DVD play same on PAL and NTSC?

[MovieStuff]

I am in the process of setting up for DVD recording. The front runner in our choice is the Pioneer DVD 7000 recorder. It uses standard blank DVDs but records in real time. My question is about the compatibility between PAL and NTSC. If I record a DVD here in the states, will it play on a PAL DVD system as well? I've had two different answers from people: One person said that the DVD would play in PAL country on anyone's computer but not necessarily their PAL television. That sort of makes sense, as the computer would be sort of universal. Another person said that the DVD, itself, is universal and would play on any PAL DVD player and television. Anyone out there have hard information regarding this?

Thanks!

Roger

[S8 Booster]

Some, not all DVD player can play it all. There are as far as I know 5 "zones" and if you look at a commercial DVD film cover it will show the zone code like 1 (USA) and 2 EUROPE if I remember correctly. It does not matter if the DVD is PAL or NTSC format then. I bought several NTSC films from USA and play them on my (hacked) PAL Harman Kardon player.

Some DVD player are totally "zone free" and some can be "hacked" very easily like entering a code on the remote control while the player is in "stand-by" mode.

There are sites on the net that lists the DVD players and their capacities and how to "hack" those who needs them.

Right now I do not remeber the address but search the net with DVD player zone hack or something like that and you will find it.

The dealers of DVD players do usually know what players that offers "zone free" capabilities.

May be good to ask the seller if the player can deal with "home brew" DVDs too.

It appears (have to double check) that the built-in Superdrive on the I or E MACs print and read (almost) everything relevant except Sony´s recent Music CDs.

R

[S8 Booster]

http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvdplayershack.php

A lot more:

http://www.alltheweb.com/search?cat=web ... +hack+list

R

[jukkasil]

There are sites on the net that lists the DVD players and their capacities and how to "hack" those who needs them.

Right now I do not remeber the address but search the net with DVD player zone hack or something like that and you will find it.

The right address is here:

http://www.vcdhelp.com

[MovieStuff]

I think you guys are missing the point of my question. I'm not interested in telling my clients how to "hack" their DVD players and, as far as I know, only commercial DVDs that you buy are "regioned" or "zoned". So the question is this: If I make a DVD myself on a home type DVD recorder/burner of someone's transfer, will that DVD play on a PAL type DVD television system?

[studiocarter]

Hi Roger,

vcdhelp has a listing of different machines and what they can do. You may find out more about the one you are interested in. The hacks THERE on their forum could tell you what you need to know.
I find a lot of resistance to new ideas, like the 60 second movie web page on hostboard, or old ideas made new again like film processing at home, on these sites to be very frustrating.

Michael

[paul]

I'm sure it does. I have a "region free" DVD player, and I bought a lot of great titles from the American Kriterion selection via Amazon, coded region 1. These DVD's are specially made for the american market and play brilliantly on my trhrough and through PAL television set.

Paul

[S8 Booster]

Well, my post wasn´t about hacking but about compability.
Thought that was pretty clear.

The "hack" is one way to get here if all else fails.
May be needed, maybe not.

Follow the links.

R

[S8 Booster]

My MAC´s "Superdrive" plays at least PAL and (zoned) DVDs without any fuzz or altered settings so I believe that all DVD super/drives for PCs/MACs will handle the DVDs right away and this is probably the most interesting issue?

http://www.apple.com/creative/resources/superdrive/

Editing the films NLE in a computer with the source film on a DVD?

R

[Guest]

A DVD-R should play on any player, region free or not as long as the disc has no region encoding selected during the authoring stage.
But if the DVD player has no NTSC colour conversion setting the picture will be displayed in black and white. Most tv's these days have NTSC playback for this purpose so it shouldn't be a problem

[mattias]

But if the DVD player has no NTSC colour conversion setting the picture will be displayed in black and white.

there's no ntsc color on a dvd, just color. the color information is encoded in the exact same way in both pal and ntsc, and converted to each standard respecively by the player. the difference is in the number of lines and the frame rate. my tv handles this just fine, but i can't promise that all do...

/matt

[cel]

you want a dvd writer that can write region zero discs as these will play on players from region 1 (usa) or region 2 (Europe). Region zero are region free and will play anywhere (for example commercial pornos and some of the laurel and hardy commercial dvd transfers). But before buying your dvd recorder you should ask the dealer as to compatability and read the product reviews . What you are really looking for, I would suggest, is a player which has the most compatability with other players. I know of no commercial dvd recorders that produce dics that can be played on every system going. The earlier model of the philips dvd recorder (DVD +RW) could certainly produce either pal or ntsc DVD +RW discs and had a wide compatability but then again not fully compatible with all systems and early versions of the philips system require a reasonably strong input signal. Certainly DVD-ram would probably be useless for distribution as they come in a caddy. I dont know of how widely compatable DVD-r are. You could usefully have a look at the sterephile guide to home cinema Oct 2002 which has quite a useful article on compatability of different players (you might be able to get a copy of the article on the web). Regardless of what system you plumb for you won't cover everybody (particularly those persons with older DVD player technology). The discussion as to modifying players to be region free is an bit of a red herring and outside your control. Really the decision is whether you go for a DVD +RW/+R system or DVD -R system. Hope this helps.
Cel

[cel]

One other thing. If I was creating a NTSC DVD disc I would use a signal converter to transfer my Pal input signal to a NTSC input to create a NTSC DVD Disc. The signal conversion can be carried out using a multi system signal converter VCR.
Cel

[S8 Booster]

Hope this will not add any confusion.

Detailed info: What is DVD, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/+RW, DVD-RAM, DVD-VCD, DVD-SVCD?
A lot of tech info down low on that page!
http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvd.htm

DVD-R is a none rewriteable format and it is compatible with about 85% of all DVD Players and DVD-ROMs.

What's the difference between the various DVD recordable formats, and what should I buy?

http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=118


It is a list over DVD-R / -RW / +R / +RW compatible players.
Search criterie may be set indepentantly:

http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvdplayers.php?D ... rch=Search

DVD-R should be a good starting point.

R

[Guest]

Mattias,

I think you misunderstood my last post. I wasn't implying that the player itself would output NTSC in black and white without some kind of colour conversion filter but rather if you play an NTSC disc through a PAL only screen it will lack colour!

This is due to the screen not the player.

The way around this is to either have a TV with NTSC playback or a DVD player with NTSC to PAL colour conversion.

For example, my DVD player will play both PAL and NTSC (Region free) discs, though I only have a PAL tv. I get by this by using a function on my DVD player "NTSC on PAL TV". If I don't select this the picture will be displayed without colour whatsoever.