Wedding DVD

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My wedding DVD was made on Philips machine. I cn't play it on a Panasonic DVD player, but I can play it on a cheap Apex player. Will I have troule playing it on any Philips player or Pioneer player?

-- Melissa Ortega (melly22577@comcast.net), December 04, 2003

Answers

Hi, DVD always comes with some region codes, most common are 1,2,3 and ALL. When you record any DVD, you must notice the region code. Mostly it will be behind the player. A region code of 3 will play 1,2 and 3 only, where as region code 2 will play only 1 & 2. Region ALL will play any region. Generally Pioneer can play any region, but still it's better to check. For the number of region used in the DVD player, the manufacturer should pay royalty to the corresponding regions. That's the reason Pioneer DVD players are very expensive. They are authorized to use the region, because they pay royalty. Whereas cheap players may or may not pay the royalty, that's the reason they could provide at a lesser price. Also the quality of the lens also matters.

-- Rajesh. (rajeshy2k@hotmail.com), December 05, 2003.

Rajesh's answer is wrong about one thing. DVDs do NOT have to have region codes. I have several commercial DVDs that were made in countries other than the USA that do not have region coding. They are, in effect, region 0 DVDs. Home recordable DVDs do NOT have region codes! Your problem is not a region code issue. Your Philips DVD recorder is creating your DVD as region 0. Here's the problem. Burnable DVD media is not always recognized by DVD players. I know that your DVD recorder uses DVD+ media. Was your DVD made to DVD+R or DVD+RW? It makes a big difference. Roughly 83% of the DVD players in the world will play DVD+R media (DVD-R can be played by about 85% of the players). DVD+RW and DVD-RW media have much much lower compatibility rates. My guess is that either your DVD was made on DVD+RW media, in which case you should make it on DVD+R media, or your DVD player simply doesn't like DVD+R media. You can go to the DVD Player Compatibility List at http://www.vcdhelp.com and look up your Panasonic DVD player and see what it says for DVD+R and DVD+RW media. You should not have problems playing your wedding DVD on a Philips DVD player. Pioneer should support it, but you might look up Pioneer models at the list I mentioned to check. As a basic rule, the newer the DVD player, the more likely it will play DVD burnable media, although being able to play DVD read-write discs is probably always going to be iffy. Your problem is quite simply a media issue and has nothing to do with region codes or royalty payments.

-- Root (root@yahoo.moc), December 05, 2003.

Root's answer is more appropriate.

-- Lee (lee@mike.com), December 06, 2003.

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