There are two types of DVD and two main TV formats, so here’s a simple guide.
DVD Regions
All our DVDs/DVD-Rs are ‘region-free’, so they will play anywhere in the world, provided they are compatible with the TV format in use.
TV Formats
There are two main TV formats; PAL and NTSC.
PAL TV is used in the UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and many other Commonwealth and former Commonwealth countries.
NTSC TV is used in the USA, Canada, Japan and some other countries.
Where a video is only available on DVD we will continue to provide DVDs in both TV formats.
Where a video is now available to stream in HD we will continue to provide PAL DVDs. We will not offer NTSC DVDs because video streaming, which doesn’t need PAL video to be converted to the NTSC format, gives such an improvement in image quality, compared with an NTSC DVD.
“I was astounded by the clarity and quality of the program. Absolutely amazing!” A US purchaser of a streaming video.
To find out more about streaming, please read the guide on this page.
DVD Types
There are two types of DVD discs; DVDs and DVD-Rs.
DVDs are ‘pressed’ from a master disc. Pressed DVDs are used to create large numbers of copies of the same programme and are used for all our programmes, when they are first released in the PAL TV format.
DVD-Rs are digitally printed from a master DVD, just like copying one CD to another. They are the standard, industry-wide, method of producing less than 500 copies of the same programme. They are used for extra production runs of earlier PAL DVDs in our range, when the original release has sold out.
Both types of disc produce identical programmes and both are backed by our no-quibble replacement policy, in the incredibly rare event that you ever experienced a problem playing one.