Page 1 of French DVDs

I`m going to France soon, and want to bring back cheap DVDs. My question is, will they work properly.

I understand that our Gallic friends are region 2 also, but when I`ve brought French VHS video tapes back they only played in black & white, something to do with Secam rather than PAL?

Ignore this post - see the reply below. (Hit the submit button by mistake.)

This item was edited on Monday, 28th May 2001, 23:46

The simple answer is "yes" :-)

Unlike VHS, there is no distinction between PAL and SECAM as far as DVD discs are concerned, as the picture information is stored in component format and any output video signal (PAL, SECAM, NTSC, RGB) is determined by the player itself.

DVD players sold in the UK and most European countries output PAL; those sold in France output SECAM. The discs themselves are the same, so you can buy and play French DVDs and watch them on your PAL TV set with no problems.

The only differences present within the DVD format are the frame rate and resolution on "NTSC" DVDs (525 lines, 60Hz) compared to "PAL/SECAM" DVDs (625 lines, 50Hz).


Mike

Ignore this, was posting at the same time as Mike who did a better job of explaining.

This item was edited on Monday, 28th May 2001, 23:54

Thanks Mike,

Bargain Buckets in France here I come.

I haven`t been to France since `98 (before DVD really took off) so I hope the big hypermarkets are cutting each other`s throats over the price of disks.

Cheers,

I found Terminator(2 disc set) in a Supermarket(Geant in St. Louis) in France for 179FF(~£16), whereas Amazon lists it for 24 quid. IIRC, it was one of the more expensive discs for sale.

Let us know how you get on sconebum, maybe a few of us will have a reason to pop over to France other than just cheap plonk and fags. :)

There`s a fab French web site which exports DVDs to the UK called www.dvdzone2.com - their prices, including delivery, work out at around £15 per DVD. So if Mammouth fails you, try them when you get back!

Just be careful you don`t get French language ones. It goes without saying that the French, um, speak French, but I get DVD`s from Quebec and sometimes the menu / main audio track is french 5.1 with English as the subtitled option.... :)

I have recently returned from a trip to france and have about 40 french DVD disks. Watch for the American flag on the language section.
I have 2 disks that will not run from the menu and crash the player but we get round this by selecting scene 1 then play.

Cheap disks are about £7-£9 and chart disks are about £14-£16.
The main reason I purchase disks from France is that they are released earlier that the UK and they have multiple languages, Handy if your trying to learn French.

Braveheart from France £16 with 4 languages including english.
Braveheart from the UK 4 months wait for the release £20 and english only, Which would you buy