[Infowarrior] - How to enjoy media in any region

[Richard Forno]

Original URL: 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/28/tv_tips_for_travellers/
How to enjoy media in any region
By Thomas C Greene in Dublin
Published Saturday 28th April 2007 09:02 GMT

Cheap airfares and the so-called "global economy" have got us all travelling
internationally like never before, both for business and pleasure.

And whatever the purpose of one's trip, two great joys for the traveller are
eating and shopping in foreign places. Most of us eagerly bring home
merchandise not available locally. As for me, I often bring back inexpensive
items like books and music CDs, both of which travel well. So it's a real
pity that DVDs and video cassettes have remained so stubbornly provincial -
so much the products of place that they are useless in other regions.

If you travel frequently and shop often for media, you will soon end up with
a mixed collection: that is, DVDs involving various video formats and
regions, and VHS cassettes in various video formats, all differentiated
according to place.

For example, perhaps you travel often to France and want to buy DVDs and
cassettes there because you like to watch French movies without subtitles.
Or perhaps you travel often to Japan, knowing that much Japanese
entertainment is hard to locate at home, and are tempted to buy media during
your trip. Depending on where you live, you might have two different
obstacles to viewing the movies or TV shows on your television back at home:
varying video formats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_formats), and DVD
region encoding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code).

First, let's consider the obstacle of video formats: there are three, called
PAL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL), NTSC
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC), and SECAM
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SECAM). These are three different schemes for
generating and interpreting the video signals that your TV receives, and
they are used variously in different parts of the world. It wasn't a problem
in the days when virtually all TV content was broadcast; there was no reason
why a television in Mexico should be compatible with a signal broadcast in
Switzerland. Nowadays, of course, with so much content available on portable
media, format incompatibility is a major irritant.

Unfortunately, there is no standard video format for media, as there really
ought to be. Media and equipment both remain unnecessarily xenophobic - a
real vestige of the past. If your British television is designed to receive
one type of signal (PAL), it will not display French video that was
formatted in another (SECAM).

So unless your VCR or DVD player is designed to accept and deliver both
types of signal - the type that the media is coded in, and the type that
your TV expects to receive - the output will not display correctly. Here is
a handy table of video formats by country
(http://www.centralhome.com/ballroomcountry/video_formats.htm).

Either you must stick with media, media players, and TVs that are all
designed for the same video format and region (and forget about buying media
that is not formatted appropriately), or you must obtain multi-format
equipment. But how expensive is that going to be, you ask?

Well, it depends. The cheapest solution is to buy a multi-format DVD player,
VCR, or combo unit. The multi-format player can read media in one format,
and deliver it in the format your TV requires. The good news is that most
European DVD players and VHS boxes of recent manufacture can handle at least
NTSC and PAL. Typically, SECAM is not a popular option outside France and
former French colonies, so if you're buying media in France for viewing
elsewhere, you might have to search more diligently for a suitable player,
and you will probably pay more for it. But remember, buying even a high-end
player is still a lot cheaper than replacing your television.

That's how I approached the problem, anyway. I used to live in the USA, and
I've got an assortment of Region 1 DVDs and VHS tapes that I recorded off
air. They are all formatted via NTSC, which is standard throughout much of
the Americas. Here in Ireland, televisions expect to receive a PAL-formatted
signal, which is standard throughout much of Europe. So I needed a device to
accept the NTSC signal and provide PAL output.

The solution for me was to spend a little extra on a DVD/VCR combo box that
can read NTSC and PAL signals, and deliver the one that I choose. It's an
exceptionally compact unit that also can run on any electrical current from
110 to 220 volts, so I can conveniently pack it along with, say, 10 of my
favourite DVDs when I travel (business travellers will appreciate the
savings in hotel porn that this represents, and the ease of concealing one's
indulgences from those who examine their expense forms).
Have TV, will travel

Of course, this does not address the quite different problem of relocating
from one video-format region to another and having a TV that's incompatible
with the new broadcast and cable signal. This was not an issue for me
personally, because I had an older CRT television that wasn't worth the cost
of shipping (I moved overseas, not simply from, say, Germany to France, so
the shipping cost would have been very high). But that's not going to be the
case for everyone. So, can you solve the problem of keeping your old TV and
using the broadcast or cable signal in a new region?

Yes, but it's not always going to be easy or cheap. The limitation of
relying on a media player for multi-format compatibility is this: unless the
player can also be used as a multi-format tuner, your TV might not accept
broadcast and cable signals after you move. And it also might not be able to
run on the local electrical current when you ship it across a national
frontier.

Fortunately, it's possible to get multi-format, multi-voltage televisions,
and this is well worth investigating if you plan to buy an expensive TV
soon, but might also move internationally in the near future. If you're
going to shell out $2,000 to $4,000 on a high-end widescreen unit that might
last five years or more, it's a pity to sell it for pennies on the dollar a
year later. In that case, you should look for a multi-format TV that can
deal with the broadcast and cable signals in your current, and future,
locations.

The multi-voltage option is also well worth considering. Because a TV draws
a lot of power when it's switched on, you can't use an el-cheapo $25 plug-in
voltage converter. You would need a heavy duty one, possibly costing in the
neighbourhood of $200 or more. However, if you buy a multi-voltage TV, all
you will ever need is a $2 plug adapter. Here is a handy table of voltage
standards by country (http://www.kropla.com/electric2.htm).

As so often happens these days, there's good news for Europeans here, and
bad news for Americans. Multi-format, multi-voltage media players and
televisions are widely available throughout Europe, if you know enough to
look for them. But in the USA, such units are exotic, and unfortunately
priced accordingly. It's virtually impossible to buy a multi-format,
multi-voltage media player or television in the USA from any mainstream
retailer. So this means going to specialty electronics shops where prices
are typically exorbitant.

There are several online retailers that you can check out, such as
DVDoverseas (http://www.dvdoverseas.com/), 220 Electronics
(http://www.220-electronics.com/), World Import
(http://www.world-import.com/index.htm), Alldual (http://www.alldual.com/),
and Region Free DVD (http://www.regioncodefreedvd.com/) (I haven't shopped
at any of them, so this is by no means an endorsement).

Fortunately, in Europe, choosing the right kit is simply a matter of
checking the specs sheet and ensuring the equipment's video format and
voltage capabilities suit your present and likely future needs. Not
surprisingly, the more adaptable equipment tends to be more expensive, but
it is available through pretty much any retail outlet, whether online or in
your neighbourhood.

Still, you will have to stick with high-end gear if you're looking for a
multi-voltage TV capable of handling all (NTSC, PAL, and SECAM) formats. And
a multi-voltage combo player capable of serving as a tuner for all three
formats is definitely going to cost you, relatively speaking (although this
option is still a money-saver if you don't want to spend lavishly on a
television).
We control your television set

Now we come to another major irritant, DVD region encoding, or, more
precisely, DVD region lockout
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_lockout). The movie industry, in its
infinite greed and insatiable lust for control, has decided that it simply
must regulate your access to media that you have legally purchased. No, I
don't mean they are preventing you from copying their priceless treasures; I
mean they will not even let you view them unless you buy the media in your
own geographical region. Your DVD player is programmed to reject "foreign"
disks. Here is a handy table of DVD regions
(http://www.hometheaterinfo.com/dvd3.htm).

The chief purpose of this abuse is to coordinate the theatrical releases and
DVD releases of movies in a way that prevents DVDs from appearing in shops
until after the theatrical showing is finished. For example, if a movie's US
theatre-run is over and DVDs are available there, but in the UK the movie
either hasn't opened or is still in theatres, region lockout discourages UK
punters from buying DVDs from, say, Amazon.com. The American disk won't play
in the UK machine (well supposedly, about which more below). Brits are thus
encouraged to wait patiently until Hollywood decides to release the movie
overseas, let it run in theatres, and finally release a DVD compatible with
the local equipment.

Another reason, of course, is the American habit of subsidising their
failing economy by overcharging foreigners. If an American DVD won't play in
a French, German, or British box, you can see the potential here for media
price-gouging in "Old Europe".

Indeed, the priceless Hollywood treasure Dreamgirls (Two-Disc "Showstopper
Edition") DVD retails for $22.74 at Amazon.com. This same Showstopper sells
for £14.98, or $30 at Amazon.co.uk, and may now be pre-ordered pending the
movie's failure in UK theatres. Allowing 17.5 per cent VAT, we find that the
Showstopper, or the tiny blob of molten plastic worth far less than a penny
and formed into a disk worth about 15 cents, runs about $2 more in the UK.

Obviously, a budget-conscious European won't order from Amazon.com, as the
shipping would more than consume the savings; but if one is travelling to
the USA, scooping up heaps of DVDs, unpacking them, and pretending that they
are one's long-owned property on return, can be a real money saver.
Especially if one's US destination is within the vast flyover region, where
sales taxes are low if they exist at all. But will your cheap American DVDs
work for you at home? Well, if you've solved the video format problems
outlined previously, all that's left to worry about is DVD region lockout.
Stickin' it to the man

Now, here is some good news, for a change. Region lockout is often painfully
easy to defeat. Think about it: these gizmos are manufactured by the tens of
millions in gargantuan plants, and then shipped on to different regions. The
regional spread of orders to be filled will necessarily fluctuate week by
week. So it has got to be easy for the maker to set each device's region
after manufacture. And if it's easy for them, it's easy for us. We just have
to know how to do it.

You can easily select the region for your DVD player, and thus play DVDs
from any other location. You can also switch back to your default region
whenever you please. The manufacturers don't advertise the methods for
changing regions on a player, but insiders leak the information, and patient
empiricists discover it. And a lot of it is available on the web.

You can search for region hacks at free sites such as VideoHelp.com
(http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks), DVD Reviewer
(http://www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk/info/multiregion/), DVDActive.com
(http://www.dvdactive.com/player-hacks/), and AskMerlin.org
(http://www.askmerlin.org/), and also at part-free, part-pay sites such as
DVD Exploder (http://www.dvdexploder.com/).

The old trick of choosing Region 0, or any region, no longer works now that
Region Coding Enhancement (RCE) has been introduced. With recent DVDs and
players it's necessary for you to choose the correct region for each disk in
order to play it. But the hacks are often relatively easy, and this should
figure into your shopping strategy. Research the players that interest you
first, and be sure to discover whether a hack is already known, and whether
it is easy or cumbersome to implement.

Here in Dublin, hacking your DVD player is a courtesy that any retailer will
extend with good cheer. It's all in the open; there's no shame of guilt
associated with it. Even in the most mainstream department stores and
equipment outlet shops, one of the first things a salesperson will do is
check to see if a hack exists for a player you might wish to buy. And they
will gladly print the instructions for you.

In less enlightened parts of the world, this might be looked at as somewhat
seedy, and it might therefore be necessary to go to a seedy shop in a seedy
neighbourhood and speak in low tones. Or, just find the hacks online for the
players that you are most interested in buying before you go shopping.

Of course, the MPAA hates all this, and probably regards it as something
approaching piracy. But piracy is a crime, as it should be. This is not
piracy; it's not even close to piracy; it is nothing more than you
exercising control over equipment that you own and modifying it to suit your
needs. You are doing nothing worse than annoying the media giants. They
don't like it, all right. And so what?

Contrary to MPAA propaganda, changing the region on your player is in no way
unethical. It might possibly be illegal in some jurisdictions (e.g., the
DMCA is so vaguely worded that region hacking might be a violation), but any
law that forbids you to tinker with your own property for legal purposes,
such as watching a DVD that you bought on equipment that you own, is
ridiculous and needs to be flouted flagrantly.

Such laws are a product of political corruption, of legislators in the
pockets of entertainment giants, passing regulations written by media
corporation lobbyists in order to curry favour with their deep-pocketed
Masters. No such law is to be taken seriously, unless there are criminal
aspects, or public safety or public interest concerns (such as there are
with emissions controls on automobiles, which, for very good reasons, may
not be fiddled with). But here, the interests are 100 per cent private and
intolerably selfish, so don't feel the merest twinge of guilt in sticking it
to the man. He's always eager to reciprocate, after all.

So, just to recap: While a frequent flier obviously needs to know a lot to
make a wise media or equipment purchase, we've just sketched out the most
important issues a shopper should educate himself about and investigate
before buying. It is complicated, but just remember that video formats and
DVD regions are two separate problems requiring separate solutions.

Remember also that the video-format problem has two elements, media on the
one hand, for which the right player is needed, and cable and broadcast on
the other, for which the right tuner is needed. A media player might or
might not be able to serve as a multi-format tuner, so be sure to sort out
your needs before buying a new player or a new television. ®