There is an opportunity to get a couple of Australian DVDs in R4 format. Will these work in a typical USA DVD player?
The UNITED States of America. July 4, 1776-June 26, 2015.
RIP.
No, they won't. Unless they're among the small handful of Australian DVDs that are both region-free and in NTSC format. Those do exist but they're not common.
shareJust buy a region free dvd player or region free bluray player, it'll work on those. They have them on Amazon from all the name brands.
shareIt looks like this region free bluray player plays both PAL and NTSC:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Q0IEH00/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2EH3A7AEDBIYP
This is what I was referring to, are you saying that player won't play any DVD from any region on it? I'm pretty sure it does, it says so in the specs and in the customer comments.
All things considered, if you're into collecting and playing video discs from different regions, it would be wise to invest in multiple players, one for each region that you have material for, and a standards converter that can transcode on the fly to whatever your TV set/monitor uses. Alternately there are TV monitors that accept multiple standards.
As you've discovered, so-called "region free" players don't necessarily have the capability to transcode the output, and most TV sets lack that ability as well. Since disc players only cost tens of dollars (US), not hundreds or thousands, most enthusiasts can well afford to simply buy a new regional player as they encounter discs from new regions. Most scalers do standards conversion, and cost less than $1000US for home versions. Better to use this straightforward solution to the standards problem than to suffer the shortcomings of half measures.
As you've discovered, so-called "region free" players don't necessarily have the capability to transcode the output, and most TV sets lack that ability as well. Since disc players only cost tens of dollars (US), not hundreds or thousands, most enthusiasts can well afford to simply buy a new regional player as they encounter discs from new regions. Most scalers do standards conversion, and cost less than $1000US for home versions. Better to use this straightforward solution to the standards problem than to suffer the shortcomings of half measures.
What "region free" players are you talking about? The one I linked to says it will automatically play any DVD from any region, why would you buy multiple players if you don't have to? There are other models besides that one that have more bells and whistles (like wifi streaming instead of a hard wire connection) and if you read the specs and comments they do play PAL and NTSC. It does say it will NOT automatically play Blurays from different regions so you have to go into the settings to manually change it to play region A to B or C or vice versa, but it will still play any region, not that difficult for such a valuable piece of equipment.
All you have to do is go to Amazon and type in "region free bluray players" and a listing shows up, then just examine the specs and comments to double check it does what you want and your done, not that hard.
The funny thing is, TV sets everywhere except the USA are capable of receiving NTSC signals and have been since the mid 90s. Yet another example of America failing at freedom.
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