But....will Australian, or German, or whatever dvds play in American computers? Does that work differently? Is the computer able to sort out the formatting differences? Or, do you have to have a computer from the originating country also?

Anyone know for sure? I guess I've never knowingly had a disk formatted for another system...or maybe I have. Seems in this 20th century, they'd have that figured out so the Sony player or whatever would recognize whosever product & make according changes. Why not?