Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/04/24
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Frank, In an ideal world, there would be the case. However, here's the reality: Both the software and the hardware are regionalised, and there are six regions globally. For example, US/Canada = Region 1, Hong Kong = Region 3 and China = Region 6. In theory only a Region 1 disc can be played by a Region 1 player and vice versa. The reasons for this are: 1. To protect the film industry: most Hollywood productions are released in the US first, and it would be bad news for the overseas film markets if the DVD of a movie is released in the US before the same film is released for cinema viewing in say, Hong Kong. We would just buy/copy a US-sourced DVD and forget about going to the cinema. 2. To prevent grey market DVD players flooding certain markets. Due to the low price of these players in the Far East, it would be bad news for, say, the US importers of the same models which are often sold at much higher prices. The whole idea is to ensure DVDs for a given market stay in the same region, both hardware and software. In practice, this is not the case and I will explain later. I have a US-made DVD disc in front of me and on the back of the packaging it says 'Region 1, for sale in the US only' at the bottom. In theory this disc can only be played by a Region 1 player. Soon after the DVD system was launched, it soon became clear that this protection policy would not work. In HK at least, every retailer of DVD players has offered an 'upgrade' from day one to enable the players play all discs from all regions. In the beginning this involved messing around with the circuit board and this was an expensive modification. With the second generation players, this involved cutting a few wires or flicking a few micro switches inside the players. With the next wave of players the modification became a firmware upgrade - new software was downloaded to the player and this took minutes without the need to open up the machine. The latest players are now even simpler to modify - this involves pressing a combination of buttons on the front panel in a given order and this is of course unofficial, but is every player is so re-programmed at the point of sale. This is such common practice that not many recall the DVD system is supposed to be regionalised. You are right that DVD discs contain data in the form of '0' and '1's, but in addition to video information, they also contain a region code. The discs are therefore not universal. The re-programmed players are programmed to ignore the region code. Ever since Hong Kong (Region 3), a former British Colony, went back to Chinese rule in 1997, it is now part of China (Region 6), it would be silly to have two region codes in one country. And it is. With non-pirated DVDs costing a few dollars only across the boarder on the Chinese mainland, the demand for re-programming players has been very strong. It has now reached the point almost all players sold in HK are all-region players. As to the TV systems, you are right that there are two main systems: NTSC and PAL. Most players sold here are also multi system players and can be connected to most TVs. This is independent from the DVD region system. My family business is the main agent for Matsushita Electrics for the Chinese market and we sell thousands of DVD players a month so I like to think I understand a little regarding this data format. When time permits I will send you a Region 3 (Hong Kong) DVD to you and please let me know if it will play on your Region 1 (US) player. Best regards, Joseph on 23/4/02 11:04 pm, Frank Filippone at red735i@earthlink.net wrote: > DVD are only data disks. The final TV Format is built into the player. You > should be able to buy a DVD in the USA and show it in France, on a French > ( SECAM) DVD player... take that same DVD and bring it to Britain and see it > in PAL, ditto that same disk to Japan, etc. > > The players are TV Format specific, the disks are universal. Or are > SUPPOSED to be..... > > Frank > > > -- > To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html