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Originally Posted by Christien
Wow, thanks for such an awesomely detailed answer!
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You're welcome. I've been there, done that - that's two years of my life I want back!
Actually, it was a lot of fun. But it's easier to just buy it.
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You're right that it's only worth so much effort. I'd rather just burn it as a data DVD and watch them that way. The only difference is lack of a menu.
What a pain in the ass. I wish BBC would release Top Gear DVDs in region 1 format!
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Uhhhm?
Your problem is that Aunty Beeb only releases them in PAL format region-locked to Region 2 (UK/Northern Europe)?
Oh well. Y'see now, little did you know, but you actually asked the wrong question, and there's a simple answer...
See, being a furriner 'n all, I have DVD's that, perversely, I want to watch where ever I might happen to be in the world this year. Seeing as how I paid for them. How unreasonable of me, when I should obviously just buy mutliple copies, one for each market I visit, and just do without my favorite shows if some Marketing Drone decides they won't be available there. Yah, right.
Many of my favorite shows aren't ever going to get released on DVD in the US, there's just no market for things like "The Comic Strip", "Rising Damp" or "The Fall and Rise Of Reginald Perrin" here. (BTW, here's a Hot Tip you might not know: amazon.co.uk IS NOT THE SAME AS amazon.com. There is UK market-specific stuff for sale there. And they'll ship to the US perfectly happily.)
The answer, my friend, is very simple. Buy one of these puppies (I bought myself two the other week, but no other affiliation):
Ebay BIN Item
This is similar to the Cyberhome CH-300 player (same hardware, better (later) firmware).
It does Progressive Scan (if you use the component outputs).
It does flawless PAL->NTSC upconversion, or vice-versa. So you can play PAL DVD's on an NTSC TV (or NTSC DVD's on a PAL TV).
You can set them to be Region 0 players (region-free) with the remote in 5 seconds (open tray, make sure no disk inserted, close tray, menu, "1", "9" "enter", up/down arrows to select desired region, "enter", you're all set). Then you can play DVD's from any region.
Oh, and they're small enough to pack, and they're multi-voltage, so they work anywhere in the world.
Now, the Cyberhome has a bad rep for some examples not lasting well. The power supply can get a bit marginal (couple of caps are prone to leak), and they will then typically fail to read DVDs reliably after the voltage dips a tad low.
That said, mine is still working fine after 3+ years of very heavy use - and I still bought a pair of the TruTechs.
The earlier Cyberhome firmware tends to drop some frames on the PAL->NTSC upconvert (fixed in the later units). Which I notice and it drives me absolutely crazy (my roommate can't see it), so I bought the TruTech to see if it did a better job - and it's completely flawless, like the later Cyberhomes were reported to be.
It's an option. It's what I did. Obviously *I* think it's the best option - YMMV.