Cyberhome300. Cant change setup to PAL or Auto ???

[NiteLite]

Ok, on the advise here I purchased a Cyberhome 300 to play the PAL DVD's planning to buy.
When I go into the menu on the 300 and change the setting to PAL "or" Auto I get a B&W rolling picture on my TV immediately before doing anything else. It's a new Toshiba 36' and tried it thru composite (RCA) and S-video.
When I finally got my eyes adjusted to the rolling picture to get it set back to NTSC it quit rolling and I put in the PAL disc and it plays...although with some jerking and color saturation.

So, if the picture starts rolling as soon as I select PAL or Auto where is the problem? Is the Cyberhome unit a dud?
My Cyberhome unit or TV... what is going on? I thought if any problem would occure it would be playing the disc not just changing the menu.
Thanks for any help as I need to return the unit soon if it's the problem.

[Noahtuck]

Huh...
I have the 300 also, for a year now, and at the most you should have only had to change the region it does the pal to ntsc on it's own, where you can select pal or ntsc is only for the output, like if your tv was a pal tv then you would select pal. as for the other problems, im not sure as mine plays all my pal dvd's great!!!
I have not looked at mine in a long time as i already have it set to region free but if there is a place to change it to "NTSC" instead of "auto" try that once.

I was going to buy another one for a x-mas present for a friend.

I even hook mine to my 54" sometimes when i transfer pal dvd's to dvd-ram
& it always looks fine through the s-video cable.

[junkmalle]

jerking: There will always be some jerking when converting 25 fps to 29.97 fps. The only way to do it is to display every 5th frame (or field) twice.

colors saturation: Compared to what? If you're comparing to the same DVD played on your computer you would expect the TV to have a brighter picture and different level of saturation. PAL also uses a different black level than NTSC so that will cause some differences too.

[NiteLite]

So the video setup is to be left at NTSC. Only change IF the TV is a PAL TV.
Got it. That was what was confusing...thinking you change the DVD menu (NTSC-PAL) to the Disc you are playing instead of leavung it at NTSC for the TV type. Still weird that "Auto" wont work either. Only NTSC.

Anyway finally got to see "Ken Park" Region 0 - PAL Italian vs. w/ Eng. audio.
I took care of the color saturation by lowering my color setting on the TV. That helped a lot. The jerking was at a minimum and hardly noticed it unless in fast moving scenes. I put the Disc in my Sony and Panasonic and both said "No Way".
So I guess the Cyberhome is working as expected.
Thanks for the help, guys. I appreciate it.
NiteLite.

[Noahtuck]

COOL!!!!!!!!!!
Gald ya got it working okay!!!!!!!!

[lordsmurf]

It's still playing 25fps, it's just NTSC colorspace and resolution is crunched down to fit the screen. DVD players cannot 100% convert, it's a quasi conversion, called NTSC-50.

[TBoneit]

FWIW When set to auto it will output as PAL when the disk is PAL and it will output NTSC when the disk is NTSC.

Setting it to PAL will make all the output PAL format.

Auto is only useful if your TV supports both formats.

Cheers

[Doramius]

I have the CH-300 and I Play Pal Discs to my NTSC TV all the time. I can't get many of the movies that are available in the UK on DVD here in the US. (odd thing is they are all US release Movies)

Anyway, there is a region hack to override the auto setting. It sounds like this may have already been done on your unit because you have picture. If you didn't have any picture, I would say you might have a problem. As LordSmurf pointed out, you're not going to get the 100%conversion you want. It's a digital conversion of the framerate.

The only other way to see it 100% is to do a slightly lengthy process of converting the framerate on your computer and reburning it to DVD. I've done it. Pain in the a**. The Jerkyness isn't that bad either.

There's also a unit at a local university that will turn a movie into it's complete frames. You can edit the end result to any frame rate you want between 10 and something like 60. I've used it most commonly for turning R2R (Reel-to-Reel) movies to DVD by digitally recording each frame then synching the sound with it afterwards. Again lengthy process and the machine is about $20k USD. Cost is part of the reason I visit the one at a local university. The sound is the same, so it's not surprising you can hear it 100%. You may not decide to do this, but it's an option out there for you.

[NiteLite]

It's still playing 25fps, it's just NTSC colorspace and resolution is crunched down to fit the screen. DVD players cannot 100% convert, it's a quasi conversion, called NTSC-50.

Cool...thanks for the extra info. That explains things a little more.

Tbonet... I understood you just leave the cyberhome at NTSC for both PAL and NTSC discs. The change in the menu setup is for the type TV not the type Disc
Thats how I understood from the above posts. And that was the only way the PAL disc would play...with menu set to NTSC. Any other (PAL or AUTO) caused my TV to roll even w/o any disc in the player.

Doramius...you're a patient man.

Thanks again everyone for the education.

[Doramius]

When dealing with computers, DVDs, Conversions, and collecting movies..........You have to be patient. If not you end up in a crazy house making sounds of static and spouting references of NTSC, MPEG, AVI, Divx, and other such acronyms as if you had Turets.