Guest Posted July 8, 2001 Report Share Posted July 8, 2001 I have just made the rounds of Panthip Plaza, Hollywood IT and MBK to pick up a batch of DVD's. Here's a word of warning. Although some of them are marked "ALL" zone, that is not necessarily true. My player is Zone 1 and I purchased "Miss Congeniality" (yeak ok, I've got a thing for Sandra Bullock) which specifically indicated Zone 1 on the back. When I put it in the player, up came the dreaded "this disc cannot be played" message. Out of about 20 DVD's purchased, eight have to be returned because they are incorrectly marked as "ALL" zone. Fortunately, most of the vendors allow me to exchange them but it's a pain in the ass to keep going back. Also, you are usually stuck buying another movie that you don't really want. Too bad we have to pay for their mismarked DVD's. Money back? Ha ha....now THAT's a joke! I've even tried to bring along my portable DVD player to test them out but with all the cops poking around lately, that only makes the vendors very nervous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ALHOLK Posted July 8, 2001 Report Share Posted July 8, 2001 Hi! Most DVD's can be modified to play all zones. In Sweden where I live (zone 2) this is important as there are vastly more zone 1 titles available. If you're not dead sure of what you are doing you should let a professional do the modifications. regards ALHOLK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 12, 2001 Report Share Posted July 12, 2001 Unless you can establish a good working relationship with a vendor, I wouldn't buy ANY DVD's from these people. There are some real assholes at Pantip Plaza who will not exchange their defective, supposedly all zone DVD's. There are a few clowns on the second floor, in the corner who kept insisting "your player bad, no work good". They demonstrated this by using their own all zone player, which did work. I think the problem is that some of the all zone movies are actually for all zones except zone 1. I noticed these markings on some of their other discs. Some idiot who made the covers just stuck all zone on, regardless. On the good side, their is a guy at Hollywood IT who is pretty trustworthy. He's smart enough to know that if he works with you, you'll buy even more from him. He let's you return the bad ones until you get something that works. No refunds though. I guess there is no honor among thieves! Modify your player? Fuck that! Why ruin an $800 player for second rate Thai copied crap!!! Better yet, save the headache. Just pay a few bucks more and get a decent, legit DVD. ...and where the hell does a Canuck find a REAL beer in this city? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 12, 2001 Report Share Posted July 12, 2001 Usually DVD's that are not zone encoded specify zone "O". These are usually independant films or documentaries and the publishers don't have the money to encode them for different countries. These films will never have world-wide appeal or distribution anyway. I would certainly have your DVD machine chipped to play all zones. Why not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ALHOLK Posted July 12, 2001 Report Share Posted July 12, 2001 To my knowledge it's not possible to exclude a single zone. A DVD is either unzoned (zone 0) or it's encoded for precisely one zone. regards ALHOLK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 19, 2001 Report Share Posted July 19, 2001 The whole issue may be academic in a short while anyway. The cops are really cracking down on copied software, DVD's, Rolexes, Louis Vitton, etc. due to pressure from Thaksin's crusade to stop all the counterfeiting. My source at Hollywood IT had all his DVD's confiscated by the police. Vendors in Patpong and all around the city have told me that things are getting tougher. Montreal Expos rule!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whosyourdaddy Posted July 20, 2001 Report Share Posted July 20, 2001 Try downloading DVD Genie from the NEt. It is a software program that should fix the all zone issue. But it does slow your drive. Give it a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whosyourdaddy Posted July 20, 2001 Report Share Posted July 20, 2001 Try downloading DVD Genie from the NEt. It is a software program that should fix the all zone issue. But it does slow your drive. Give it a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lamock Chokaprret Posted July 24, 2001 Report Share Posted July 24, 2001 quote: The whole issue may be academic in a short while anyway. The cops are really cracking down on copied software, DVD's, Rolexes, Louis Vitton, etc. due to pressure from Thaksin's crusade to stop all the counterfeiting. My source at Hollywood IT had all his DVD's confiscated by the police. Vendors in Patpong and all around the city have told me that things are getting tougher. Yeah there was a quote from some high official in the BKK Post recently about how hard it was to find counterfeit goods at Panthip. Obviously he sent a blind man looking. But as far as DVDs are concerned, I too was a bit skeptical but ventured a couple thousand baht on a sampling. Here's what I found: Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and Empire Strikes Back - Excellent sound, both widescreen though not specified, but medium quality video. Clearly copied from an old print. Return did come with that class "Revenge of the Jedi" teaser though. Made the whole purchase worth it. Raiders of the Lost Ark - Good sound, poor video quality. Not widescreen (though not specified). Swordfish and Hannibal with Thai subtitles - Poor video quality and can't turn off the Thai subtitles. Sound OK though. Predator 2 - Haven't watched it yet so I don't know. But since it's not available in the US on DVD (like the SW and IJ movies) anything is better than nothing. My take is that I'll probably buy the higher cost US versions for the video quality and settle for the Thai versions when there's a movie not due out for awhile on DVDs. Still I hate to shell out baht for the Indiana Jones movies when they're not widescreen. [ July 24, 2001: Message edited by: Lamock Chokaprret ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 24, 2001 Report Share Posted July 24, 2001 quote: Originally posted by ALHOLK: To my knowledge it's not possible to exclude a single zone. A DVD is either unzoned (zone 0) or it's encoded for precisely one zone. regards ALHOLK This is not true. Think of the zone as a bitmask (i.e., binary number). Each bit in the number represents a zone and each bit can be independently turned on or off. Thus any and all combinations of zones is possible. In fact I have seen quite legit disks that are coded for all zones *except* R1. One example: a world-wide-except-USA multi-DVD Mr. Bean compilation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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