Question about DVD Regions, is R2 Japan the same as R2 Europe?

[Frank N. O.]

I'm been trying (without luck so far) to find a danish shop that sells DVD's with japanese Anime's, particularly Initial D and éX-Driver to try and see what they cost since the prices I've seen in pounds and dollars varied quite a lot.
However one danish music-store that had a little, but not that, had DVD's listed as R2 Japan NTSC, but I thought R2 was Europe? Secondly, can a NTSC R2 DVD be played on a computer DVD-ROM and it's std. software player? It might be a dumb question because I only know that VHS tapes in PAL and NTSC are not compatible, or rather the players aren't so I wanted to know before ordering, if I ever find them.

Greetings
Frank

[Chaul]

Yes, Japan has the same DVD region code as Europe. In general there are also some DVD's that work on all players. Anyways, those original japanese DVD's might not have english subtitles..

PAL and NTSC are TV encoding standards. That might be a problem if you were watching it on a TV. But it should not matter if you watch it on a monitor because the software should be able to make any needed conversions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD
http://www.digital.anime.org.uk/dvd.html

10. DVD is a worldwide standard.
In addition to regional codes that can be used to prevent playback in different areas, DVD uses different formats for NTSC or PAL playback. Almost no US players can play PAL DVDs. All PAL players can play both PAL and NTSC DVDs, but only on a 60-Hz-capable PAL TV or a multistandard TV. Most DVD-equipped computers can play both NTSC and PAL discs.
This quote is from http://www.dvddemystified.com/myths.html

[Frank N. O.]

Ah thank you very much, that was what I'd hoped :) Since my DVD tv-player has finally broken down after years of use then I'm only using the Asus DVD-ROM in my pc using the PowerDVD software player so that should work nicely.

Now just to find a release that has english subtitles made by a translator knowledgable of the subjects of the movie.

Thanks again :wave:
Frank