playback prohibited by area limitations

duder wrote on 2/13/2014, 10:16 AM

I have been trying to figure out why some people can play a DVD made from a home video using Magix and some cannot. Most recently, a friend who tried to play the DVD on a SONYgot the message "playback prohibited by area limitations". After some internet searching, apparently Sony players are sensitive to Region.. Can anyone explain this? Could it be that the Magix burned DVD has the European region Code imbedded and the U.S. Sony players won't play?

This doesn't make sense to me but all of this is way over my head. Can anyone help? (What is the point of me editng old home movies with Magix to send to people on DVD if some can't play them?) I am running Windows XP. I am able to play these DVD's on two different DVD players- neither of them a SONY.

Comments

gandjcarr wrote on 2/13/2014, 11:12 AM

Hi,

If you burn a DVD as PAL most NTSC players will not allow it to be played. You should change both the advanced menu in the burner and also go to "File" "Settings" "Program" on the "Audio/Video" tab make sure NTSC is marked then click "OK" NTSC should now be your default. While you are in the "Audio/Video" tab you may also want to change the frames/second setting to 29.97. It is likely set at 25 which is the PAL standard.

George

ps, Magix is a German company with many European clients so it would stand to reason that the default is PAL and not NTSC.

yvon-robert wrote on 2/13/2014, 1:17 PM

Hi,

If you buy a home video player in USA or Canada the box show Area or Region 1 this is NTSC video player if you are in Europe and purchase a home DVD player the box show a diiferent area or region this is 2 and this is PAL video player.

The disk are same size but the video contains on the disk differ. Most video program like Corel, Nero, Roxio, offer a special software to play DVD using a computer and this is different from home player.

Regards,

johnebaker wrote on 2/13/2014, 1:30 PM

MEP does not apply region specific settings when burning DVD's.

Region 0 is not an official designation so the issue may be with the DVD players - some will not play DVD's without a region flag being set.

This would lead me to suspect that MEP is not setting any region flag, rather than the regions 1 - 6 flags.

John

gandjcarr wrote on 2/13/2014, 2:05 PM

I am sure that John is correct as he knows far more about MEP than I do. I can tell you though that I have NAD, Sony, Panasonic, and a old Mitsubishi DVD player purchased in North America, and none of them will play a disc that was burned using the PAL format. If burned as NTSC they all play the disc with no problem. The Sony does give the "playback prohibited" message, but the others just don't play it.

George

johnebaker wrote on 2/13/2014, 2:12 PM

@ George

Are these capable of playing back PAL DVD's or are they NTSC specific?

My old Panasonic DVD recorder and my Sony BD player can play both NTSC and PAL discs.

John

gandjcarr wrote on 2/13/2014, 4:31 PM

@Jphn, no they are not capable of playing Pal DVDs. To me it is really stupid as the NAD product comes from the UK , so it should be able to handle Pal, the other three come from Japan, so who knows?

George

duder wrote on 2/15/2014, 10:47 AM

Thank you all for your responses. I think I'm on the right track. Now to make another DVD in the correct format and see if my sister can play it on her SONY. Thanks again!