NTSC All regions DVD on Region 2 player?

PAL and NTSC are television standards and really have nothing to do with DVD region codes.

Yes, many PAL DVD players can play NTSC discs. And yes, discs with a region code of 0 can be played on all players IF the player can handle the television standard that the disc was authored for.

-DH

HI Wes - not really a coincidence, more of a marketing process to carve up the world into the different regions.

Yes, Region 2 (Europe (except Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus), Middle East, Egypt, Japan, South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, French overseas territories, Greenland) countries often also use PAL, but so do others not in Region 2 ( PAL covers most of Europe, most of Africa, China, India, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, North Korea to name a few). For example, New Zealand use PAL and are in region 4.

The TV standard is the key, IMO - make sure your footage can actually be seen in those countries, and then make the disc region free (tick ALL of the boxes and make sure it has a region code mask of 0).

My rather jaded view is that the regions simply helped ensure sales were optimised and have nothing to do with whether the disc will play back! But you are also correct in saying a lot of DVD players can play both standards these days, however I wouldn't rely on that when creating a disc.

Finally, if your disc is being burnt in your mac (or PC), make sure that you tick all of the regions in the build/format dialogue as if you don't there will be a conflict between what you are asking and what is hard coded into the DVD-R you are writing to. Region codes really only come into play if you are using a replication process.

This is what I have to do all the time. I fo a lot of translation work.
You have to check allnthe regions you want. Region zero is really a misnomer. There is no "region 0" it's just all regions.
Players either have the ability to play NTSC, PAL or both. That's a setting that often can be changed after the fact. I have a multiformat DVD player here in the states. O had to order it so I could test the PAL discs I create. In many parts of the world they just sell multiformat players as a matter of course. Nowadays many of our distributors just take our NTSC DVDs even though they are in a PAL region.

The regions were created by the Hollywood film industry to creste/devide/protect sales markets. I'm currently working on products for release in Iceland, Poland and Japan.

Region all, region free, region zero... it amounts to the same thing but curiously has combined two different concepts. I wouldn't say region zero is a misnomer, however.

Region all - means what it says... all regions are able to play the disc. In effect there is no restriction in place and the disc should play in any player. You set this in the authoring software by selecting all of the boxes for the different regions - hence 'region all'. In effect, the disc is free of restrictions related to any region... thus region 'free'.

Region zero refers in part at least to the underlying code that establishes the region setting on a DVD. If you use tools like DVDAfterEdit you can open up a VIDEO_TS folder and explore the inner workings (as well as make changes) of the disc. One of the pieces of information visible is the region code mask (RCM). This three character number defines the various combinations of regions the disc is set to play back in, and the code changes according to the settings made. However, where every single region is chosen for playback, including region 7, the three number code shows as zero.

Hence the combination of region free, region all and region 0 meaning much the same thing.

Thevreason thatbi claim that there's nobregion "zero" is that within the authoring sofwarr. There is nonfinction called or even lookingblike region 0. The regions are all listed, including the airline one. None of them are 0. They're from 1 through, what is it 9? But none is zero. You can choose any combination from none up to all, but there is no zero. So impish the term "all regions." and I'm dealing with sales people, distributors and distribution managers. Only rarely doni deal with a producer or editor working with the actual authoring. If any of them go looking for a setting called "0" they won't find it.
Note that many of these people also refer to any copy of a project, whether it's a DVD check disc, a DLT tape, a steaming online version or a third generation VHS copy as a "master."

🙂

now get them off my lawn!

I think I am agreeing with you... and was simply adding that the terminology for 'region 0' actually arises from the RCM value when you select all of the regions in the authoring software. Over time this has got pulled in to the vocabulary to imply the same thing as region all.

I suppose if you untick absolutely all of the regions you could argue that in the authoring you've made the disc region free... nothing could be further from the truth.

Funny how our own language can trip us up. Region All (or should that be All Region) is the same thing as Region Zero and Region Free. The latter, of course, is a shortening of 'Region Restriction Free'.

We could go on and on with this one! Suffice to say, when authoring, tick ALL of the boxes to create a disc that will play in all regions. Know when you do this that you've made the disc free of region restrictions, and under the hood there will be a setting in the Region Code Mask of Zero. 😉