[Dixielandjazz] DVD regional coding

[TBW504 at aol.com]

Jerry Brown mentions regional coding on DVDs which prevents, ordinarily, DVDs 
purchased (much more cheaply) in the States being playable over here in the 
UK. As a frequent visitor to the U.S. I enquired of my local Sony dealer about 
this. He promptly sold me a Panasonic player already equipped to play DVDs 
bought anywhere and assured me that he could and would re-chip any player that 
did not have that facility and pointed out that several manufacturers enabled 
re-zoning by codes tapped into the remote control. Everything he told me has 
proved to be correct, much of it confirmed in technical magazines providing 
re-zoning codes. I have since bought  numbers of DVDs - including the full version 
of the Ken Burns tv series which includes material not even shown in the 
States - all of which play perfecttly. Of course if you want to be intimidated by 
money-grabbing manufacturers who try to frighten you off with "infringement of 
warranty" warnings ..............
Brian Wood