DVD region?

[asdf]

Hello all,

I bought an Electrohome EH8181A DVD player in January of 2003. for some reason the DVD player doesn't play all DVDs. I bought both the first and second Harry Potter DVDs and tried to play them on my DVD player. The first Harry Potter movie plays just fine but the second Harry Potter movie doesn't play. The movie flashes on for about 2 secs and then flashes off for about 10 secs and continues doing this, although the audio is just fine. I encountered the same problem for other DVDs such as Drumline, The Way Home, MIIB, Ice Age, and Spiderman. I looked it up in the manual and it said it won't play becuase of the region of the DVD????Is this true? I tried all the different regions for the Ice Age DVD by using the regionfree hack but the video problem still doesnt go away. Is the problem becuase of the region or of what? does anybody know? Does anybody else have this problem? Is there a way to fix this? Are there new DVD players that can play all of the DVDs? and who else out there thinks that this is completely f------ stupid?

[flaninacupboard]

well, are your harry potter movies different regions?
as far as i know region protection will stop a disc loading at all, you won't get anywhere near the actual film. sounds more like a PAL/NTSC issue if you know discs from a certain region have issues. have you looked your player up in the player list on the left?

[asdf]

both my harry potter DVDs should be in the same region as i bought them both in my region. region 1, Canada and the USA

[flaninacupboard]

well if they're the same region and one plays fine and the other doesn't, what on earth makes you think it has anything to do with region settings???

[DeleriumMDK]

I've got a Shinsonic 100-A Player hacked to be Region Free/Macro Free (NTSC Region 1 originally...) and I do know it has some playback issues with PAL format, part of the screen is a bit cutoff as the built in Decoder isn't too great. It could be your player, which I assume is PAL territory(Correct me if I am indeed wrong) has similar issues displaying NTSC as mine has displaying PAL. If so...you need to look into purchasing some type of NTSC to PAL converter, I do know they exist. I'm having a hell of a time finding PAL to NTSC but NTSC to PAL shouldn't be too hard to get a hold of. Good luck with it.

[asdf]

i dont know.....but now i think its a macrovision problem....the DVD player is hooked up to the VCR before it runs to the TV. Could the problem be macrovision?

[andkiich]

yes

[asdf]

would hooking the DVD player directly to the TV get rid of the macrovision problem?

[Conquest10]

yes

[poopyhead]

VCRs....heh (ironic that there are many DVD players cheaper than VCRs)

btw, i think i saw a couple of VCRs at my local history museum