Dvd But For Which Area?

[woolyhead 15]

I recently bought a DVD without checking which area of the world it will work in. I've never done this before and previous DVDs have always been ok but this time the one I bought would not work in the UK.  It seems that it was intended for Latin America and area A of Australia only. Has anyone ever heard of this sort of restriction before? I got almost a full refund with small deductions (about 2 quid total), made for the currency conversation to and from Australian dollars. Why on earth did e bay advertise it in the uk in the first place? They aren't saying.

[Ghozer 112]

DVD's since release have been tied to a region...

We are Region 2
Latin America / Australia are Region 4

There are some region 0 dvd's (work in any region)

You can actually change the region on many DVD players  (google to see if/how you can) as you want, and some will even let you set to 'region free' which will let you play a DVD from any region...

but yes, this has been the case since their release in 1997

[the_bloke 17]

DVD regions were a poor attempt at locking down home film releases to certain territories, for legal and localisation reasons. It seems quaint until you release streaming services do the same thing by restricting you from accessing services from other countries.

[woolyhead 15]

Thank you Ghozer and Bloke. I have looked into temporarily altering my player to take area  4 dvds. Looking at the online description it doesn't seem too difficult tp follow. The Catch-22 dvd for area 4 from Australia is 16 quid whereas the Amazon one for area 2 costs 36 quid. Quite an incentive to change my dvd player! 

Edited February 23, 2020 by woolyhead

[Ghozer 112]

8 hours ago, woolyhead said:

Thank you Ghozer and Bloke. I have looked into temporarily altering my player to take area  4 dvds. Looking at the online description it doesn't seem too difficult tp follow. The Catch-22 dvd for area 4 from Australia is 16 quid whereas the Amazon one for area 2 costs 36 quid. Quite an incentive to change my dvd player! 

Be Careful changing it though, as some players can only be changed a certain number of times before it's locked totally..

if you can, set it to 0 - that will play any you put in it, from anywhere

[alchresearch 214]

On 22/02/2020 at 11:29, the_bloke said:

DVD regions were a poor attempt at locking down home film releases to certain territories, for legal and localisation reasons. It seems quaint until you release streaming services do the same thing by restricting you from accessing services from other countries.

I used to buy brand new DVDs from Canada from dvdboxoffice.com many years ago.  Quite often the films were on DVD before they'd even been released in UK cinemas, and the cost wasn't much more than a couple of movie tickets.

[woolyhead 15]

alchresearch and Ghozer, thank you. That's useful information. I'll bear it in mind if and when I alter my dvd player.

[Guest]

On 24/02/2020 at 05:05, Ghozer said:

Be Careful changing it though, as some players can only be changed a certain number of times before it's locked totally..

if you can, set it to 0 - that will play any you put in it, from anywhere

Not necessarily, later ones are a bit more sophisticated where they'd check for two different regions, if they both came back as OK they wouldn't play. Can't remember what the protection type is called.

[Longy67 23]

On 24/02/2020 at 10:38, alchresearch said:

I used to buy brand new DVDs from Canada from dvdboxoffice.com many years ago.  Quite often the films were on DVD before they'd even been released in UK cinemas, and the cost wasn't much more than a couple of movie tickets.

I used to get mine from Play.com and CD.Wow, those were the days, watching stuff that wasn't even released at the cinema here..

On 22/02/2020 at 11:29, the_bloke said:

DVD regions were a poor attempt at locking down home film releases to certain territories, for legal and localisation reasons. It seems quaint until you release streaming services do the same thing by restricting you from accessing services from other countries.

Nothing that a good VPN doesn't sort...