Region One vs Region Two DVD

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

OK, I need some help here.   But first some backstory...
a) I am a Terry Practchett Fan
b) Sky One TV has made a film of one of his books: http://www.skyone.co.uk/hogfather/
c) there will be a DVD available that I would like.
d) it is a region 2 DVD

What are the odds that my Sony will work play iy, and how can I find out?
-Ed

[Andrew]

For a Sony Player?  Very unlikely.  Some of the other brands, APEX comes to mind, were quite friendly to region changing.  Sony is not, from every time I have seen this brought up.

You know something I am not sure of?  Region 2 is bound to be PAL video format (US uses NTSC).  Are there other considerations, such as having a TV that can display PAL?  I need to go brush up on my video format knowledge.

[Ash]

Andrew's right.
Almost every electronic component I own is made by Sony and they're one of the "pickiest" brands when it comes to using competitors products.
Sony prefers you to use their products with their equipment and nothing else.

There's an actual term for that practice but I can't remember what it is.

[Derf]

I believe the word Ash is looking for is "proprietary." To me, a more appropriate word would be something like "jackassery." I realize it's easier to make sure your products work well with each other than to assure they work well with competitors' products, but some companies seem to go out of their way to make sure that their products don't work well with anybody else's products. It's not just Sony; I don't mean to just pick on them. Apple is notorious for it; Microsoft claims not to, but they certainly don't make it easy for competitors to make products compatible with their software. Some companies produce things that seem pretty well universally compatible, among them Samsung and Panasonic (in my experience at least).

As far as DVD Regions, from what I've read, a computer monitor can show either PAL or NTSC, and it is possible to change the regions on a DVD-ROM drive, but only up to five times on most drives (that may have changed, but that's the way it was last year). I found sites here and here that might help you with that. There are also software solutions for Windows to accomplish region changes. With stand-alone DVD players, there are sites like this one that show how to hack dvd players to be region-free, but I have no idea how well they work, and all hacks are done at your own risk.

[BeyondTheGrave]

If I remember correctly Menard had a whole thread on how to change your DVD player to play the different Regions. Even had a website where it told what DVD player you can fiddle with to change the player.

[raj]

If I remember correctly Menard had a whole thread on how to change your DVD player to play the different Regions. Even had a website where it told what DVD player you can fiddle with to change the player.

I remember that site.  And for my dvd player (Panasonic) it listed that there were no fiddles for it.

I'm probably going to be in the market for a new player, as mine has developed the habit over the last couple of years of immediately closing once I hit the open button.

Are there any "all region" players out there?  I asked at Best Buy and they said they didn't have any such thing.

[Menard]

Several models of DVD players can be found which have built-in PAL converters and can be set to Region 0 encoding (meaning it can play a disc from anywhere in the world). The PAL converter reads the PAL format disc, but converts to an NTSC output signal (and vice versa is the opposite is true).

Economical models are made by Philips. Several of their models have built in PAL converters and can easily be made region free with a simple 5 digit code entered from the remote (do remember that when entering the code to keep the DVD tray in the open position). The code consists of four digits, plus one digit for the region you want to set (which is best just to set it for 0).

The site which has all the information you need is VideoHelp.com. You can find conversion hacks and find DVD player models which have built in converters and and can be easily converted with a simple code; I'd avoid any models requiring firmware upgrades as bugs usually accompany these hacks.

A very economical model is Philips DVP642 which can be found at Amazon for less than $50. It only requires a code to convert it and that can be found at the website I listed.

[raj]

Thanks Menard.
and a boost to your Karma.
(Now I just have to wait to pay off my Christmas credit card bills)

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

 
Dang it all, but thanks for the input everyone.  I'll have to think of something else.   
-Ed