Help - DVD regions

[TheDirector]

Hi all,

Im thinking of purchasing Loving Walter on DVD off ebay, there is a person seling it who says it is region free. However, the DVD was released in the US and thus should be region 1. The man acknwoledged this via an email, stating that some British films released in the US simply do not have a region coded on to them. He says that the cover of Loving Walter has no mention of a region even though it is advertised as region 1. So he says he tested the DVD on a normal region 2 UK player and he says it works.

Is it true then that some US released British films are not region coded, despite supposedly being region 1?

Just want to know in order to assess whether its worth buying the DVD. Ive looked at the blokes feedback and no negative comments, so no reason to think he's having me on.

Cheers!

[batman]

I have purchased many legit US dvds which are region 0 (region free). This is most often the case with older titles.

However, most ebay sellers offering this title state it is region 1, as do amazon.

There is a guy stating his is region free land it looks as though he is selling a Carlton edition which was deleted a while ago.

Which seller did you contact?

[TheDirector]

Hi mate, below is the link for the DVD. It looks like its jus the standard US release, but he assures me he's opened it and checked and that it works. he's also confirmed that officially its region 1. So you can confirm then that what he said is true; that US released films are sometimes region free?


Loving Walter Ian McKellen, Jim Broadbent, Sarah Miles on eBay, also, DVDs, DVD, Film TV (end time 15-Mar-08 11:12:59 GMT)

[Steve Crook]

Originally Posted by TheDirector Hi mate, below is the link for the DVD. It looks like its jus the standard US release, but he assures me he's opened it and checked and that it works. he's also confirmed that officially its region 1. So you can confirm then that what he said is true; that US released films are sometimes region free? Loving Walter Ian McKellen, Jim Broadbent, Sarah Miles on eBay, also, DVDs, DVD, Film TV (end time 15-Mar-08 11:12:59 GMT)

It looks like it might be a bootleg copy of the Carlton release. It looks like they've put a red marker over the region coding symbol.

Caveat Emptor, how much do you trust the seller?

Steve

[batman]

It looks like a bootleg to me as well. The artwork is that of the Carlton disc, but the current release is from BFS.

The choice is yours .....

[JamesM]

It looks exactly the same as the BFS release, the 'red mark' appears to be their logo:-

http://www.bfsent.com/PDFs/30481.pdf

This should be region 1, however. Have you asked the seller if he is sure that his player is not multi-region?

[batman]

Oh yes, it has the Carlton logo on the back cover as well.

[johng]

Slightly digressing- I would have thought that all serious DVD collectors would be using a multi region player or recorder!

All players are basically multiregion but are set by the factory to the region in the country to which they will be sold, in our case region 2.

There are dozens of firms on the net who will supply you with the appropriate conversion code for a comparatively nominal figure. Feed this into the player via the remote and up comes a hidden menu showing all regions, usually with a tick against region 2. You merely remove the tick from 2 and place it against the zero. Some players such as Panasonic are coded by a different method however they can still easily be converted. You now have a multi region DVD player or recorder, it is as simple as that.

If you are thinking of buying a new DVD player, check up first of all on the net that the code is available for the DVD player of your choice. Amazon are selling Philips players whre you can actually download the appropriate code and instructions from their site.

Since all modern TVs and DVD players are both Pal and NTSC compliant surely this is much easier than worrying about whether a particular DVD is region 2 or otherwise. It also allows one to buy DVDs which have not been released in this country.

One might argue and say - why not buy a mutoregionplayer in the first instance, however these tend to be thin on the ground and are usually quite expensive.

Region 2 DVD player to multi region .

Johng

[m35541]

I bought a small mutli-region DVD player off Amazon as a birthday present for my father-in-law so he could watch R1 disks - and it cost all of £18 !! Plays everything.

[CaptainWaggett]

Are multi-regional players expensive? Surely you just need to note that it's multi-regional in the specs. I've had 3 different ones and I've never had to enter any codes or do anything special to ensure it runs disks from all regions, nor have I ever bought anything other than the cheapest on the market. Though I think it's slightly more complicated outside the UK.

[philips]

This disc has been reviewed by DVD Beaver. The review states that this is a Region 0 NTSC release, so it appears that the seller is correct that it is region-free.

[brianl]

Originally Posted by johng Slightly digressing- I would have thought that all serious DVD collectors would be using a multi region player or recorder! All players are basically multiregion but are set by the factory to the region in the country to which they will be sold, in our case region 2. There are dozens of firms on the net who will supply you with the appropriate conversion code for a comparatively nominal figure. Feed this into the player via the remote and up comes a hidden menu showing all regions, usually with a tick against region 2. You merely remove the tick from 2 and place it against the zero. Some players such as Panasonic are coded by a different method however they can still easily be converted. You now have a multi region DVD player or recorder, it is as simple as that. If you are thinking of buying a new DVD player, check up first of all on the net that the code is available for the DVD player of your choice. Amazon are selling Philips players whre you can actually download the appropriate code and instructions from their site. Since all modern TVs and DVD players are both Pal and NTSC compliant surely this is much easier than worrying about whether a particular DVD is region 2 or otherwise. It also allows one to buy DVDs which have not been released in this country. One might argue and say - why not buy a mutoregionplayer in the first instance, however these tend to be thin on the ground and are usually quite expensive. Region 2 DVD player to multi region . Johng

Currently I can only run CDs on my computer but as I am not very computer friendly, am arranging for the local computer store to install whatever it is they do install to enable me to run either DVDs or CDs.
The man in the store warned me that once I had run DVDs for 6 times, it would then lock on to the last region code played. It seems here in New Zealand that it is not possible to purchase anything that will play all regions all of the time on a computer. I find this strange as when I purchased my VHS/DVD combo player from Panasonic a couple of years back, the machine played all region codes without any difficulty but the accompanying handbook stated that I would only be able to watch Region 4!
So is it possible to unlock/change region codes on the computer hardware/software and if so can anyone direct me to a site that will help me do this?
Thanks
BrianL

[Steve Crook]

Originally Posted by brianl The man in the store warned me that once I had run DVDs for 6 times, it would then lock on to the last region code played. It seems here in New Zealand that it is not possible to purchase anything that will play all regions all of the time on a computer. I find this strange as when I purchased my VHS/DVD combo player from Panasonic a couple of years back, the machine played all region codes without any difficulty but the accompanying handbook stated that I would only be able to watch Region 4! So is it possible to unlock/change region codes on the computer hardware/software and if so can anyone direct me to a site that will help me do this? Thanks BrianL

The man in the store is misleading you slightly.

It is true that the region code will be locked if you play 6 different DVDs - but only if you use the Micro$oft Media Player. It's the Media Player that locks it and won't let you play things in different regions, it's not the hardware of the DVD player that locks anything.

If you use a free to download player like the VLC Media Player then that does everything that the Micro$oft one does but you don't have to put up with all the nonsense that Micro$oft tries to force on you - as is so often the way

Steve

[Arthur Linden-Jones]

Originally Posted by Steve Crook The man in the store is misleading you slightly. It is true that the region code will be locked if you play 6 different DVDs - but only if you use the Micro$oft Media Player. It's the Media Player that locks it and won't let you play things in different regions, Steve

Also happens with some other full versioned proprietary purchased software, like InterVideo's WinDVD.

But there's this wonderful little program called DVD Genie .....

[Arthur Linden-Jones]

Originally Posted by philips This disc has been reviewed by DVD Beaver. The review states that this is a Region 0 NTSC release, so it appears that the seller is correct that it is region-free.

Not to be too pedantic, but Region 0 is in actual fact more correctly "multi region", rather than region free.

But it means the same thing .....