How many of you have bought a multi-region DVD player to satisfy your TV needs? (1 Viewer)

[Carlos Garcia]

Seeing a list of my favorite TV shows recently released in the region 2 PAL system, I was wondering how many of you have decided to get a multi-region DVD player, and order your favorite movies from England? I know they have alot of my favorites available on DVD there, and the U.S. market doesn't even have these shows rumored for a DVD release anytime soon. Shows like The Six Million Dollar Man, and the complete season 2 set of Lost In Space (which is rumored to be split into 2 separate sets in the U.S.) are available over there, and I even recall they had the first season of Family Guy out on DVD about a year before we got it in the U.S. So I was wondering, how many of you have multi-region DVD players, and these PAL DVDs (which won't play on region 1 players)? What is the quality of these discs, compared to our NTSC discs? If the British DVD market continues paying more attention to the fans' wishes, instead of their own greedy pockets (like the U.S. companies appear to be doing), I may have to jump ship and buy a multi-region player!

 

[Paul Miller]

Aren't British DVDs higher priced than American on average?

There are a lot of British shows that I'd like to get but I've been getting mainly US stuff.

Paul

 

[Rick P]

There's stuff you can't get any other way, mostly Britcom. And in some cases it's the ONLY way to get them 'right' (ie. Widescreen 16:9).

I have 4 players in the house, and they're all region free.

 

[Adam_ME]

It was the Buffy and Angel box sets being released in R2 over a year before R1 that initially got me to invest in a region-free player. Since then however, I've made many other DVD purchases from other regions, both TV shows and movies.

 

[david_slater]

i had to get one long ago.
there are a lot of shows released in the u.k. thats not released here in the u.s.
and there are more i need to get now. there are shows they say "may" be released here but im not waiting.
i hate waiting. plus on the count it may not get released here. im not going to wait years to find out they are not when i can get them now in the u.k.
i updated my world wide dvd player to a new one and it plays fine. i like to have the u.s. releases but im not willing to take a chance of them not releaseing them here and they stop selling them in the u.k. as well.
i have seen this happen. i had to go to ebay a few times to get stuff you cant get anywhere else. and i hate buying anything from ebay but if i have to i will.
so now i buy from the u.k. if its there first. unless i hear for sure its being released here vary soon.

 

[david_slater]

sorry if my notes are hard to read...
sometimes my mind wonders and lose track of what im saying.
when i catch it i try to fix it.
my typeing is not to good as well as my spelling.
later...

 

[EricSchulz]

The UK had Friends on DVD WAY before we even had our first release here (around '99, IIRC). ER sets in Japan are into season five, I believe. And Columbo has been available in both areas for along time. True, the sets are usually more expensive than the same set released here, but if you order directly (I use HMV ) they can be quite reasonable if you watch for sales...

 

[Dave F]

Heck, I bought two for one series. I bought a $80 Daewoo to play PAL Buffy DVD's, then later upgraded to a Malata for the rest of the series.

-Dave

 

[Deb Walsh]

I got my first region-free DVD player about 5 years ago. That one died, and I've since gotten two more. I get DVDs from the US (and Canada), UK, Australia, Russia, France, and Japan. I'm in debt up to my ears with TV on DVD sets and individual discs numbering well over 100 - probably 200 or more. I'm not even talking movies, just television series. My collection ranges from the '50s to current stuff, from multiple countries.

 

[Jeff_HR]

I bought my multi-regional PAL-to-NTSC DVD player originally so I could have "All That Jazz" since at the time FOX was sitting on the R1 release. I've purchased a couple of TV items from R4 + many movies from various regions.

 

[Tom.W]

For those of us with DVD drives in our pc's, and I would think many contributors to this forum would have this capability, it's possible tht your dvd burner is region free. It works on my Pioneer burner with PAL The Invisible Man. Admittedly,this is not for everyone. You need a pc-to-tv setup and probably an equipped video card. There is info about this elsewhere on HTF. But if it's the only way of accessing a show on dvd, it might be worth investigating.

 

[David Lambert]

I have a region-free player, but the only TV-on-DVD item I have that's non-R1 is "The Tripods" from BBC. I'm strongly considering getting the entire run of Ally McBeal, though.

 

[Deb Walsh]

The Tripods was released region 0. There are several UK houses that typically do that - Revelation Films, Network, and Acorn UK come to mind immediately. Some Australian companies do the same. Enough of them do it that I sometimes forget not all of my players are region-free. :>

 

[MarcoBiscotti]

I bought one last year, namely for Count Duckula and the Danger Mouse discs as I didn't and don't expect them to ever be reissued in North America. Now with the recent Fraggle Rock release, the complete Visionaries box-set and the soon to be complete Dungeons and Dragons box-set I am very happy I made the purchase! So far the only other-region releases I've really been holding back on are the French Tex Avery and He-Man / She-Ra sets as well as the Smurfs collection (due to the lack of English audio track), but I expect R1 to eventually see elaborate remastered collections anyways.

 

[Randi]

I bought a multi-region player just for The Man From UNCLE set that came out in the UK. It is of the feature films, which were actually 2 parter episodes released theatrically to milk some money out of the UNCLE craze. Gosh I hope that made sense this early in the morning.

Miss Randi

 

[David Lambert]

I still needed the PAL-to-NTSC conversion, though!

 

[Deb Walsh]

Some decks seem to do it automatically. My Toshiba 5-disc changer handles the region 0 PAL discs with no problem, full color video and stereo sound are perfect. My Panasonic, on the other hand, switches everything to black and white, and there's a framing issue as well a sort of strobing effect. That's what I found with the region 0 Acorn UK Father Browns this morning when I tested them.

I do understand why the companies *think* they need region codes, but I will always hold close in my heart an article on the BBC last year predicting the eventual end of region codes as fans make them more and more unnecessary. I like companies that choose not to encode. A universal standard would be a good thing, IMHO ...

 

[Richie C.]

What is the best (chepest!) place to get PAL DVD's online?

 

[Jeff_HR]

I like these two places:

http://www.sendit.com/
http://www.bensons-world.co.uk/

 

[david_slater]

you can get the He-Man dvds in the u.k. now.
David, if you have a world wide dvd player it dose the conversion for you. they play any format to NTSC.
and they are cheap now. i have a vcr like that as well.
i only use the ww player with my other formats.
i like my sony for my r1 disks. it plays the dvd+rw disks fine. the ww player dont play the dvd+rw disks to well if at all. so i have 2 dvd players and one vcr.