On Thursday, October 16, 2003, at 04:26 PM, Henri Yandell wrote:

> Do you have the model numbers? I'm attempting to watch Region 2 DVDs in
> the US but no one local has a clue about a dvd player that will show 
> them.
> The best-buy assistants didn't even know what a region was :)

There are dozens of Web pages on this. My two Apex DVD players are the 
600A and the AD-1500. A couple of sites with news about getting at the 
hidden features and other types of player hacking are

<http://www.nerd-out.com/apexold/Secret_Menu/secret_menu.html>
<http://www.nerd-out.com/darrenk/>

> Plus the US tv's won't do PAL->NTSC, so even if I buy a DVD in the UK 
> and
> bring it over here, run it on through a travel adaptor, it would not
> display the picture correctly.

The PAL or NTSC designations on the MPEG2 content are apparently 
flim-flam. All the coding on the disk is the same, whether NTSC, PAL or 
SECAM. What the DVD player does on the fly is change the aspect ratio, 
sync timing and display resolution to match the box it's showing on. 
It's a common practice in Europe to order Region 1 DVDs from the US 
because they are cheaper and the movies are available sooner. It looks 
to me like the whole region coding scheme is breaking down. I've sent 
many DVDs to a friend in Sweden who's a Trekkie. The STNG season DVD's 
appeared here more than a year before they were released in Sweden.

I have several DVDs picked up on a whim in Germany and Hungary. They 
play fine on my 600A. (I don't recall if I've ever tried them on the 
1500.)



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