The Smiley Smile Message Board

I just got this in the mail, and my DVDs player says 'Playback prohibited by area limitations'
???

what  ???
and it's definitely not Blu-ray?

Nope! Says DVD video! I have an older DVDs player but it hasn't been a problem with anything else.

If you got it from Amazon, you likely got the PAL version. There are quite a few complaints about it there.


Booo! It's 2016, DVDs are passe.

Does PAL require a certain type of DVDs player? Yeah I know, I am behind the times. :p

god that sucks.  damn formats.  I feel your pain.  :-[

The combo pack is clearly labeled as DVD/CD, so the fact that it's DVD is correct. To get the Blu-ray, you have to order the separate Blu-ray-only release. This does mean if you want the CD and Blu-ray, you have to buy both releases and get a redundant DVD.

As for PAL issues on the DVD, that indeed is an issue for US players. There are two different listings for the DVD/CD combo on Amazon. One is a UK import which would indeed be PAL.

I believe this is the US listing:

Brian Wilson and Friends (CD/DVD) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HGNH5F6/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_1EuRxbJY1E8QV

This is the import listing, which is marked in the description as PAL:

Brian Wilson & Friends https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CYOFKR2/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_wJuRxbFFB6WQJ

Now, if people are ordering the US release from that first link and getting a PAL disc, that *is* a problem.

You can re-code your DVD player, try GOOGLE!
I did it for my American copies of Love and Mercy.

I'm a little behind on technology, but I think you can purchase all region DVD players.

PAL (UK) vs. NTSC (US) is a separate issue from "region coding." You can indeed sometimes "mod" a player to be multi-region, and sometimes players have hidden menus or other ways to get them to play other region discs.

But players typically either come equipped to play PAL or they don't. My old US DVD players could play PAL DVDs, but my Blu-ray players can't, go figure. (PAL vs. NTSC is only an issue on DVD, it doesn't apply to Blu-ray, which is probably why US Blu-ray players don't make it a standard feature).

I'm guessing all versions of this Brian DVD are region-free (Region 0), while UK copies are PAL versus NTSC US copies.

Ok thanks! I will see about recoding my DVD player. Of course then I may not be able to watch any of my other dvds!? I'll figure something out.

Well, as I was saying, changing the region coding on your DVD player is not going to fix the player's inability to play PAL discs.

Region coding is just a "lock out" mechanism to keep players from playing discs from certain regions.

PAL vs. NTSC are two different actual color encoding systems, with a different "line standard" (number of lines of resolution on the screen) and different number of frames per second. So some players literally don't have the innards to process a PAL signal. That's why it's much easier to make a player "region free"; you just need a menu or "code" or something to ignore that tiny bit of "region code" information.

Really, I think the easiest, cheapest, quickest solution would be to just buy the US copy of the DVD/CD on Amazon (it's currently only $11.99, which is a good price for a combo set), and unless there was a huge screw-up with all US copies, those US copies should have NTSC discs.

Oh no.  I just got mine in the mail and haven't tried it yet.  Now I'm kinda worried.  I've got an old DVD player too. 

If you ordered the US version linked above from Amazon, you *should* be okay (I haven't personally confirmed yet that the disc is playable, but it's the "US" release, so it should be okay).

If you ordered the other version from Amazon and the DVD won't play, Amazon will probably still let you return it. They're pretty good about returns, even in a case like this where it technically said "PAL" in the description of the import version (but didn't really explicitly explain what that meant).

If you bought the UK version of the DVD/CD set from some other store or party and the DVD doesn't play, I would still explore a return/refund.

Also, the age of your DVD player shouldn't be an issue. I think several of my old DVD players *did* play PAL discs. So you might be okay even if it is a PAL disc. It seems pretty random as to whether US NTSC DVD players have the capability of also playing PAL discs. I think it's less common ironically in Blu-ray players since, I would assume, manufacturers figure it is even *less* likely you'll try to play a PAL DVD on a US Blu-ray player.

Thanks.  I bought it from amazon.ca.  I'll try it out tonight and will report if there are any problems with it. 

That's correct.

I just received my copy from Amazon.com yesterday. The DVD plays fine in my player.

Maybe so, but to these old eyes and ears, any differences are negligible, and totally offset by the fact that at $12 for both the CD & DVD, this is a terrific value, especially for anybody who didn't buy the BD (at significantly higher cost) in the first place.  I did, so I bought this just for the CD, which I felt was worth the cost. The DVD I'll gladly give away when I find somebody who's not too embarrassed about being a few years behind the times, and just wants to watch a great show.

See, that's the thing....I mean, I'm so used to HD, that going back to SD is about as bad as going back to something on VHS.

I think you're overlooking a key point  in that comparison...

You don't have to rewind the DVD!    :-D

:lol

I still have tons of DVDs in my collection; countless things will *never* be released on Blu-ray, and DVD is a great format.

But when Blu-rays are available, they are always going to look significantly better. Especially something like this Brian show that was shot natively in HD. Definitely not a negligible difference. If you're watching on an old SD TV, or an HDTV with a smaller screen, the differences don't stand out as much. But on even mid-level size screens, and certainly larger, the HD improvement is even more noticeable.

I don't say this as a snob, but more in a lamenting fashion: I watch Blu-rays to simply *avoid* DVDs that are going to look sometimes pretty "bleh" on my TV.

Billy is also right in that once you watch most stuff in HD for awhile, you get "used" to it, and then when you pop in a DVD or watch something in SD, it sometimes looks all of a sudden way worse.

And this is coming from someone like myself, who has way too many wonky old tenth-generation VHS dubs of stuff in my collection. So I'll watch some pretty crummy-looking stuff. A well-made DVD is still just fine, but Blu-ray is far, far better.

I haven't watched the DVD yet (and of course I have the original Blu-ray/DVD combo set anyway), but the CD/DVD combo I ordered from Amazon arrived and the back cover specifically notes that the DVD is region-free and "NTSC." So US copies from the US Amazon site should be fine for US folks.

Beware buying from some other outlets, as they might be stocking European copies.

Has anyone here bought the new stand-alone Blu-ray release (meaning the one released just in the last few weeks, *not* the original PBS release)? If so, can you tell me if it's in a standard blu "Blu-ray" case, or is it like a cardboard "digipak" packaging?

Thanks guys! I have been too busy recently. But hopefully I can recode my dvd player. Otherwise I will try returning it or trading it in for the US version.