What should I look for in a multisystem DVD player?

[vivsavage]

I want to buy a DVD player that will play back PAL DVDs on my NTSC television. What should I look for? How will the quality be? B&H has a category for this type of player, but they all say "This multi system or multi zone player may need a system converter". Huh? Isn't the point of a multisystem player that you don't need a converter? Can anyone recommend a good multisystem DVD player?

[lordsmurf]

Ignore all that garbage.

You want a DVD player that is known to play PAL discs. As well as all regions, if these are commercial discs.

So you need a player that can be hacked (or natively) has the ability to be region-free.

Regions and formats different topics, not the same, remember that.

Cyberhome players are not the best players, but they play all regions and formats quite well. So do LiteOn recorders.

JVC players may work well too, and those are getting into better quality players.

[ozymango]

I want to buy a DVD player that will play back PAL DVDs on my NTSC television.

I've got a friend who's got an OPPO Digital OPDV971H DVD player and that thing will play back PAL DVDs on an NTSC TV, right out of the box. His wife is from the UK so they needed a dual-standards DVD player and they use it a lot. Also the picture quality is excellent; it has some cool DVI features that I'm not that familiar with but apparently it's got top-notch output in both video and audio, the reviews are very impressive.

You can check the web to see prices and reviews of this one (and maybe OPPO has other decks but this is the only one I know of). He paid about $200 for this deck and has never regretted it. You might find some other brand cheaper but this is definitely a quality-built piece of hardware. I'd buy one myself 'cept my old Toshiba DVD player still works (and it works great!) and I can't justify (to my wife) the $$$ for a new deck, just yet.

[jman98]

I just wanted to point out that hopefully this will not be an issue for you, but it is something to keep in mind. PAL to NTSC conversion is usually accomplished by throwing away the excess lines in a PAL signal to get it down to NTSC resolutions. I have heard of some DVD players that will scale down the signal to NTSC, but I don't remember which do this. It's a more expensive approach.
If your player throws away lines to get to NTSC resolutions, if you have a pan and scan image, you may notice it. With letterboxing, it will simply throw away some of the letterbox. I noticed this because I have a Chinese PAL VCD that has English subtitles at the bottom and my Philips DVP-642 throws away almost all of the subtitles I had to watch it on a PC to be able to see the subtitles.