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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005 Posts: 3292 Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 9:02 pm Post subject: Region 2 DVD players |
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DVDs from the UK won't play on Japanese players (at least, in my experience, not on anything other than ones like the really cheap DigiX that I got on a hunch that it would work, for under 4,000 yen in BIC Camera, and which unsurprisingly ceased after a couple of months to play much beyond the 60 min mark on any disc - I had to upgrade to a 10,000-yen Sony), but the reverse isn't true (i.e. Japanese DVDs will play on UK players, at least those for around �30). Anyone know why this should be so (bearing in mind that UK=PAL, Japan=NTSC, but both are "Region 2")? Is Japan a very "strict" (exclusive, protectionist etc) sub-region or something? |
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G Cthulhu
Joined: 07 Feb 2003 Posts: 1373 Location: Way, way off course.
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Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 1:56 am Post subject: Re: Region 2 DVD players |
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There are a few countries in the world where the markets are large enough and/or regulated and non-free enough that they actually follow the coding rules *and* don't commonly have players that can cope with non-standard formats. Japan is one of these countries. Region free *and* PAL playback capable simply aren't too common IME, except at the very bottom and top end of the price ranges. 'Merrikaland is the same or even worse in that you can't even find PAL playback-capable players, let alone region free *and* playback!
Most other industrialised/western/pickyourlabel countries don't seem to follow the trend IME - the EU simply because they need the capability and places like NZ and Oz because region coding on players is simply illegal and NTSC playback is necessary because of the importing from anywhere & everywhere business models.
Executive Summary: That's just the way it is. |
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Hoser
Joined: 19 Mar 2005 Posts: 694 Location: Toronto, Canada
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Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 1:08 pm Post subject: |
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I thought Japan and UK were the same region when it comes to DVD's? |
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wayne432
Joined: 05 Jun 2008 Posts: 255
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Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 2:54 pm Post subject: |
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Hoser,
Yes, Japan and UK are both Region 2. However, Japan uses NTSC and UK uses PAL.
Fluffyhamster,
It's as G Cthulhu mentioned, NTSC dvds will generally play on PAL dvd players, so Japan dvds will play on UK... but not the other way around (PAL on NTSC won't work). |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005 Posts: 3292 Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 2:57 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, both are Region 2, so I guess (as G Cthulhu says) that the incompatibility of UK PAL discs with Japanese players stems from some over-regulation/compliance into only offering NTSC playback (i.e. no PAL conversion) here - so UK DVDs can't be freely played in Japan, and most Japanese portable players won't function/convert with UK TVs.
Edit: I see Wayne is saying pretty much the same thing (didn't see his post until now). Anyway, thanks for the input, guys. |
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