few hours. I was busy watching Out of Africa cause they were showing it on tv. Good night.

 

[b4u]

Thanks for the reply kami333

Have a good night sleep.

Erhm ... next time you step by on these forums, could you post your DVD Player Brand/Model?

Also do you have any recomendations (any other DVD you think it's better than your's)? Something that will do the trick for me (at least what you can understand from all these posts, anyway )


Thanks

 

[Palek]

Just to avoid any confusion, I'll chime in.

Region 2: this includes all of Europe, not just Western Europe as someone suggested. Also, Japan is Region 2 as well.

TV standards: PAL is used mainly in Europe, Australia and some Asian countries. NTSC is also used in Japan.

So, you can have region 2 discs in either NTSC (Japan) or PAL (Europe).

Switching between formats: your player might be able to recognize and read both PAL and NTSC discs, however I am almost certain that no set-top DVD players will perform a format conversion. That is, if you have an NTSC disc, you can only play it with your player set to NTSC, and the output signal will be NTSC as well (30 fps, 525 vertical lines), whereas if you play a PAL disc, you have to set your player to PAL, and the output video signal will be PAL (25 fps, ca. 600 vertical lines, I think). Your TV has to support both formats, your DVD player will NOT convert the signal, just output what it reads.

The same thing was true with dual-standard VHS decks. Only two companies made VHS decks that could actually convert between various formats. Panasonic made one, but that beast cost around $3000. Naturally, most of the cost went to the conversion circuitry, and converted images still looked nasty...

As far as I know, the ideal solution for switching between formats and regions is a PC with a video card that has a good quality TV signal (ATi comes to mind), a DVD-ROM with cracked firmware (available on the net for most drives) and a program called DVDGenie. You can set up the program to switch your software DVD player's region automatically when you insert a DVD. You can build a good Home Theater PC for around $500 that can play all DVD's, and the computer's hardware takes care of the frame rate/resolution conversion from NTSC to PAL and vice versa.

 

[kami333]

Switching between formats: your player might be able to recognize and read both PAL and NTSC discs, however I am almost certain that no set-top DVD players will perform a format conversion. That is, if you have an NTSC disc, you can only play it with your player set to NTSC, and the output signal will be NTSC as well (30 fps, 525 vertical lines), whereas if you play a PAL disc, you have to set your player to PAL, and the output video signal will be PAL (25 fps, ca. 600 vertical lines, I think). Your TV has to support both formats, your DVD player will NOT convert the signal, just output what it reads.

Daewoo 5000N does. Confirmed it myself. Yes, I was rather suprised when I found out that it did, I thought none did either. And there's no way that the tv is multisystem capable, it's a 15+year old Contec tv, no composite and tuner is limited to 13channels. You may run into a problem with anamorphic stuff though, depending on the model.

Here are some other models that supposedly convert PAL-NTSC:
Cyberhome
Norcent
APEX

 

[yukichigai]

Originally posted by: Palek
Switching between formats: your player might be able to recognize and read both PAL and NTSC discs, however I am almost certain that no set-top DVD players will perform a format conversion. That is, if you have an NTSC disc, you can only play it with your player set to NTSC, and the output signal will be NTSC as well (30 fps, 525 vertical lines), whereas if you play a PAL disc, you have to set your player to PAL, and the output video signal will be PAL (25 fps, ca. 600 vertical lines, I think). Your TV has to support both formats, your DVD player will NOT convert the signal, just output what it reads.

Not true. Most CyberHome players have a conversion feature, though the CH-300 has issues with Anamorphic PAL and will vertically stretch the picture. The CH-402 and CH-500 (both set-top players) do this correctly.

Another option would be the new Lite-On PhoMaster LVD-2001 that just came out, which plays MPEG-4, i.e. DivX and XviD. Do a search for DivX on these forums and you'll find a linky.


P.S. Oh yes, I have a CyberHome DVD-300. It doesn't do proper conversion, true, but it's uber-small and was only $48 at Radio Shack. Check out the CyberHome website for a look at it.

 

[Palek]

Here are some other models that supposedly convert PAL-NTSC

I stand corrected! That is good news. But I just wonder how good the conversion quality is with these players.

I myself have a regular PC with a Radeon 9500 Pro (excellent TV-out quality over S-Video), plus a cracked Pioneer DVD-ROM, and there is no DVD in the world I cannot play on my NTSC TV (well, so far). DVDGenie works beautifully with most software DVD players. Plus, when you set the TV-out resolution to 1024x768, the computer does a little bit of oversampling then downsampling, so the image quality gets a bit of a hike.

<EDIT>Also, since ATi video cards (don't know about nVidia) allow you to adjust image size and position over the TV output, you can match the image perfectly to your TV, so you do not lose any part of the picture. However, due to the discrepancy in different analog TV models, most set-top DVD players have to do overscan to avoid black borders around the picture. This means that you lose somewhere around 10% (someone correct me if I'm wrong) of the picture around the sides. So, PC-based solutions have the upper hand here, too. (Unless set-top DVD players allow you to make screen adjustments, too, in which case I will just shut up.)</EDIT>

 

[kami333]

Depends on the player. Some have some flickering issues, others have problems with anamorphic content. But many conversions you can't tell the difference with a normal tv, not sure how it would fare if you were using component on a HDTV though.

 

[b4u]

Looking at this LG RL-44SZ20RD (Specifications) I posted some time ago, I do believe it's a TV-Set capable of displaying PAL and NTSC.

So in your opinion, if I get a DVD player with Multi-Region switching and PAL & NTSC capabilities, I would have no problem reading any DVD disk, even without the need to buy a DVD player with PAL<->NTSC conversion. Sice the TV-Set can "accept" both standards, I need no conversion, plus it may be possible (me thinking here) that TV-Set will automatically check the input signal and change accordingly. What do u think? (I have no TV-DVD player, so in the future I'm buying all system from scratch )

Thanks

 

[b4u]

Erm ... one more question ...

In a specific DVD disk specifications, I read the following:

- Newly remastered 16x9 widescreen version
- Widescreen anamorphic format

What is the difference? I thought anamorphic stands for the 16:9 view ...

 

[Palek]

First search result on Google for "What is anamorphic"
Anamorphic is wider than even 16:9, usually 1.85:1 or 2.35:1, according to the link above. It is also has more detail, ie. higher resolution images, which you can probably only enjoy on a computer screen or some new hi-res TV sets. Google is your friend.

As for your question about the dual-standard TV, I cannot tell you for sure, but it should not be too hard to implement an auto-select circuitry, so if I had to guess, I would say the TV probably picks the format for you.