Make a DVD in the UK for viewing in USA

[thingmajig]

Sorry I'm stumped as to which forum I should post this question in, please move it to the appropriate forum.

The DVDs are legit, only video from local sporting events etc.

Here is my problem, I had previously burned four various DVDs on my equipment here in the UK and sent the discs
to my friend in the USA, needless to say he couldn't play the discs in either his computer or in his stand alone DVD player.

So what do I have to do to make/burn the discs here in the UK playable in the USA?
I have set out the steps I have taken below and would appreciate any advice anyone can offer me.

I live in the UK (DVD Region.2)I wish to make DVDs from video tape (PAL) for a friend in the USA (DVD Region.1)
to play on a USA stand alone DVD player.

1 My capture device allows me to capture in either PAL or NTSC, which format should I use?

2 When compiling DVDs previously I have used this tutorial

http://home.comcast.net/~bbmayo/DivXtoDVD.pdf

...will it be ok
to use this method to create the DVD file on my hard disc prior to burning?

3 Previously I have made an iso file and burned with DVD decrypter however I do have Nero, Roxio Easy CD Creator
or Alcohol 120% available for burning.

4 Does my DVD burner have to be set to burn Region 1 DVDs?
The burner has not been set to any region so I still have 4 changes available.

Any advice, tutorials appreciated.

Regards,

thingmajig

[Dragonsf]

Selfburned DVDs should be region-free.But your main concern will be NTSC. As your video source is prabably PAL, you can only capture this to PAL video.In order to play this on a NTSC only standalone player (PC should be OK), you need to convert the video from PAL to NTSC.
The region settings are only used for reading, not for playing.

[didikai]

So what do I have to do to make/burn the discs here in the UK playable in the USA?
I have set out the steps I have taken below and would appreciate any advice anyone can offer me.


thingmajig

Nero has the option to burn in PAL or NTSC

[Dragonsf]

So what do I have to do to make/burn the discs here in the UK playable in the USA?
I have set out the steps I have taken below and would appreciate any advice anyone can offer me.


thingmajig

Nero has the option to burn in PAL or NTSC

Will Nero reencode the video for the conversion?I.e. will it do the necessary PAL->NTSC conversion (frame size/rate)?

[didikai]

So what do I have to do to make/burn the discs here in the UK playable in the USA?
I have set out the steps I have taken below and would appreciate any advice anyone can offer me.


thingmajig

Nero has the option to burn in PAL or NTSC

Will Nero reencode the video for the conversion?I.e. will it do the necessary PAL->NTSC conversion (frame size/rate)?

When you burn in Nero go to 'More' at the bottom, somewhere in there it will give you the option to burn in PAL or NTSC
I have sent some PAL versions over to the UK. I think I had about a 95% success rate. It's possible the mates who had problems viewing my DVDs in UK had older DVD players

[edDV]

Nero won't "save" PAL video to a NTSC DVD or NTSC to PAL format DVD. It's much more complicated than that.

The good news is a PAL DVD will play on a USA computer, but not on a NTSC DVD recorder.

In reverse, most PAL DVD players will play a NTSC DVD.

[hech54]

Yes making the discs Region Free is the key to allowing someone to view a PAL DVD on a computer in NTSC-Land. However that will not help when viewing in a DVD Player in NTSC-Land.
Computers don't give a damn about NTSC or PAL...but computer drives DO care about region coding.

[edDV]

A home made DVD shouldn't have region codes unless you add them.

[hech54]

Yea...what he said...

[ozymango]

So what do I have to do to make/burn the discs here in the UK playable in the USA?

As everybody's already mentioned, assuming your friend's DVD layer won't do PAL then you've got to convert to NTSC. As for how to do it ... this is one of those things that can range from "not too painful" to "what the heck happened to the sound?" to "I'm at day 27 and still no video."

That being said, here are a couple of links to threads on how to do this, it can be done!

1.) https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=219852
2.) https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=261056

Those are links courtesy of John "Fulci Lives" Coleman; there are links within them for guides on how to do this and some feedback.

Good luck!

[thingmajig]

Many apologies for being unable to reply to all your helpful messages before, I can assure you all the info is of value to me.
I don't appear to be able to post an attachment? so here goes.
The capture device I will be using is a Tevion DVD maker USB2 2800D set to capture S-Video, I can set this to capture at:- Capture Size 640 x 480, 29.97 fps, I have a choice of NTSC-M or NTSC-J which one please, I can also set the Capture format (profile) to DVD (NTSC), the source video is PAL using the above settings will I still have to convert from PAL to NTSC after capture?

One other thing which MPEG4 codec should I choose, The choices are Microsoft 1, 2 or 3, or Divx?

Thanks for all your help.

Regards...................thingmajig

[edDV]

Many apologies for being unable to reply to all your helpful messages before, I can assure you all the info is of value to me.
I don't appear to be able to post an attachment? so here goes.
The capture device I will be using is a Tevion DVD maker USB2 2800D set to capture S-Video, I can set this to capture at:- Capture Size 640 x 480, 29.97 fps, I have a choice of NTSC-M or NTSC-J which one please, I can also set the Capture format (profile) to DVD (NTSC), the source video is PAL using the above settings will I still have to convert from PAL to NTSC after capture?

One other thing which MPEG4 codec should I choose, The choices are Microsoft 1, 2 or 3, or Divx?

Thanks for all your help.

Regards...................thingmajig

You can only use those settings if the SOURCE is NTSC. If the source is PAL it won't work.

Just capture in PAL and tell them it will only work on a computer. If it has to work on a NTSC DVD player, you can try the links above on ozymango's post (very very difficult) or you can have the capture converted at a local dub (PAL to NTSC transcoding) house. Before they will touch the video, you must generally prove that you own copyright.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Another option is have your friend buy a "multisystem" DVD player that has a built-in converter.

[thingmajig]

You can only use those settings if the SOURCE is NTSC. If the source is PAL it won't work.

Well that's that sorted, thank you edDV.

thingmajig

[ozymango]

Another option is have your friend buy a "multisystem" DVD player that has a built-in converter.

Frankly if you (in the UK) do any kind of trading of discs (I'm gonna assume it's all done legally! ) I would highly recommend your friend going this route -- I've got a friend whose wife is from the UK and they send stuff back and forth and bought an OPPO DVD player (check the web for this name, should get back some good hits) for around $200 and it saves countless hours and $$$ trying to change video standards. Plus it's a cool deck!

[Dragonsf]

Another option is have your friend buy a "multisystem" DVD player that has a built-in converter.

Frankly if you (in the UK) do any kind of trading of discs (I'm gonna assume it's all done legally! ) I would highly recommend your friend going this route -- I've got a friend whose wife is from the UK and they send stuff back and forth and bought an OPPO DVD player (check the web for this name, should get back some good hits) for around $200 and it saves countless hours and $$$ trying to change video standards. Plus it's a cool deck!

Not only cool, but has a fantastic upscaling chip.Upscaled DVDs look great on a HDTV screen.I'm always making anmorphic DVD conversion.

[thingmajig]

[quote="ozymango"]

Another option is have your friend buy a "multisystem" DVD player that has a built-in converter.

Frankly if you (in the UK) do any kind of trading of disc's (I'm gonna assume it's all done legally! )

Everything is above board and is quite legal, The DVDs are of a sporting event in which we both hold an interest. (Royal Naval Field Gun Competition).

This is a one off with only 4 DVD disc's being involved so the purchasing of a new stand alone DVD player is unfortunately not a viable proposition, however thank you for the information.

I thought the four PAL format disc's I originally sent him would play on his home computer but he reports that they don't, could this be because he may not have any DVD playing software loaded on his computer? I'll have to ask him about this.

Thanks to everyone for all the help and advice

thingmajig