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Can you play British bought DVDs on American DVD player?

Can you play British bought DVDs on American DVD player?

Old Oct 25th 2004, 7:41 pm
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Default Can you play British bought DVDs on American DVD player?

Can you play British DVDs on US DVD players?

Thanks, sparkler.
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Old Oct 25th 2004, 8:08 pm
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Default Re: Can you play British bought DVDs on American DVD player?

I think not - DVD companies have created different formats to prevent shopping on-line for cheapest international DVD's.

Back in the UK - the solution was to get your DVD player 'chipped' by someone technical.
It may be possible to buy an 'international' DVD player. 'Best Buy' is a good chain with the sort of guys who know all this stuff.
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Old Oct 25th 2004, 8:18 pm
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Default Re: Can you play British bought DVDs on American DVD player?

Originally Posted by sparkler
Can you play British DVDs on US DVD players?

Thanks, sparkler.
This subject is discussed at length every couple of months. If you do a search in this forum for multi region or code free DVD players then I'm sure you'll find some threads on this subject.

Like here:
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...ght=region+dvd

or here:
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...ght=region+dvd
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Old Oct 25th 2004, 8:19 pm
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Default Re: Can you play British bought DVDs on American DVD player?

Depends on the player, the player has to be regionless, but the chances are, you could probably crack it to remove the region on the player and then it won't be a problem.
What's your dvd player?
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Old Oct 26th 2004, 12:17 am
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Default Re: Can you play British bought DVDs on American DVD player?

Do a web search for your DVD player with the addition of "region crack"
it may (depending on the player) give you a series of button pushes to get over the region coding.
Worked for me!
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Old Oct 26th 2004, 1:17 am
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Default Re: Can you play British bought DVDs on American DVD player?

It's not about the Region codes...these can be removed by a 5 year old. The problem is with the format. UK uses PAL and U.S. uses NTSC. Now there are plenty of U.S DVD players that claim to be able to read PAL DVD's (APEX being one of them) I tried two of them and they did not work...probably because my American TV still couldnt deal with a PAL signal even after the player decoded it. I play my UK discs through my modded XBOX now and it works like a charm.
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Old Oct 26th 2004, 2:47 am
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Default Re: Can you play British bought DVDs on American DVD player?

You can get the Cyberhome 300 dvd player for $45 from Radio Shack - with a simple handset hack (Menu, 1, 9) it will play PAL or NTSC disks from any region.


Except (for some strange reason ) Shaun of the Dead. It puts the subtitles on, but won't turn them off!!
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Old Oct 26th 2004, 2:51 am
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Default Re: Can you play British bought DVDs on American DVD player?

As others have said, research is your friend. There are some players out there that are remote-hackable so as to be region/code-free, and the one I just recently bought is also a multi-system PAL/NTSC player, i.e. converts PAL to NTSC. I'll give you a hint... it's a Phillips model, $70 at Best Buy/Target/CompUSA.

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Old Oct 26th 2004, 3:35 am
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Default Re: Can you play British bought DVDs on American DVD player?

Originally Posted by tony_2003
It's not about the Region codes...these can be removed by a 5 year old. The problem is with the format. UK uses PAL and U.S. uses NTSC. Now there are plenty of U.S DVD players that claim to be able to read PAL DVD's (APEX being one of them) I tried two of them and they did not work...probably because my American TV still couldnt deal with a PAL signal...
The output signal is ntsc, that wouldn't be it. If the player can read ntsc/pal, the region code and macro hack are enough, but have been the rcf protection, I think that's what it's called.
Most players can read dual format, any half decent brand will, all the sony, hitachi, panasonic ones etc for instance.
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Old Oct 26th 2004, 3:37 am
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Default Re: Can you play British bought DVDs on American DVD player?

Some sites to check out:
http://www.hivizone.com/ that's good for players and movies.

If you've got a decent player and just want somin' to convert the signal, which ain't cheap, check this place out.

http://www.threedoubleyou.com/converters.htm
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Old Oct 26th 2004, 8:26 am
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Default Re: Can you play British bought DVDs on American DVD player?

Originally Posted by Big Vern
You can get the Cyberhome 300 dvd player for $45 from Radio Shack - with a simple handset hack (Menu, 1, 9) it will play PAL or NTSC disks from any region.

Except (for some strange reason ) Shaun of the Dead. It puts the subtitles on, but won't turn them off!!
Exact same situation as ours -- only two differences:

1) We got our Cyberhome 300 at Best Buy for $39 (with $5 rebate)

2) It DOES play our "Shaun of the Dead" DVD!

We've noticed this DVD player can get a bit cranky at times, especially going wonky with the subtitles, and the overall picture quality a bit lacking -- but for the most part it's been a great solution. A good deal for only $35, especially considering the prices we saw for multi-regional DVD players.

~ Jenney
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Old Oct 26th 2004, 11:11 am
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Default Re: Can you play British bought DVDs on American DVD player?

There are other things to consider too. RCE is supposed to stop multi-region players from playing any disc, it does some of the time. When you get in the lower price range it is hit or miss. Secondly, there are a lot of players that have trouble converting the widescreen format correctly. They still play but with the picture cropped so it looks more like fullscreen. Now if you don't mind then thats OK, but if you are really into movies then you'd be better off looking for one that has X-Y scalling capabilities. You also might want to look at what kind of connection they have. Again, if you are a big movie fan, you should be looking for a component connection. Lastly, depending on what your future holds, you might want to look at the actual power supply. If there is the possibility you will be moving in the future, you can get players that will work with a PAL or NTSC power supply.
Check out www.hkflix.com in their hardware selection if you want to see what other conversion features are available.
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Old Oct 26th 2004, 5:52 pm
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Default Re: Can you play British bought DVDs on American DVD player?

Originally Posted by Jenney & Mark
Exact same situation as ours -- only two differences:

1) We got our Cyberhome 300 at Best Buy for $39 (with $5 rebate)

2) It DOES play our "Shaun of the Dead" DVD!

We've noticed this DVD player can get a bit cranky at times, especially going wonky with the subtitles, and the overall picture quality a bit lacking -- but for the most part it's been a great solution. A good deal for only $35, especially considering the prices we saw for multi-regional DVD players.

~ Jenney
That's really strange - I bought two of them for different rooms, and both of them have the subtitle fault but just on that disk....I did some net trawling, and other people have had the same problem....

My 1 year old daughter managed to reprogram my R1 Yamaha home theater into thinking it was a Philips R2 system!! This one's not even supposed to have a region hack either - Yamaha US wouldn't even tell me how to fix it, and it took a lot of research on the web to finally find the solution!!
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Old Oct 26th 2004, 6:04 pm
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Default Re: Can you play British bought DVDs on American DVD player?

Originally Posted by Big Vern
My 1 year old daughter managed to reprogram my R1 Yamaha home theater into thinking it was a Philips R2 system!! This one's not even supposed to have a region hack either - Yamaha US wouldn't even tell me how to fix it, and it took a lot of research on the web to finally find the solution!!
Hehe.. my 7 month old already knows how to grab the remote and press the right combinations of buttons that it takes me awhile to set things back to normal!
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Old Oct 27th 2004, 2:27 am
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Default Re: Can you play British bought DVDs on American DVD player?

OK - First post since got states side and DVD was top of my list! Bought the wrong Apex but at $30 I won't lose sleep - just been to Radio Shak and got the Cyberhome 300 and IT WORKS - superb thanks to all. Worth noting though that the code needs to be typed in with the drawer shut. Don't worry about the PAL/NTSC thing either - as long as its a recent ish TV you should have no worries
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