Question about r2 and NTSC/PAL (1 Viewer)

[Clint B]

Hi. I'm not sure if this belongs in this area of the forum, so please move it if it needs to be moved. I know that Europe is R2 and uses PAL for the most part. However, I've also heard that Japan is R2 but uses NTSC. That makes no sense to me. Can someone explain? Thanks.

 

[DeanWalsh]

Not much to explain here other than you're right...
Japan is r2 and is NTSC,
As far as I know any other r2 territories are PAL.

 

[Clint B]

Thanks for confirming my suspicions. But if Japan is NTSC, then why isn't Japan R1? I know that the region coding thing is basically an anti-pirating type thing, but it still makes me wonder why Japan isn't R1.

 

[Hendrik]

well... Australia is R4 and PAL, but e.g. Argentina, while also R4, is NTSC... go figure...

. . . :star: . . .

 

[ChrisJefferys]

Many movies are released theatrically in Japan later than in the US (for example, The Two Towers just opened there last month). So, if Japan was R1, many people there could just import the discs from the US, which could hurt the film's local theatrical release, financially. Pretty well the only country that has identical theatrical release dates for major studio films to the US, is Canada, which is why we are the only other R1 territory.

 

[Julian Lalor]

Region coding has nothing to do with television standards, but everything to do with attempts by Studios to control their product.

 

[Chris Xolotl]

Some more fun facts:

Mexico is R4 NTSC

Australia is R4 PAL, yet Warner releases some R4 NTSC for Australia/New Zealand.

Hong Kong is a PAL country yet 99.9999% of all DVD releases are NTSC (R0 or R3). I bet no one has an HK PAL DVD (I do!).

R2 PAL (most of Europe) / R2 NTSC (Japan)

If you find an R0 Disc, be careful (there are tons of R0 PALs and R0 NTSCs out there)

 

[ChrisJefferys]

Hong Kong is a PAL country yet 99.9999% of all DVD releases are NTSC (R0 or R3). I bet no one has an HK PAL DVD (I do!).

For some reason, most HK laserdiscs were NTSC too. When I visited Hong Kong (pre-DVD), I was disappointed that I couldn't purchase any of the PAL VHS videos I saw for sale because I didn't have a VCR that could play them. I was very happy to see them making the majority of their DVDs NTSC from the beginning.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

It's simple, Japan uses NTSC because "gasp" when TV came about guess who was occupying the country?

 

[Al Shing]

Hi. I'm not sure if this belongs in this area of the forum, so please move it if it needs to be moved. I know that Europe is R2 and uses PAL for the most part. However, I've also heard that Japan is R2 but uses NTSC. That makes no sense to me. Can someone explain? Thanks.

I think this makes perfect sense to the Japanese.

They produce DVDs for the domestic Japanese market that are priced double what everyone else would expect to pay in their own countries. These are coded R2 NTSC for the Japanese market.

They have plants in Asia that produce less expensive versions for the SE Asia market. These are priced at half of what the Japanese version cost, and are coded R3. These releases are marked "Not for sale in Japan" so that the Japanese cannot buy or play these versions. The rationale for these is probably that if they didn't do this, someone in HK or Taiwan would come out with bootleg versions and sell them for much cheaper anyway. This way, the Japanese get that money and prevent the Japanese people from going to Asia and picking up bootleg versions for much less.

The R2 and R3 versions are the only versions available, so North America, and Australia cannot play these without an all-region player. The NTSC prevents Europe from playing these as well. I don't know what the rationale is for not enabling these other region codes, but it probably has to do with the fact that price fixing is illegal in most countries outside of Japan. If they sold DVDs in the US for less than what they charge the Japanese market, the US would probably accuse them of dumping. Either that or they figure that Japanese people would just buy R1 players and buy up less expensive R1 versions of their DVDs if they were available.

Of course they could put plants in R1, R4, and R2 PAL areas to make less expensive versions for those regions, but there isn't a big enough market in those regions to justify that.

Most fans of Japanese entertainment have probably purchased an all-region player by now and eliminated the problem. We can buy the less expensive versions from SE Asia if available, or the Japanese version if that is the only version produced. That's a better deal than the Japanese get.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Hong Kong is a PAL country yet 99.9999% of all DVD releases are NTSC

more or less the same here in Singapore. I write it off to the local distributor getting NTSC masters direct from the US, assuming discs are pressed here, or getting discs from Japan as someone suggested earlier.

in any case, just about all TVs sold here (and therefore DVD players) are multi-system, and just about all DVD players are multi-region, so I rarely buy R3 anyway...

 

[Matt<>Broon]

As far as NTSC and PAL go I imagine for most people in western Europe this is no longer really an issue. Here in the UK pretty much every TV in the market that I've looked at now accepts an NTSC signal as well PAL and even my parents 4 or so year old non modified R2 Sony DVD player accepted the NTSC signal from my Japanese R2 version of Spirited Away no problem..

The only annoying thing about it was that on their TV and DVD setup there didn't appear to be any red push which is faintly apparent on my multi region setup.

edit : Obviously I only mean with Spirited away, I don't have a red sheen on most of my DVD's

 

[Roland Wandinger]

Actually all DVDs in Europe are PAL since there aren't any SECAM DVDs available and there is no NTSC country in Europe.

South Africa is also R2 while the rest of Africa is R5.

Most Columbia R1 titles (and maybe other studios as well) are both R1 and R4 for the south American market. This is however not indicated on the package.

Same for many R2 which are also R4 for the Australian market.

Here in Singapore I bought my first R6 DVD. It is actually also R3/R6 dual coded.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

They produce DVDs for the domestic Japanese market that are priced double what everyone else would expect to pay in their own countries. These are coded R2 NTSC for the Japanese market.

Actually, the prices for Japanese video was set back in the 80s when the Yen was approx 200 to the dollar. So while prices have remained fairly constant, given that the dollar is now averaging 120yen or less the price has just jumped 40%

Domestic Japanese features have always been expensive

 

[Geoff_D]

It's simple, Japan uses NTSC because "gasp" when TV came about guess who was occupying the country?

It's a similar story for Hong Kong as well, which is a PAL territory (even though there are shitloads of NTSC R0 and R3 dvds about) because some pesky Brits didn't leave until 1997

 

[Tomoko Noguchi]

Many Japanese would not buy the Region 1 disc anyway unless it had Japanese subtitles or Japanese audio. However, there is 1 store in Akihabara that I know that sells Region 1, but they are very expensive. I try not to go there for anything but buy from cd-wow.net