Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic TV watchers in UK - Help!!!

Can anyone tell me what the television standard in the UK is? I am looking at getting a new fangled DVD recorder with Hard drive built in. They are a ridiculous price here in Australia, much cheaper in the US (of course) but they are not PAL compatible, only NTSC. I am not having much luck with responses from web sites so I thought one of you lovely people could help.

On another note, does anyone know if all DVD players sold over there are multi region? They are over here now so I was just wondering.

Thanks in advance,
Laurel

The UK uses the PAL system. Many DVD players are multi-region, but not all of them, so you'd have to check before buying.

LabRat

This may or may not help you at all, but I received a PAL DVD from a friend <g> and was unable to play it in my USA-purshased DVD player

But...I was able to play it on my PC's DVD player without any problem at all. So if you have a PC with a DVD/CD/ROM thinga-ma-jigger dealy, you may be able to play DVDs that are not compatible with whatever DVD player you end up with. Kind of a work-around.

And I'm curious - you mentioned that DVD players are pretty costly in Australia. Around about how much? We are now in the market for a new DVD player and are pleased to see that we'll be able to pick up a fairly decent one (progressive scan and some other bells and whistles that mean nothing to me but seem to be oh-so-important to Mr. Lynn) for less than $100. They have really dropped in price around these here parts. Reminds me of the day when you had to spend $500 for a decent calculator and now you get them free with the purchase of a McDonald's Happy Meal. Amazing!

Lynn

Lynn

Lynn, you might find this site DVD Hack helpful. Pretty much all dvd players will play whatever you want them to play, as long as you tell them to play it. If that makes sense? Just type in your dvd model and click search to find out if there are any hacks to make your dvd player region free.

Its a good thing my dvd player is region free. I have more dvds from asia than I do from Australia, and even some from America. I bought my Angel dvd's off amazon.com, they turn out cheaper buying the whole season (in one set) for $US45 than the Australian version. They split it up into two sets and sell them each for $AUS40 on special. Plus it doesn't take up as much shelf space.

Also, with the cost of DVD players in Australia. As with most things, there are the cheap low of the range players and there are the top of the range more expensive dvd players. You can get a cheapie for around $AUS150-$AUS200
I think Skullee was refering to the dvd *recorders* which are much more expensive.

Yes I was talking about the you beaut new dvd recorders with the inbuilt hard drives. They seem to start around $1400 Aus and just go up. We actually had a friend coming over here from Seattle that was happy to bring it over for us, however once we found out the whole NTSC/Pal 120volt vs 240 volt thing it just wasn't worth it. And the UK ones (once you get them over here) are about the same amount anyway. Total waste of time.
So my lovely hubbie went out and bought this 'digital terrestrial receiver ' thingie that attaches to my computer and a dvd burner and now i can record onto the hard drive of my computer and burn onto DVD. Not quite what I had in mind, ( I wanted to get rid of all those annoying video cases) but it is certainly entertaining.
Now all I have to do is get a multi region dvd player (or recorder)so I can buy overseas disks and I might be happy

Naaaah!!!

So are asian versions any good? I have seen them but I shy away. I thought they might be copies?

RE the dvd hack. I tried that with our toshiba and it didn't seem to work even though there was a hack for it. I think the companies work around the hacks when they become common knowledge. I also know that some hacks are sold on ebay, so you could try that if your model isn't listed

Thanks all for your help. Much appreciated.
Wow I think this is my longest post

oh um hmmmm *puts on innocent face* of course not!