NTSC All regions DVD on Region 2 player?

Question

I seem to recall that many (maybe most or even all?) PAL DVD players are able to play NTSC discs, if an NTSC DVD was created with all of the region options enabled would a region 2 player be able to play it?

Answer 1

HI Wes - not really a coincidence, more of a marketing process to carve up the world into the different regions.
Yes, Region 2 (Europe (except Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus), Middle East, Egypt, Japan, South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, French overseas territories, Greenland) countries often also use PAL, but so do others not in Region 2 ( PAL covers most of Europe, most of Africa, China, India, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, North Korea to name a few). For example, New Zealand use PAL and are in region 4.
The TV standard is the key, IMO - make sure your footage can actually be seen in those countries, and then make the disc region free (tick ALL of the boxes and make sure it has a region code mask of 0).
My rather jaded view is that the regions simply helped ensure sales were optimised and have nothing to do with whether the disc will play back! But you are also correct in saying a lot of DVD players can play both standards these days, however I wouldn't rely on that when creating a disc.
Finally, if your disc is being burnt in your mac (or PC), make sure that you tick all of the regions in the build/format dialogue as if you don't there will be a conflict between what you are asking and what is hard coded into the DVD-R you are writing to. Region codes really only come into play if you are using a replication process.