Travel Technology - Region 1 (US) dvds' in UK - is it really as bad as I think it is?

So I'm gradually planning to move to UK for good early next yr and am in this mad rush of buying my favorite dvds' for my "future dvd collection" - only, I'm figuring that the NTSC/PAL region issues might be of concern. As you can guess all dvds' I'm buying from the US are under "Region 1" and UK apparantly falls under "Region 2". I did some research regarding this and looks like some (most?) dvds' come w/"Regional Coding Enhancement (RCE)" feature that prevents them to be played even on "region-free" or multi-region dvd players. Bottomline, RCE dvds' are BAD, as far as I can tell.

So - how do we find out which dvd is RCE'd and which one isn't. I figured out that the dvd region can be found at the back of the dvd cover by looking at the number in the globe icon.

Is this really as bad as I think it is? Are "region-free" dvd players really too expensive to get and do they really work, and if they do, how does the RCE feature come in to play?

I just don't want to pour in money (I'm buying L-O-T-S of dvds considering my move..) in something that's not going to work.... :(

Any suggestions from any experienced/knowledgeable folks out here? Thanks in anticipation of any advice.

PS: I did search before posting this topic but only got links dating back to 2004 - I figured info in there would very much be outdated by now...

I wouldn't worry. There are many inexpensive, commonly available players with undocumented "switches" that allow for bypass of region restrictions. Visit here (http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks) for a list of "user-defined" configurations. ;)

I wouldn't worry. There are many inexpensive, commonly available players with undocumented "switches" that allow for bypass of region restrictions. Visit here (http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks) for a list of "user-defined" configurations. ;)

Exactly. I bought a DVD player in Hong Kong last year which played Region 3 only. 5 minutes on the internet and I had the unlock code and hey presto it was suddenly all-region.

Buy one from Australia. You're not allowed to lock them over here, and all DVD players can play all DVD regions.

There has been nothing since 2004 because for almost everyone in the world this has been a non-issue since before that time. "region-free" players are not expensive, nor have they been since 2000 or so, especially as it is the absolute cheapest ones that can easily be made region-free by using unlock codes. As Captain Schmidt points out on the net there is a plethora of sites that will tell you what these codes are (if the cheap Chinese manufacturers have even bothered to lock the regions in the first place).

Hi there,
As the oher posters have said, it really isn't a problem. I'm in the UK and just bought a new DVD player. For GBP 20 (USD40) I got a multi-region player with all of the connections you could ever wish for and it's played everything I've thrown at it.

You will have a wide selection of players to choose from and you don't need to worry about if your discs are Region 1 or 2 or NTSC or PAL.

There are a family of DVDs where the manufacturers tried to get clever... They look at the region lock on the player and will only play if it matches what they expect, ie it won't play if the region code is set to "0". This worked well for approximately 15 seconds until you just reset the correct region code on the player.
Oddly the discs where I've seen this are on my children's Disney DVDs and on nothing else...

Enjoy your move to the UK!
Jason

One point to note is that it can be tricky playing different regions on laptops. there is a programme called DVD for Free (google it) which will sort out that little problem.

Finally, remember most TVs in the UK are widescreen format now, so you should be able to enjoy widescreen discs properly at home; certainly worth buying the widescreen variant if there is an option.

I have have numerous Regiion 1,2, and 5 disks with a couple of 3s tossed in for good measure. I have not run into any problem with the RCE protection scheme and have played some pretty heavily protected disks on my Region Free player including Casino Royale which is supposed to have a very heavy protection.

I've just bought a new Sony DVD player for £40 and as advertised it was multi region. Yeah you just have to set the correct region for the disc you want to play, every player that I've used will let you change as many times as I wanted, if RCE discs don't like a player set to '0' do as someone i know does. He has two dvd players one set to region 1 one to region 2 and just checks the disc before playing to se which player it needs to go in.

This isn't a major problem the way round you are doing it, it is harder to take region 2 discs back to the US, as some of my friends have discovered. They were a bit miffed with the DMCA after they asked in a store about buying a multiregion player in the US, and were told they were not legal!

Thanks everyone; looks like I was sweating for no reason. I do however want to refer to the quote below - I happen to have a UK dvd that I tried playing on my US laptop and of course it won't let me play it. Last night I was able to download a 30-day-trial software to circumvent this but am wondering if there's a better solution to this than the month-long trial period. Most of the search results I'm coming up w/are paid versions of region-free softwares. This link (http://www.dvd43.com/) talks abt being a "decrypter" of some sort - would this take care of this whole regional baloney? :o

PS: I understand my question in this post has swinged the conversation in the other direction - so to keep things simple - how do I make my US laptop dvd player region-free....

One point to note is that it can be tricky playing different regions on laptops. there is a programme called DVD for Free (google it) which will sort out that little problem.

Enjoy your move to the UK!
Jason

THANKS, Jason! Very much looking forward but can't help being unnervingly anxious :D

For playing DVDs from different regions on a computer, I recommend the VLC Player from www.videolan.org (http://www.videolan.org).

This plays almost every video format that's out there (except for Real and Quicktime), and also seems to play DVDs no matter what region they're coded for.

For playing DVDs from different regions on a computer, I recommend the VLC Player from www.videolan.org (http://www.videolan.org).


My recommendation for that would be Slysoft's AnyDVD (http://www.slysoft.com/anydvd.html).

Tescos have cheap all region DVD's.
Thanks for the link I wondered who had software for a Mac ^ and it was free ^

Thanks for suggesting VLC player. Best of all, it's FREE!! ^ The Region 2 UK dvd played smoothly on my laptop.