Dear Winona, A region code is an artificial addition to a DVD's encoding during authoring and compression to supposedly prevent DVDs from being sold outside their territory. It was started by the Hollywood studios even though they don't mind that about 10% of their DVD sales go overseas. When Milestone owns worldwide rights or have permission from the producer, we make our DVD releases Region Free or Region 0. (It's the same thing.)
PAL and NTSC are different Television standards going back to the 1950s. VHS and DVD followed suit based on what the country's broadcast standard was. A DVD is PAL or NTSC based on the video master that you use for authoring/compression. HD, interestingly enough, is neither PAL or NTSC and is universal though there are way too many versions of HD for different countries. And just for fun, as far as I know, there's only one Blu-Ray line of players that can be "modified" to play all Regions Blu-Ray *and* All Regions DVD. That would be the Oppo. Best, Dennis Doros Milestone Film & Video/Milliarium Zero PO Box 128 Harrington Park, NJ 07640 Phone: 201-767-3117 Fax: 201-767-3035 email: [email protected] www.milestonefilms.com www.arayafilm.com www.exilesfilm.com www.wordisoutmovie.com www.killerofsheep.com AMIA Philadelphia 2010: www.amianet.org Join "Milestone Film" on Facebook! On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 11:19 AM, Winona Patterson < [email protected]> wrote: > Hello CW, > > > > I have in hand a DVD titled Architects Herzog & de Meuron (OCLC 233036642), > and the region coding on the DVD says “ALL” in the little globe icon, and > NTSC below it. It’s transcribed as such in the 538 field. Obviously, this > DVD works just fine here in the US and our patrons will have no problems > using it, but now I’m just curious: is this actually correct? I was under > the impression that NTSC was just a different way of saying Region 1. I > looked at the Wikipedia article on NTSC, as well as the NTSC website ( > http://www.ntsc-tv.com) and now I’m more confused because NTSC apparently > refers to some sort of color information system. > > > > Any information would be appreciated. It’s not going to affect my > cataloging of this DVD; I’d just like to understand. Thanks! > > > > *Winona Patterson > *Library Technical Assistant, Audiovisual Cataloging > LRC Tech Services, Harper College > 1200 W. Algonquin Rd., Palatine, IL 60067 > Direct Line 847-925-6770 > [email protected] > > > > VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues > relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control, > preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and > related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective > working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication > between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and > distributors. > >
VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and distributors.
