Corporate greed. Isn't it strange that media is supposed to bring the world together, and yet it is used by those in power to keep us apart? I'm really not that much of a conspiracy theorist, but it is just so blatantly obvious (do we really need six DVD regions?) If I'm not boring the crap out of you, and if you see fit, check out my Sony Camera Gripe posting on VEGAS VIDEO forum and let me know what you think.

Don't quite see the connection between NTSC, PAL and DVD region coding.

Films, to often possibly, come from the U.S.
Alternative standards are designed and become commonplace outside the U.S.

So even with the mass market for electronics throughout the continent of America. The multistandard kit arrives away from their shores. (unless you buy gear for your boat or private jet!)

PAL, SCART, RGB 15.625kHz, teletext, NICAM 728, 25p, 720x576, DV 4:2:0, MPEG-1-Layer2, D2MAC, DVB-t, CD, MP3, MPEG4, DAVIC, SECA.

Can't claim the non-US countries have designed many of these without them being pinched from older established U.S. products. The advantages though come through their use and interconnection. Some of the above list can be seen in US of course and also were joint ventures with worldwide IPR.

Region coding is typically removed as an option (through a remote control bypass or at worst a solder job) on all kit that is multi-standard capable. This is also moot as most US Dvd releases are within days of their worldwide PAL release. It makes sense to buy the one you can get cheaply and return if defective. Which in the UK, is actually the UK retailer after a couple of years of chaos.

NTSC widescreen will rather ofen play on PAL DVD players worldwide. The only time it won't tends to be due to the disc being homebrew DVDR or the TV is a bit long in the tooth and won't do 60Hz, or the best output from the DVD box is SVideo or composite and it appears as black and white due to a 3.58MHz colour subcarrier.

Oh, why are most DTS decoder amps SVIDEO based, where they switch inputs and have OSDs. Few are SCART which is the defacto consumer AV socket. (forgot to say, outside of the U.S. can be a bit cheapskate too, so maybe surround sound is invariably those turnkey packages and not separates!)