Lack Of Multi Zoned Players And Pal In Region 1

[orko007]

Something that has always puzzled me. It seems the majority of DVD lovers in Region 1 land, do not have TVs or DVD Players capable of PAL or a MultiZoned player.

Down here in Aus and I believe in Europe, 98% of TVs and DVDs come standard to play NTSC as well as our native PAL.

As for multi zoned players. Every hard core, by hard core I mean someone with a decent collection has multi zoning.

I know one reason would be cos R1 has the biggest selection in the world, so maybe you dont need multizoning as badly - but it still would be highly desired would it not..

[C Roberts]

The few non-R1 or non-R0 movies I'd want to own aren't worth buying a new DVD player for.

[moviezzz]

Originally posted by C Roberts
The few non-R1 or non-R0 movies I'd want to own aren't worth buying a new DVD player for.

You might want to look at what is out there. Especially with multi region DVDs in the $60 range. I'm sure you will find region 2 or region 4 titles that are worth getting one for.

I've had a multi region player for a month or so now and have been amazed by all the titles available in the UK or Australia but not here.

[trespoochies]

What kind of dvd player do you have? I have an APEX 600A that does te job well, but i'm looking to get one that does i good job in the NTSC-PAL conversion.

You're right though. There's some amazing Region 2 and 4 stuff out there. I have the Region 4 Mad Max dvd. It's in DTS too...

[asphodel5]

I also bought a region free player recently. I was holding off because I didn't want to spend the extra money for a new player. When I found the Cyberhome player for about $60 I couldn't resist. I've only bought a few PAL discs so far, but I have been very pleased with them. I am surprised that a lot of people on this board do not have region free players.

I think that they are in less demand in the states because the majority of players that are sold in retail stores are R1/NTSC only. The general public is probably not aware of the other regions. Also, a lot of the exclusively non-region 1 titles are older/foreign. Those don't have as large of a draw. There are cases where American movies come out in better editions overseas, but the general public probably doesn't care enough to find out about these specific cases. I think that the draw to get region1 discs in other regions is stronger because sometime things come out on DVD here at the same time as they hit theaters overseas.

[orf]

I have an APEX AD-5131 and it does NTSC/PAL pretty well and is region-free. It's not perfect conversion, but it'll do (I prefer DVD-ROM for PAL playback, though).

[Wirehed]

I have the Malata 520. Great machine, I have been very happy with the results.

[C Roberts]

Originally posted by moviezzz
You might want to look at what is out there. Especially with multi region DVDs in the $60 range. I'm sure you will find region 2 or region 4 titles that are worth getting one for.

There really aren't a lot of movies I'm interested in buying regardless of region. My personal library of DVD movies is pretty much complete as far as I'm concerned. For me it all comes down to avoiding buying stuff for a "collection" and just buying stuff I want and will watch. Most of the non-R1 stuff I'd be interested in is because I'd want to see it for the first time (I loathe blind buys) or for my collection.
If they put the original Star Wars trilogy in R2 and not R1 then I'll buy a multi-region player, but that's probably the only way.

[Unicorn]

Originally posted by Seamonkey
I have the Malata 520. Great machine, I have been very happy with the results.

I've heard a lot of great things about the Malata's (whereas I've heard bad thing about Apex and nothing about "Cyberhome").

Where would one buy a Malata? I basically live in hillbilly country, so name national brand stores like Sears or else an e-tailer I could buy from with confidence (a decently well-know outfit).

[orf]

www.hkflix.com sells Malatas, but they're a bit overpriced, if I remember correctly. But their support is just fucking excellent.

[theta]

$60. SIXTY BUCKS?!?!?!

Goddamnit, why don't people MENTION THESE THINGS?

I actually think part of it is simply we were raised with American movies, so we primarily focus on American movies. I do own several Region 0 discs (Volcano High School, Taxi, The Eye, Aankhen, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanaam, and Dil Se), and frankly, I'd rather just buy region 0 than a whole new player.
Most of the movies I'm interested in (Infernal Affairs, My Wife Is A Gangster) are either in Region 0 or out in Region 1 ("Ringu", "The Isle", "Versus")

[mjb]

You'll find more discussion of multi-region/PAL-converter players in the Hardware section, of course... do a little searching around.

I personally found the Hardware forum to be useful in choosing a multi-region player (I ended up going with the Cyberhome 500, incidentally). Hopefully others will have equally good results.

[Fightguard]

I've got an Apex AD-1500, which has NTSC <-> PAL conversion and I applied a hacked firmware to make it region-free and RCE immune.

[rawbery79]

I was just saying how I wished for a region free player because they've released some new Wallace and Gromit shorts on DVD in the UK but not here.

[Charlie & Tex]

..here in the UK. For about $200, you can pick up a f**king good modified player (Sony, etc) that will spin either PAL or NTSC (either pure or via modified PAL) for which even RCE is no problem. Oh, and macrovision disable (yes, SUUUURRREEEEE it is JUST for preventing problems with some 16/9 TVs) and sometimes the user-lockout switched off.

But then again, you can go into a supermarket here and pay about $75 for a very modest one, brimming with features (ie MP3 playback, etc) and it is multi-region out of the box. Either that, or it just requires the keying-in of a small code to render it region-free.

What the hell is going on with the hardware market over there in the US?

[Morticia]

More suited to Hardware, as the discussion is about players, not discs. Thanks.

[Wirehed]

Originally posted by Unicorn
Where would one buy a Malata? I basically live in hillbilly country, so name national brand stores like Sears or else an e-tailer I could buy from with confidence (a decently well-know outfit).

I bought mine at HKFlix. Awesome support, nice people...a bit expensive, but safe.

Otherwise you can find the player on Ebay for about half the price.

Like seamonkey, I got my Malata from HKFlix about a year ago and have had no problems what so ever. I love the thing.


Getting back to why there's so little support for multi-region players here in the States is that we're the home of the Hollywood studios that forced multi-regioning on everyone in the first place. Remember, the regions were drawn up so a movie that is being released on DVD in the US won't cut into the box office of its release in Japan or England. (US films get released at later dates around te world and we may have it on DVD before it hits the screens in some other countries).

Of course, it works the same way for films that studios import into the States. I've owned Shaolin Soccer for over a year and it won't hit American movie screens until August. I also own The Touch, The Eye, and Hero all from other countries that have proper big screen releases scheduled for some time in the next year.

Go to a good movie convention and talk to any legitimate dealer about studio lawyers threatening them for selling non Region-1 discs for things that they'll be releasing in the future. (The guys from Poker industries have mentioned iti on their website about how Miramax has busted their chops more than once over certain titles they carried.)