I had a similar issue, of moving from the US to Germany in 2000 and my spouse bringing her favorite DVDs with us. However, once we got there, she was unable to watch any of them, as all the DVD players were for the EU region, while her DVDs were for the US.

She is not a technical person, but she is now very acutely aware of B.S. restrictions like this (and later DRM on mp3s) and how to get around them.