MetaChat REGISTER   ||   LOGIN   ||   IMAGES ARE OFF   ||   RECENT COMMENTS




artphoto by splunge
artphoto by TheophileEscargot
artphoto by Kronos_to_Earth
artphoto by ethylene

Home

About

Search

Archives

Mecha Wiki

Metachat Eye

Emcee

IRC Channels

IRC FAQ


 RSS


Comment Feed:

RSS

18 May 2008

Will this play on my DVD player in the USA? [More:]

I want to buy a BBC series that is sold on Amazon UK.

Format: PAL

What do I need to know? I guess I could call my husband at work, but I thought I'd ask y'all because I'm about to purchase.

Thanks.
I remember a long time ago a friend sent me a DVD from England and my husband did something with it on the computer so I could play it on our DVD player. That was a while ago and we have since got new equipment. Will some DVD players play both formats?

Could I play a PAL formatted DVD on a Playstation 3? I guess I could look this up and not bother you people! :-)
posted by LoriFLA 18 May | 14:44
It seems that the PS3 will only play games of all formats. Because they are not region restricted. TV series and movies are. I would like to say that this is very disappointing.
posted by LoriFLA 18 May | 14:54
Lori, it depends on your player. I have one that will play either PAL or NTSC, and any region disc. (And it's a little Chinese cheapie, not an expensive one.)

I used to have a site bookmarked that gave the technical specifics of hundreds of players, but I can't find it at the moment. Google around for the name of your player and you might be able to find out if it handles PAL.

on preview: Yeah, the region restriction is a bummer. If your player is locked down with a Region 1 setting, you won't be able to play the DVDs.
posted by BoringPostcards 18 May | 15:19
To add on to BP's advice: for quite a few players, there are secret codes which can unlock region-free play via the firmware. Alternately, there are firmware upgrades available for some players. If you use the PS3 for all of your DVD-playing, though, it's possible that neither of those options will be available to you.

Lori, am I remembering right that your husband's work is somehow connected to the home-theater/audiophile biz?
posted by box 18 May | 15:28
Lori, am I remembering right that your husband's work is somehow connected to the home-theater/audiophile biz?

No. Mr. LoriFLA is in the sunglasses biz. :-) He does seem to know a lot about electronics, or maybe he just buys a lot of electronics. ;-)

Thanks for the info, guys. I'm going to ask him what our DVD player can do.

BP, did you buy your DVD player that ban play any region, any format disk on Ebay or locally? In BestBuy or somewhere similar? I'm pretty sure you can because I think I have had this conversation before with the husband. I want one.
posted by LoriFLA 18 May | 16:22
I wonder if I can play it on my Mac?
posted by LoriFLA 18 May | 16:24
If you use the PS3 for all of your DVD-playing, though, it's possible that neither of those options will be available to you.

Yes. We do. We have two PS3. One in the living room, one in our office/den. I think we are out of luck. We have another DVD player in the garage, but I know it doesn't play PAL. I think my husband ran some kind of program so I could watch when my friend sent me a recorded show that was shown in England on European equipment. I don't want to go this route if I am going to buy an expensive series. It may not work.

I want a DVD player that will play everything. That would be really nice.
posted by LoriFLA 18 May | 16:30
Have you checked Amazon.ca for the series? You may have some luck there being a Commonwealth country and in Region 1.

I'm gonna assume that you already checked Amazon.com.
posted by deborah 18 May | 18:13
Lori, I bought this player (an APEX AD-1500) from WalMart. (Here's one on Amazon.) There was a file I downloaded from somewhere that I had to burn to CD and then put it in the player, and that removed the region lock. If you get one, I'll help you find that file. (From a place like this.)
posted by BoringPostcards 18 May | 18:42
What box said. Check Google for "region free DVD" and you'll quickly find sites that list region-free players and sites that let you search by make and model number for a code you can punch in your remote to "hack" your locked-region player into being region-free.
posted by middleclasstool 18 May | 18:43
Excellent! Thanks BP and middleclasstool, I will do this.
posted by LoriFLA 18 May | 19:51
Most newer DVD players display DVDs of almost all regions. Older DVD players... not so much. I learned this very specifically with preview DVDs from a local International Film Fest.

If it won't play on your DVD player, you can watch it on your 'puter.
:-)
posted by shane 18 May | 23:24
No. Mr. LoriFLA is in the sunglasses biz. :-)

So where can I find some shades that look like big HUGE bug eyes?
:-)
posted by shane 18 May | 23:26
The site middleclasstool is talking about is probably videohelp.com. Good luck! I unlocked my cheapo Philips DVD player and enjoy the fruits of Amazon UK on a regular basis.
posted by jtron 19 May | 02:39
Googling, it appears that you will be unable to watch a Region 2 dvd on your PS3. But there are lots of ways to watch it.

You can watch it on your computer with vlc.

You can convert it to another kind of dvd on your computer. If it's less than 4.7GB, you might as well try just stripping the region code with dvddecrypter and see if your PS3 will play a regionless PAL dvd. If that didn't work, you can also convert to an NTSC dvd.

You can convert it to MPEG4 avis with handbrake or ps3video9 or similar. Then you can burn the resulting files to dvd or your PS3's hard drive or a drive that the PS3 can see over the network. This might get you better video quality than going PAL-->NTSC.

You can buy a cheap dvd player and hack the region. Philips players pretty universally can be unlocked by punching in some buttons on the remote, and you can get nice ones for $60 (dvp5982)
posted by ROU Xenophobe 19 May | 09:43
I will probably go the Phillips DVD player route and unlock with the remote. I'm glad I can do this. We're going to buy one this week.

Thanks for the advice, brands, and good info.

There are some BBC series that I want to see that aren't aired here. They all have the PAL format.
posted by LoriFLA 19 May | 09:49
Gots a doggy. omg. || I just skated 10 miles!

HOME  ||   REGISTER  ||   LOGIN