Chinese DVDs are regionally encoded or not?

[runner]

Hi,

I'm new here. I have searched the archives, though.

I want to play Chinese DVDs in the US in a regular US DVD player. I am talking about Chinese DVDs, not pirates of foreign films.

The backs of the packages don't say anything about region, the sales staff in the stores don't know anything about regional encoding, and the companies I've emailed about this have chosen not to reply to me

Most people tell me it won't work, but some people say it will. Have you actually bought Chinese DVDs (movies and tv shows) and played them on a US DVD player? I don't want to hack my DVD player.

Now, some people have told me that a lot of the Chinese stuff is also pirated and the pirating removes the regional encoding, and that even if you go to a reputable store it's still pirated.

I'm confused.

[wushijiao]

I brought back tons of DVDs to the US last year. I would estimate that about 70% of the DVDs worked on my American DVD player. However, I don't know if the ones that didn't work were because of encoding issues or other quality issues.

It might be worth it to just take a Chinese DVD player back to the US.

[wame]

quote"It might be worth it to just take a Chinese DVD player back to the US."

sounds like a good idea haha:lol:

[hanbaoren]

runner, in many cases it's really trivial to 'hack' your DVD player. For my DVD player I just had to enter a code on the remote control and voila, no more trouble with regional codes.

wushijiao, if the DVD doesn't play at all it probably broken, unfortunately quite common. I often ask the shop assistant to show me the DVD before I buy it and in most cases they are so nice to do me the favour. And sometimes when I find out in the hotel that my notebook doesn't play the DVD I also bring it back and exchange it, ususally no problem.

If it's an issue with the regional encoding, the DVD player would usually display a message to tell you about it.

[laolee]

From my own personal experience, most/many Chinese DVDs aren't region coded. However, many are in PAL format. So be sure that your player can do PAL/NTSC conversion. For instance, most of the popular hackable players will do the conversion. However, plain old regular US region 1 only players generally do not. Which model do you currently have?

You might want to check yesasia.com's listings for whether they are either region coded or PAL format. (global.yesasia.com)

Check the back of the DVD case for an icon with a globe on it. It will say '6' or 'All' normally. 6, if it's region 6, All means not coded.

[chengdude]

Now, some people have told me that a lot of the Chinese stuff is also pirated and the pirating removes the regional encoding, and that even if you go to a reputable store it's still pirated.

Did you post this question on eslcafe.com? There just happens to be a very recent thread here on this very topic. The boundaries between legitimate and dubious DVD's in China are so fuzzy, I wouldn't really worry about it. Buy what you want, worry about getting everything back home safely, and then deal with playing them.

The main issue: What kind of DVD player do you have? If you've got a Swiss Army knife-type player that plays every format of DVD (ROM, +R, -R, RW), VCD (VCD, SVCD), and MP3 -and you're buying decent quality discs- then chances are good it can handle what you're planning to feed it. Region encoding is removed from DVD's of suspect provenance; it is generally not an issue.

Worse comes to worse, you go out and buy a Chinese-branded/built player in the U.S. (for likely less than $60.00, often less than $40) and away you go. DVD players have essentially become disposable goods at this point. Here is the link to the NerdOut forums, which discuss anything and everything related to getting creative with your DVD player...and those brands that best tolerate such tinkering.

In the States, I have a Cyberhome 500 that will play everything, is region free, will run from 110-250V, correctly decodes PAL into NTSC...and probably will toast bread if I could figure out how to fit a slice into the drawer. Unfortunately, the 500 has been discontinued, but there are plenty of other disposables that will do the same or almost the same things.

If you need further reassurance, on any given day, untold numbers of Americans are happily buying DVD's on eBay from sellers on the Mainland and in Hong Kong. Hint: they're not MPAA- or studio-approved editions.

And yes, I have played Chinese DVD's in the States, to answer your core question.

[runner]

However, many are in PAL format.

I thought China was NTSC?

Chengdude, more forums, more sources

What about VCDs? Will they play in a US DVD player? Is there a PAL vs. NTSC issue there?

[chengdude]

I thought China was NTSC?

China is actually on the PAL standard. See here. I don't know if Chinese TV series are encoded as PAL or NTSC DVD's/VCD's, but it's something to look for. As I already mentioned, most user-friendly DVD players will offer some sort of PAL/NTSC conversion.

Chengdude, more forums, more sources

Yes, sir...try starting here and then follow the links on the left of the page for more detailed discussion of what interests you.

[trevelyan]

Many of my legit Chinese DVDs do not play back home. Pirated stuff works almost without exception.

Why not buy a Chinese DVD player? Maybe not the most helpful piece of advice, but you may be able to get one the same place you're getting your DVDs, and if you're in China it can be worth bringing one back (get one with the "jump straight to the movie feature"). They'll play anything and you won't have to worry about region coding ever again... not a bad way to spend a few hundred.

[Honyakusha]

Why not buy a Chinese DVD player? Maybe not the most helpful piece of advice, but you may be able to get one the same place you're getting your DVDs, and if you're in China it can be worth bringing one back (get one with the "jump straight to the movie feature"). They'll play anything and you won't have to worry about region coding ever again... not a bad way to spend a few hundred.

Or you can purchase a "region free" DVD player in your home country. Do a Google search for "region free," and you'll come up with plenty of options.

[Gary Soup]

In San Francisco Chinatown you can get an All Region/All Formats DVD player for around $40.

[magores]

How would I say "region free dvd player" in Mandarin?

Thanks in advance.

magores

[in_lab]

All the people I've talked to haven't been familiar with the concept of region coding. I would ask for a DVD player "that can play Japanese DVDs." And I would bring a DVD to the store to test them. BUt a region-free player can't play some US DVDs like the Simpsons, because they check if the player is region 1. But some players have a menu preview function that allows you to get to most of the DVD, even if the DVD won't play.

[in_lab]

My DVD player broke, so I just bought a new one. The salesman told me it is 無區, region-free. He didn't seem to understand that some DVDs require that a player have region coding, but I didn't expect them to have region-programmable players anyway.

[Tyr]

You can bypass this problem by making backup copies of the DVD's.

install DVDDecrypter

install DVDShrink

1. Decrypt the movie using DVDDecrypter making it region free

2. Backup the movie using DVD shrink (select open files using the directory you ripped to with DVDDecrypter)

Another useful program is AnyDVD which does decrypting on the fly. This will allow you to play/copy any DVD from any region.

Hope this helps.