Hi there ... I'm hoping someone can give me some insight here. I have a DVD movie that I was watching on my computer in a 16X DVD drive. I received an actual DVD player for Christmas and one night sat down to watch this same movie on the DVD player and TV. The disk comes up unreadable and yet when I tried it on the DVD rom it plays beautifully. I gave it to my son to try on his DVD player and he gets the unreadable disk too ... same thing happens on his girlfriend's DVD player. Is there some kind of remedial thing in the DVD rom as opposed to the player? I am totally stumped. Thanks for any opinions. MindsEye

I think the DVD must be a different region than region one. Regular DVD players that connect to TVS and are bought in US can only read Region 1 DVDs. However, computer DVD Roms and software can be changed (a limited number of times) to read different region DVDs. Look at the preferences on your DVD software and see what region it is set to.

Q: What are "regional codes", "country codes," or "zone locks"? A: Motion picture studios want to control the release of movies in different countries. Because the cinema releases aren't simultaneous (a movie may come out on video in the U.S. when it's just hitting screens in Europe). Studios sometimes sell distribution rights to different foreign distributors and would like to guarantee an exclusive market. THey have required that the DVD standard include codes that can be used to prevent playback of certain discs in certain geographical regions. Each player is given a code for the region in which it is sold. The player will refuse to play discs that are not allowed in that region. This means that discs bought in one country may not play on players bought in another country. The same applies to software for the Sony PS2! All the above is true, except for in Australia where anti competition legislation has enforced the removal of the 'lock'. There are 6 regions (also called "locales"). Players and discs are identified by the region number superimposed on a world globe. They are: 1: Canada, U.S., U.S. Territories 2: Japan, Europe, South Africa, Middle East (including Egypt) 3: Southeast Asia, East Asia (including Hong Kong) 4: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, Caribbean 5: Former Soviet Union, Indian Subcontinent, Africa (also North Korea, Mongolia) 6: China Wherever you live, make sure you buy a multi region DVD player if you want to buy other titles via the internet or when travelling overseas. As for the PS2, it isn’t available as a multi region unit, however there are companies in England that supply a ‘plug in’ board that you can buy.

Thanks for the input ... I neglected to mention that I had already checked the regional settings ... DVDrom and DVD player are both set to region 1 and I'd imagine since I bought the DVD movie here in Canada it would be region 1 also. Any other ideas? MindsEye