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Emigrating DVD's?

Posted by Cliff on from the regionless-DVD-players dept.

RenHoek asks: "I found the love of my life on the internet, and I'm about to emigrate from the Netherlands to the USA. This leaves me with a big problem. My carefully collected DVD's are region 2 (Europe) and the USA is region 1. So except for buying a new DVD player (220 volts in Europe, 110 in the USA) does this also mean I have to sell my entire DVD collection here, and try to buy everything together in the US? It would seem I have a legal right to watch my legally bought DVDs, but region locking prohibits this, and circumventing region locking carries stiff penalties. Emailing the MPAA resulted in deafening silence. So what does the slashdot community advise? Should I follow the new American dream and start suing the moment I enter the US for the fact that the MPAA is either taking away my rights, or forcing me into a DMCA crime?" Thank god there are regionless DVD players! For those who don't know about them, which ones do you recommend and where are the best places to buy them?

7 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. How about a voltage converter by m_evanchik · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Couldn't you use your old DVD player with a voltage converter? Admittedly, it's a bit of a kludge, since you'll need a new player to play US bought DVDs, but it should tide you over in the meantime. Radio Shack sells plenty of them for less than $40.

    --

    evanchik.net

  2. Not region-free... by Howie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Be wary of getting a 'region-free' DVD player, as opposed to a region-switchable one. I seem to recall that some recent discs have a slightly different region-check that doesn't like region-free players, but is fine if you have a player that can be set to the correct region.

    Wish I could remember what it was called, but I think Gladiator and some versions of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon were the two movies mentioned at the time.

    That said, I have a region-free DVD player (Wharfdale DVD-750) and I've yet to come across a problem disc (apart from some VideoCDs, but that's another story).

    --
    "don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
  3. It's a stupid law. by Wakko+Warner · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Break it. Buy a chipped player.

    - A.P.

    --
    "Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
  4. Re:Does it really matter? by jbridge21 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Actually, most pr0n is region 0 so it will play anywhere. Pr0n publishers aren't stupid enough to artificially limit their market!

  5. DVD players... by shub · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I am an American citizen, living in Belgium. I brought over with me the Pioneer DVD/LD player I had bought a long time ago, and I can continue to play DVDs that are bought for my by friends & family living in the US.

    However, I also recently bought a local DVD player because of all the local DVDs I've wanted to buy or rent, but couldn't see because they were not only region-2 encoded, but because they are in PAL format and my DVD/LP player is NTSC-only.

    My advice would be to do the same in reverse for your situation -- buy a DVD player in the Netherlands or the UK that can either accept a region mod or is already region switchable. Make sure that it can output both NTSC and PAL format, because TVs in the US are NTSC-only. If you can't get a European DVD player that can output both NTSC and PAL, then you'll need to get a European TV that can handle both NTSC and PAL input that you take with you (with any luck, your existing TV will be able to handle both NTSC and PAL input).

    Just keep in mind that you'll probably need a 240VAC@50Hz/120VAC@60Hz voltage/frequency converter to handle any European video equipment that you bring over with you. Make sure you get a high-quality model, not one that does only the voltage side and skips the the frequency conversion part, because that will be likely to fry your sensitive eletronic equipment. I've found good ones over here in Belgium (they tend to work both ways), but they are hard to find and expensive.

    --
    Brad Knowles
    http://daily.daemonnews.org/ -- if you're not
  6. Re:Rights? by danielrose · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't know about Dutch law, but in the US I don't see any reason why you have a legal right to watch DVDs in a different region.
    Your ability to watch DVD's which you have purchased, wherever you choose, constitutes fair use.

    --
    i hate pansy republicans
  7. Re:Rights? by Otter · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Did you read to the next sentence? I explicitly mentioned fair use.

    Like I said, fair use potentially means that he can engage in activities that would be otherwise illegal. It does not mean what I understood him to be saying -- that he is entitled to be provided with a way to watch his old DVDs on a North American system.

    --
    What I'm listening to now on Pandora...