DVD Region ?

NoHotAshes©

I am just about to make a purchase off Play.com and it says the DVD is only for region 2 and all region DVD's , Just wondering how do I find out what my playstation 2 is ??

And i've also got a seperate DVD player and wondered how i might find out what Region that is ??

Thanks and sorry if this is in the wrong forum

Jim

If your living in Ireland of the UK your ps2 will be Region2 (as long as you bought the ps2 in UK or Ireland).

BlitzKrieg

region coding p*ss me off. What is the offical reason for having it? Apart from making more money cause they delay certain titles between america and europe????

ixoy

Originally posted by BlitzKrieg
region coding p*ss me off. What is the offical reason for having it? Apart from making more money cause they delay certain titles between america and europe????

Umm why are you asking the question if you know the answer?
It's expensive to release a film worldwide simultaneously. AFAIK, a projection reel costs a few thousand. Factor in the cost of advertising a movie, distribution costs, etc. and it can be quite expensive for a studio to release a movie. So they often testbed it in America first before releasing it here. They then wait X months, when the US theatres have finished, and release it on DVD. We also wait X months (roughly) which just happens to be later than the US - assuming we get the movie.

If the US DVD is out whilst the cinema is still playing in European cinemas (and remember our European neighbours can wait longer than us) then some people won't be encouraged to see the movie in the cinema. They'd prefer you saw it in the cinema AND bought the DVD. There's also an "exclusive" feel to be had too - you can't get it anywhere else, so you have to go the cinema. If the movie is in your local HMV, then you could feel that it might not be worth seeing in the cinema....

smiaras

This post has been deleted.

aidan_walsh

Originally posted by BlitzKrieg
region coding p*ss me off. What is the offical reason for having it? Apart from making more money cause they delay certain titles between america and europe????

Sure, because thats the only reason something might be region coded... Nothing to do with regionalisation settings like colour encoding, subtitles, dubbing, audio tracks, etc, etc...

smiaras

This post has been deleted.

Stark

Blockbusters are trying to get region codes removed from DVDs.

For your PS2, this is the business (DVD Region Free): http://www.play.com/play247.asp?page=title&r=PS2&title=112523

You don't need any special SCART or anything.

Although you probably won't need it at all if you're just playing Region 2 dvds.

ixoy

Originally posted by smiaras
In fairness Blitzkrieg has a point, there's also differences between R1 and R2 in terms of features on some movies which is a right royal pain in the butt. Also if it is an old movie, there is little reason why the DVD release should be delayed over here: Anniversary Edition of Scarface and Boyz in the hood.

Ah but subtitles wreck it all - we need to have them for all the R2 countries... PAL/NTSC isn't much of an issue as most films have master copies in both versions.

smiaras

This post has been deleted.

Jim

I think the main reason is taken from Video days.
The different versions of video (pal ntsc etc) are all to do with fps.

Europe is 21 fps
America is 28 fps
And France is 29.9 fps.

I think. I'm probably very wrong.

Stark

Yep, PAL (Europe) is 25 fps. France uses SECAM which is almost identical to PAL. NTSC (America) uses 29.97 fps (weird).

Also resolutions differ. PAL has slightly more vertical resolution that NTSC. PAL is also stores colours in a better way than NTSC. (NTSC = Never The Same Colour).

BlitzKrieg

Ok i can undertsand major films such as Finding nemo (which was on dvd in USA before in cinema here)

BUT


what about products which have no involvment with cinema releases. For example as stated earlier older films made before DVD and TV series which have been shown or will never be shown here (or in america) and are not available in that region.

The main reason it p*sses me off is cause i'm a film/anime nut so i like to grab films or anime which are not available in europe for numerous reasons. Normally i dont have a prob with film But anime is really hard to get. Certain series are unavailable in region 2.

For example

-Cowboy bebop Movie is available in R2 but not the series
-Tenchi muyo not available at all (or any of its spin offs)
-Outlaw star is another not available even though it has been shown on tv here numerous times.

-Now thy dont have cinema releases and they have already been and gone on tv therefore I see no reason to have dvds like these region free.

-I say major films that are getting international releases should have region encoding but other products can just skip it. (it is only a metter of clicking a button right?) This doesnt hinder the companies at all and could even give them the chance the make more money cause products which were once restricted to certain areas now have the chance to be ordered from overseas.



-is it unlawful to remove region codings??

Andrew Duffy

Virtually all DVD players are capable of playing NTSC and PAL DVDs; there are no Secam DVDs. Only some players are capable of doing an inverse pulldown to convert NTSC back to 24 frames per second for playback in PAL however. (Movies play back 1/25th faster in PAL and sensitively-eared people often find it infuriating). Because of this, the player normally plays PAL discs in PAL and NTSC discs in NTSC. There's no difference in the colour encoding used on the disc, just the frame rate and resolution. What's even more annoying about this is that the MPEG system used on DVD allows the disc to delegate the 24-30fps pulldown to the player, but because some discs are actually encoded at 30fps players will not usually allow any NTSC disc to be played back in PAL.

Unless your player can convert NTSC-PAL you'll need a TV that supports NTSC natively, or a TV capable of handling 30fps with an RGB scart (usually the first one if your TV has two) and a player capable of outputting RGB on the scart, to play US dvds. Some players can convert to 30fps PAL which a lot of older TVs can handle, but it's not that common.

Also, bear in mind that if you remove the region lock on your player there is a chance that no RCE dvds will play, even ones encoded in the original region for your player. RCE is still rare, however, especially for older movies where region encoding is really done to stop people complaining that their movie plays back in funny black and white.

projectmayhem

most DVD players/DVD-ROM sold in Ireland are region2, but if not it should be clearly marked on the box/player itself. but as with all things you can get your equipment chipped and play all regions without much issue

Stark

is it unlawful to remove region codings??

Film companies will try to scaremonger you into thinking it is, but really it has no basis in law. Region codes are simply an agreement between player manufacturers and suppliers, it's perfectly legal to remove them.

lodgepole

Originally posted by k.oriordan
Film companies will try to scaremonger you into thinking it is, but really it has no basis in law. Region codes are simply an agreement between player manufacturers and suppliers, it's perfectly legal to remove them.

Though it should be noted that it may void your warranty...