Worldwide DVD compatability

I am being transferred from the USA to Australia. I was going to buy myself a DVD player but have been told that they will not work in Aust - the DVD's aren't compatabile, different formats or something?. Anybody know anything about this? (Note: I know the power supply is different but I should be able to work around this)

You have two different things to worry about. Video Format, and region code.

The US is one of the contries that uses NTSC (NTSC DVDs are 720x480). Australia is PAL (PAL DVDs are 720x512 or 525 not sure but it's higher...)

Region Code: Thanks to the pin heads in Hollywood most DVDs are region coded, the US is Region 1, Australia is Region 4, so a US disk will not play on an Aus player... but...

They can be hacked

What you want is a "Region Free/Multiregion" player that is both PAL and NTSC compatible. They are available in the US but harder to find since only fans of Forein film want one, it should be easy to find one in AUS (or any other non Region 1 area) since all the big Hollywood films come out first and cheapest on R1 disks.

When you get to Aus get a TV that supports both NTSC and PAL (all but the cheapest do).

That will let you play DVDs from anywhere in the world.

Tom.

Sorry ,forget about recording to pc i 4got about macrovision ,(the wine...) .

I'll find out what the name of the retail cd is for multi region dvd playing on ps2, i haven't had use for it but i presume it saves something to the ps2 memory card like the DVD remote driver.

I should have been a politician so i wouldn't have to vote