Roxio Toast: DVD discs you burn will not play on your DVD player due to area limitations

Symptoms

Your DVD player refuses or is unable to play the DVD video disc you burned in Toast. The DVD player's LCD panel or your TV will show an error similar to the ones below.

• Playback prohibited by area limitations
• Cannot play the disc due to region restrictions
• Invalid disc
• Cannot operate this disc 
  
  
   
• Disc error: Incorrect region code
• This disc cannot be played in your region

The specific error message you will see on your screen may differ, but would essentially be saying the same thing.

Cause

You have the incorrect TV standard set in your Toast preferences.

Resolution

Toast supports two TV standards: NTSC and PAL. The former is generally used in North American region and the latter, in Europe. A third one, SECAM (developed in France), is not supported. To learn about the differences among these TV standards, please refer to this knowledgebase article.

In order to correct the playback issue with your DVD disc, you will need to change the TV standard set in your Toast preferences. For instance, if you are located in the UK, you will need to ensure Toast is set to encode in the PAL format. 

Follow these steps:

1. Launch Toast;
2. On the Toast menu bar at the top of your screen, you will see Toast 20 Pro (or whatever you Toast version is) on the left-hand corner;
   
   
    
3. On the menu that comes up, select Preferences;
   
4. You should now be looking at the Preferences window. Click on the Video tab;
   
5. Under the Video Settings section, you will see two options: NTSC and PAL. Select the standard for your region.
6. Once you have selected the correct region, exit the window and burn your project to DVD again.

Your DVD player should now be able to read and play the DVD video disc you just burned.