dvd "auto"

[netibiza]

When going into setup on my dvd machine, it says NTSC, PAL 1; PAL 2 and Auto, and the machine is clicked on Auto, does this mean it will automatically read the Region and play it, that is American ones, etc. I want to buy a film from Amazon and it's NTSC and wonder if it'll play without me having to buy something to disable the Regional codes.

[rojash]

NTSC, PAL etc are video encoding systems and have nothing t do with the region code which is an artificially imposed system to allow the media owners to control release availability around the world. So if you have an NTSC DVD, if will play, but only if it's your region, or you change the region of your machine, or you unlock the DVD player to be region-free, or the DVD itself is region-free.

[netibiza]

So what does Auto mean, I seem to remember that once I played a dvd with NTSC (or it may have been Region !) when no one else's could play it, does that mean anything??

[rojash]

The Auto setting means it will automatically detect the video format (PAL, NTSC, etc) and play it accordingly - but as I said, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the region code. Not all NTSC DVDs are region 1, and not all PAL DVDs are region 2 - for example, if you had a friend in the States who sent you his home movies on DVD, the DVD would be region-free, but the video encoding would be NTSC.

[netibiza]

Ok thank you - still a bit unsure.

[Hammer]

Your auto setting will play a dvd regardless of whether it was made to the UK or US standards (number of lines on the screen, the way the colours are coded, etc etc).

What it won't do is play a dvd from any region. That is a different story. You need a multi-region dvd player for that (or unlock the one you have got).

[netibiza]

Oh thanks - that clearer now. Thank you both, I was hoping to get away with it, it's not to be I'm afraid. Cheers xx