Audio/video differences of Greece and USA

Slightly off-topic but I hope this will be generally useful for others too.

Can someone explain how music CD's and movie DVD's differ from Greece to
the USA? I am wondering if Greek CD's will be playable here and vice
versa. Likewise, I am wondering if DVDs are playable in the 2
locations. I think DVD's are restricted by region, but I'm not sure.

Thanks for any guidance!

Jonathan

On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 20:28:35 -0600, Jonathan Roberts
<gremln007.TakeThisOut@diynics.com> wrote:

>Slightly off-topic but I hope this will be generally useful for others too.
>
>Can someone explain how music CD's and movie DVD's differ from Greece to
>the USA? I am wondering if Greek CD's will be playable here and vice
>versa. Likewise, I am wondering if DVDs are playable in the 2
>locations. I think DVD's are restricted by region, but I'm not sure.
>
>Thanks for any guidance!
>
Music CD's are universal. Greek CD's can easily be played in the U.S.
and vice versa.

Movie DVD's are another matter. There are two hurdles to overcome:

Hurdle #1 is region coding. The U.S. is in DVD Region 1 and Greece is
in Region 2. If the DVD is region-coded (not all of them are), it
can't be played in a player marketed in another region. The workaround
here is to buy a region-free player.

Hurdle #2 is PAL/NTSC format. Greece, like most of Europe, uses PAL
and the U.S. is NTSC territory. There are multi-format players and TV
sets available, but they tend to be expensive.