Regions

chester,

they have zones for dvd's and we can't play zone 1 dvd's unless you have a multi zone dvd player asia pacific is zone 4, all the dvd's i have, have 4 on them so i would say that we can't swap dvd's

cheers smokey :o

Smokey is right on that one. dvd's are made for particular zones.

The regions for DVD's are divided into 6 sections.

Region 1 is North America not including Mexico.

Region 2 is Europe and Greenland, Japan/Hong Kong, middle east and South Africa.

Region 3 is Southeast Aisa.

Region 4 is Australia/New Zeland, South America, Mexico and the Pacific Islands excluding US Islands.

Region 5 is Africa, Asia excluding China.

Region 6 is China.

In the early days of DVD movies and machines, Warner sent with the movies a chart of the Regions, and explained where these movies could play. Didn't explain why, but I asked someone who knew and they said that movies were released through different distributors throughout the world and this controlled them from getting out to the places they didn't want to get to.

For example, Rio Bravo was released in Region 2 two or three years before coming to the US. I know because I saw that movie on ebay and put in a bid and was told that the movie could not be played in region 1 players. I also heard that the players from different regions had different current of power and was not compatible and made the disc run in that way.

I did recieve a gift of a DVD a couple of years ago, and couldn't play it because it was good only in region 4, so I returned it, and got the right region.

That's what I know about these regions, and I think it's silly that I can send a gift for example to smokey of a DVD from John Wayne from the US because it's a different region and she can't play it in her home. But that's they way they want to play that game. Anyway, I figure that they can hike the prices in Australia for the same type movie we get here cheaper, and it's not the taxes that affect that, it's the way distributors try to get away with things.

Have a good day,

Cheers, Hondo B)

Chester,

There are some distributors who are putting out movies on world wide release. I'm not sure what's that about, but I've heard about it, and I think its illegal in the states, but don't quote me on that. I think it is.

You say it's a good copy, no hidden surprise?

By the way, Happy One Year Anniversary for being on the board.

Cheers, Hondo B)

The general idea is this:
They don't want us, for example (meaning: here in Europe) to get a movie on DVD which is released on DVD in the States - but hasn't even been in movie-theaters yet in Europe. It's only a money thing. They want to prevent that you're able to buy the DVD BEFORE you bought a movie ticket. And since they invented the different codes, they work for releases of older movies as well.
In the case of NEMO, for instance, I bought the DVD by Amazon BEFORE it hit theaters over here - it takes a long time to dubb a movie with songs, you know.

In the meantime though DVD players who can play more than one Zone aren't much more expensive. So when you are about to buy one: pay a couple bucks more and get one for all codes.

chester,

you like it you use it for as long as you like it can become you call sign

cheers smokey

Hello.

I have newly got an interest for John Wayne and his movies so I actually joined the forum to have the possibility to search in it.

Because I recently bought myself a DVD player and asked myself the same questions about regions I thought I'd share the results of what a few searches I did a few weeks ago. I found a very good site explaining it, but I can't remember the adress or what it was called. The thing that was of interest for me was that even though I didn't take in account regions when I bought it a lot of the DVD players do not need any new hardware to make it region free even if it only made for one of them. After reading on the site that this was the case with the Pioneer player I have, I went back to the dealer and asked them about it. They told me that they were not allowed by certain manufacturers who has signed some sort of agreement (among them were Pioneer) to sell them out of the box and advertising with them being region free. Reprogramming them to be region free however is perfectly legal (I live in Norway, wouldn't know if it's the same in other countries) and it was anly a matter of a few touches on their (the dealers obviously have different remotes) remote control. They took a fee of about 70-80$ for this. This isn't so bad since it's a mid-price DVD costing 700-800$

Some brands may require a small hardware change, but it is quite possible that if some of you need region free players that it doesn't have to cost all that much.

Also your TV will need to play in both NTSC and PAL format. From what I understand most new TV's do. I'm definitivley no whiz on these things but you can find information about this by doing a search on DVD's and regions and possibly trying including the word hack. Some people have found out ways of doing it themselves. Personally I'm quite content with paying the fee and not risking ruining my DVD-player.

Hi

The John Wayne Film Society has just issued a list of forthcoming Region 2 DVD releases for Spring 2004

BRANNIGAN - 12th JANUARY

JOHN WAYNE - THE EARLY YEARS - 26th JANUARY

RIO LOBO - 2nd FEBRUARY

BIG JAKE - 2nd FEBRUARY

Quote

Originally posted by arthurarnell@Jan 11 2004, 05:23 AM
Hi

The John Wayne Film Society has just issued a list of forthcoming Region 2 DVD releases for Spring 2004

BRANNIGAN - 12th JANUARY

JOHN WAYNE - THE EARLY YEARS - 26th JANUARY

RIO LOBO - 2nd FEBRUARY

BIG JAKE - 2nd FEBRUARY

Display More

Congradulations Region 2!

This is the European countries, South Africa, and Japan/Hong Kong. You better get your fill of Duke starting tomorrow. Your gonna get excited!

Cheers, Hondo B)

Quote

Originally posted by Popol Vuh@Jan 10 2004, 02:46 PM
(I live in Norway, ...)

This isn't so bad since it's a mid-price DVD costing 700-800$

Quote

Popol Vuh,I have a question for you. When you list a mid-priced DVD player at 700-800$, is that in US dollars, or Euros, or what? If not US currency, how does it correspond to that? It seems a little high, especially if it is in US dollars. I recently (past 3 or 4 months) bought a VCR/DVD combo for less than $150.

Might be 7-800 in Norwegian Kronar(sp).

Hi Chester and Tonitrus.

Will you settle for Canadian dollars? I think that's the closest I can get. When rereading my post I see that I must have been a bit tired (or just plain stupid) while writing it. How I got this sum I don't know but it should have been 400-450 US dollars. The fee was 40-45 dollars. I assumed there would be a majority of americans on the board.
As for what price range it is in I would say it is mid-range but I was looking for a DVD-player that could play many formats. I actually listen to music much more than I watch movies so I needed a player that can play both the DVD-audio and Super Audio-CD formats. If I had the money I would probably spent twice as much or even more. If you are just interested in watching movies this might seem like a lot though.
I was trying to give an example of the costs but since I did such a clumsy job with the numbers it would have been better to leave it out alltogether. The point though is your current DVD-player may be possible to convert to a region free player for a reasonable price and but it depends of the brand and model you have.
I would like to add that I have really enjoyed browsing your forum. Luckily when I bought the player I went into a store looking for a movie to test the player. I ended up with 3. El Dorado, Rio Bravo and The Sons of Katie Elder. I had seen them all before but a long time ago. I knew I was going to like them, but allthough I think they are good movies there is something more to these films. I sat down and relaxed and caught myself smiling for no apparent reason many times during the movies. It brings back memories from the time I was young boy and we had no VCR and maybe I saw one or two movies a week on television. I was so inspired that I went straight to the Amazon site and ordered a boxed set with 12 more John Wayne movies. I expect them to arrive any day now so you can guess what I'll be doing when they do. I have been using this forum to search for references to certain movies. I have found what I was looking for and also seen a very friendly atmosphere in many of the threads while doing so.

hi chester,

wow $150 for a combo video/dvd over here we pay A$329 sometimes A$299

cheers smokey

chester,

at the moment our aussie dollar is buying about $0.70 US over hear i can buy a loaf of bread from the bakers for $1.40, a 3lt (we don't work in gallons haven't since i was a kid) bottle of milk from the fruit and veg shop for $3.00, petrol is at the moment $0.859 a litre diesel is about 10cents dearer. the converson rate works out about for every $10.00 aussie is $7.00 US hope this helps you out. will try and find out how many of our litres to your gallon so you can see if your fuel is cheaper then ours.

cheers smokey

Hello again Chester.

You are a friendly soul!

I ordered a boxed set from the the early years. 15 movies (not 12 like I said, but you see how I handle numbers) from the 30's. I've seen the same movies in different packages all over the web. I'm not sure about the quality of the productions, but I'm not really usually to fussy when it comes to that. Probably not the high point in his career either, but I'll probably be buying a lot of them eventually and besides there are probably a lot of the ones I ordered that I have never seen.

Amazon does have 3 European branches. France, Germany and the UK. I ordered my movies at the UK site. I have ordered books at the American site several times and I would order several DVD's at a time when ordering there. I paid 8.98 US $ in postage when recieving 4 books a couple of months ago. I checked the cost for 1 DVD and it would have cost 6.98 US $ in postage. From the UK it's not nearly as much. Free shipping doesn't apply to people outside the UK. But up here in the North we're used to paying a lot for everything. Buying books from Amazon in America saves me about 25-30% of the cost after the postage has been paid and it's so much more convenient, unless I need the books straight away.

Since we strayed off topic anyway and you seem to know a lot about John Wayne (I'm afraid I learned more about him by lurking this site a couple of days than I knew about him before) maybe you could answer one question for me. I have been searching and reading about a lot of his movies the last days and I have a list of all the movies he has been in which I have downloaded from a site. It starts with movies all the way back to 1926. I understand that he only had small parts in many of the first. I was wondering in which movie he got his first big role and also if he from that point on only had more important roles or if he had to take smaller roles inbetween the bigger roles for a period of time.