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Australian (pal) vs North American (ntsc) SUPERDRIVE in MBP

MowingDevil

MowingDevil

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 30, 2008
1,588
7
Vancouver, BC & Sydney, NSW
Is there a difference in the SuperDrive in various models of the MacBook Pro?
I know regular DVD players here in Australia use PAL and North American don't...does Apple put PAL SuperDrives in the Australian MBPs? Can the SuperDrive play both PAL and NTSC?

Just wondering if this Auzzie MBP I've ordered is going to work when I get back home to North America. If not, is it easy to switch to the US version? Are all the connections the same? Is it expensive?

Just one thing I didn't think about when ordering. Everyone who I asked at Apple has told me the ONLY thing different between to the Canadian and the Australian MBPs is the PLUG for the wall. It just occurred to me tonight this might be a problem...:eek:
 
I'm guessing the Aussie superdrives will be locked to region 4 and US superdrives will be locked to region 1 for DVD playback. Mind you, back in the day all external dvd drives came region free because they were supposed to be portable, maybe that rule applies to laptop DVDs. With region locked DVD players in computers you're usually allowed to change the region up to 5 times if memory serves me correctly. Having not travelled to a country with a different region code in many years and not having purchased any foreign DVDs, I can't say for any more certainty whether all this still applies.
 
Spanky Deluxe said:
I'm guessing the Aussie superdrives will be locked to region 4 and US superdrives will be locked to region 1 for DVD playback. Mind you, back in the day all external dvd drives came region free because they were supposed to be portable, maybe that rule applies to laptop DVDs. With region locked DVD players in computers you're usually allowed to change the region up to 5 times if memory serves me correctly. Having not travelled to a country with a different region code in many years and not having purchased any foreign DVDs, I can't say for any more certainty whether all this still applies.
Click to expand...

any clue as to why Australia and New Zealand are region 4? Seems to me they could have easily been region 2 just like most of Europe and Japan. I'm only asking because Region 4 covers almost all of Latin America.
 
wesrk said:
any clue as to why Australia and New Zealand are region 4? Seems to me they could have easily been region 2 just like most of Europe and Japan. I'm only asking because Region 4 covers almost all of Latin America.
Click to expand...

Absolutely no idea. Region locking is the work of the devil in my opinion. Probably the biggest reason why I wanted HD-DVD to beat Bluray in the HD battles. :(
 
Most optical drives don't come with the region selected and it doesn't matter if movies are PAL or NTSC. It could SECAM for all we care; as long as the display works at the resolutions of the said format their should be no issues.
 
alphaod said:
Most optical drives don't come with the region selected and it doesn't matter if movies are PAL or NTSC. It could SECAM for all we care; as long as the display works at the resolutions of the said format their should be no issues.
Click to expand...

That's good to know. Of course this will all change when Apple get round to supporting Bluray. :(
 
MowingDevil said:
Lots of people spell it that way, why do you have a problem with it?
I've seen businesses here spell it that way so I don't know what you're talking about.
Click to expand...

I've never seen anyone spell it Auzzie ....
It's always been Aussie and Oz not a bastardisation of the two. Replacing s with z is an American thing ;)
 
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