!!!WARNING!!!
This post is a rather long explanation of NTSC vs PAL and Region coding on DVDs.
If your not interested I suggest you skip this post
I checked my manual, and it says it only plays region code 1. It says nothing about PAL or NTSC. Would it say so if it didn't? I don't know whether that's a good sign or not. I'm still confused about the difference between the region code and the PAL/NTSC formats. At first I thought they were the same thing.
Hi Libby and all that are confused by PAL / NTSC and DVD Region coding
I'm going to try to explain the differences in the standards as simply as possible
When a TV camera turns an image into an electrical signal it scans from left to right and top to bottom.
It scans the first line then the 3rd line, 5th, 7th etc till it gets to the bottom then it goes back to the top and traces the 2nd, 4th, 6th etc
Once it has finished the whole image we call it a frame (made up of 2 fields - the even and odd lines)
If we want a TV to reproduce that picture it has to know when the camera is starting the frame and it has to keep in time with the camera otherwise the picture would get all screwed up.
The easiest way to synchronize the camera and the TV was to use the changes in the mains that powered them both.
The trouble was the UK and US had established different mains standards.
The UK went with 230 volts at 50Hz (50 changes per second)
The US went with 110 volts at 60Hz (60 changes per second)
So black and white TVs in the UK had to have 25 frames per second (50 fields) and in the US 30 frames per second (60 fields)
Both systems wanted the same amount of information per second so the UK had 625 lines and the US had 525 ( If you multiply 25 x 625 and 30 x 525 you come up with almost the same number ).
When colour TV came out both sides of the Atlantic decided that colour had to be backwards compatible so that an old black & white TV could still watch a colour picture.
The UK went with the PAL system which has 25 frames and 625 lines and the US went with NTSC which has 30 frames but only 525 lines.
The problem is if you convert NTSC to PAL you have to generate 100 more lines but drop 5 frames. To convert the other way you have to drop 100 lines and invent 5 more frames.
The PAL system is used in most of Europe (except France) and Australia and New Zealand. NTSC is used in the US, Canada and Japan
Basically a country with 50Hz power is probably PAL and 60Hz is probably NTSC so there are good technical reasons why the two are different
The DVD region codes were all about maximising the Movie Studios profits by controlling the release of DVDs around the world.
When DVDs came out films were typically released in the US many weeks or even months before they were released in other parts of the world so the studios wanted to make sure a retailer in New Zealand (for example) couldn't buy DVDs for a movie from America when that movie might still be in the cinemas in New Zealand. They wanted to protect their box office take so they came up with a system of codes to prevent DVD players from playing anything that wasn't coded for their country.
Region 1 was the US, & Canada
Region 2 was most of Europe & the middle east
Region 3 was most of Asia
Region 4 was the rest of America, Australia, New Zealand
Region 5 was Russia, most of Africa
Region 6 was Hong Kong and China
Region 7 was reserved
Region 8 was International (planes and ships)
Region ALL would work in any DVD player
It was all really a waste of time because anyone in New Zealand (region 4) who regularly imported movies from the US (Region 1) simply bought 2 DVD players and set one for each region or found a way to unlock the region coding on the DVD player.
Many DVD players sold in New Zealand had secret menus to turn off the region coding.
I'm sure the same thing happened in the UK.
Unfortunately for anyone from the US, there was never a need in the past for you to have to have to get around the region codes because typically all DVDs were released in the US first.
It's only more recently as people in the US are starting to watch UK TV programmes like Dr Who that the region coding which has been a pain for the rest of the world has started to annoy Americans.
The other issue you face is the whole PAL / NTSC problem.
Most TVs, DVDs and video players in PAL countries can play NTSC programmes but again as most programmes that Americans wanted to watch originated in the US there was no need for your video equipment to have to deal with PAL.
I'm afraid for those of you in America who want to watch this DVD you are caught out by everything that is being discussed in the other thread about Hayley's lack of popularity in the US.
There is no commercial reason for the Producers of this DVD to spend the time and money to re-encode it in NTSC and make it Region 1. They simply wouldn't sell enough copies to make it worthwhile.
There would also be copyright issues with the music used as they will have only licensed the music for sale in the UK. If they released it in the rest of the word they would have to pay way higher royalties to Hayley, her record company and top the writers of the music.
I hope this explanation makes sense. I've tried to simplify down the technical stuff and yes, I know that NTSC is not exactly 30 frames per second but explaining that would be way too complicated.
To put it really simply the difference between PAL & NTSC is a historically based simple solution to a technical problem. If we were starting from scratch today the difference would not exist as the TVs could be syncronised digitally.
DVD region encoding is a technical solution to a Marketing problem
Just got a friend with a credit card to help me with my order 
Thanks for the heads up, Joyce!
Just got a friend with a credit card to help me with my order 
Thanks for the heads up, Joyce!
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