DVD players in London, England (1 Viewer)

[Gary Tjia]

Hi,
I am not familiar with the audio/video market in England and need some help.
I am looking to purchase a DVD player in London for my folks. Does London carry DVD players which play VCDs and any region DVDs, or only region 2 DVDs? If they do, what brands are recommended and which stores in London would have these DVD players reasonably priced?
Thanks for your help.
Gary

 

[Darren Lewis]

Gary,
As I'm sure you know, the UK is in region 2, as is the rest of Europe. Off-the-shelf DVD players are all region 2, and can be bought in most electrical stores, and even the large supermarkets (the ASDA chain is now owned by Walmart). Brand names are the same as the USA - Sony/Toshiba etc. There are a few very high end manifacturers making hi-fi equipment too (with big price tags). Model numbers may differ slightly to reflect the country. The connections use a European standard known as SCART, which is a big 21-pin plug, but still the same signals - RGB etc..
The UK is on the PAL TV system, although most DVD players (including the better Region 2 only ones) will play NTSC material, and most modern European TVs can play the NTSC material without problems.
There are several companies which offer multiregion mods, and these are popular as a lot of us Brits want to have access to the large Region 1 market. Not all multiregion modifications are of the same standard and some are not compatible with the new RCE coding. You can either buy the player already modified, or have one modified later. I'm currently thinking of either having my R2 only machine modified or buying a second multiregion machine, and relegating the R2 machine to the bedroom.
I'm not that familiar with London itself, but there are LOADS of electrical and specialist retailers catering for any budget. There are also LOADS of internet/mail-order companies.
Here are some links to the online version of UK home cinema magazines which might help you. http://www.whatvideotv.com/
PS I found http://hometheater.about.com/library/weekly/aa020299.htm
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