Are VHS tapes region coded?

Question

My boyfriend lives in Ireland and I live in the US and I wanted to send him some DVD's or VHS tapes of old home videos and I'm not sure how to do that, or if VHS tapes are region coded. I know DVD's are and the videos I have are on VHS tapes (from the 90's) and I was wondering if anyone knew how to convert them or where to convert them in order for them to be played in Ireland.

Answer 1

VHS is not region coded. If your boyfriend has a multi-system TV and VCR, which most European devices are, he can play the VHS tapes in his machine without problems. I moved to Germany 12 years ago and have the entire Disney animated movie collection, from the US, on VHS. I still occasionally watch them on the VCR and TV I bought here in Germany. Have your boyfriend look at the data plate on his TV and VCR. They should say PAL/NTSC somewhere on there. If he still isn't sure, on the TV he can go into the menu and find out what standards it supports. If it really doesn't support NTSC, there are boxes called TV standards converters that will transcode the input video from one standard to the other. Get one of them and hook it in between the VCR and TV to get the proper input for his TV. As for DVD's, he would need a region 1 or region free player to watch them. There are also web sites that have input codes for various models of DVD players that will make them region free. Try googling "DVD player hacks"

Answer 2

"VHS tapes (from the 90's)" I lol'd. We know what VHS tapes are.

All of the videos sold by Amazon.com follow the 60 Hz, NTSC format. This is the video format used in North America and Japan. NTSC videotapes will not work on most videocassette players in countries that use PAL, SECAM, or other video standards.

PAL-format VHS tapes will work on most players in Europe, Australia, China, and parts of the Middle East. If you are interested in purchasing PAL videos, please visit Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.de.

SECAM-format VHS tapes will work on players in France. You may purchase SECAM videos from Amazon.fr.

Apparently they _are_ region encoded. Rip the VHS to the computer, put on a region free DVD, problem solved.