European PAL to PAL-N conversion help

[g00nter]

Hi. i'm a total noob at this and am hoping somebody here can help me. I tried searching and could not find anything that really seemed to help.

Ok. Here goes my question. I am in Chile have some PAL DVD's from europe. My DVD player at home is multiregional and supports PAL & NTSC, my TV will handle NTSC and PAL-M & PAL-N. When I play the DVD's they play, but are in black and white, as to be expected from the differences in the PAL flavors.

From what I have read the only difference between European PAL and PAL-N is the "color subcarrier frequency" is 4.434MHz for Europe and 3.58 for PAL-N. Anybody know how I can go about fixing these DVD's, hopefully easily.

Thanks

[guns1inger]

DVD simply has PAL and NTSC, it doesn't have any of the variants (Some here argue it only has resolutions and framerates). Subcarrier information etc comes from the player. I don't believe this problem is related to the disc itself. It is different for VHS tapes, but for DVD, PAL is PAL is PAL, regardless of it's origins.

[g00nter]

Thanks for the reply. But according to THIS site, Pal for most of the world is the almost same (the only exceptions affecting broadcasts). However there are two different varieties of PAL used South America (PAL-N and PAL-M). Pal-M (used in parts of Brazil) is PAL with NTSC framerates and sizes, while PAL-N has this diffferent color subcarrier.

The only countries employing PAL-N are Argentina, Paraguay & Uruguay. Note that attempting to display a PAL signal on a PAL-N monitor will result in only a monochrome image.

.

But, your rieght in that the site referrs mostly to VHS conversions. I guess it could be my DVD player then that can only output the european pal and my TV shows it in back and white. I'll look into it. Thanks again.

[guns1inger]

PAL on DVD does not differentiate. There is only one PAL format when creating a DVD. The player takes care of regional differences in PAL.

[edDV]

This is a tough one

I'm the one saying frame rates and frame sizes are the only things that matters for DVD. They divide into

1. 525/59.94, 352 or 720 by 480 @ 29.97 or 23.976 fps
2. 625/50, 352 or 720 by 576 @ 25 fps

NTSC and PAL-M fit into #1

Euro PAL, PAL-N and "Combination N" fit into category #2 even though "Combination N" uses 3.58MHz subcarrier and "NTSC like" RF spacings for broadcast.
(Ref: http://icecube.wisc.edu/~dima/stuff/comp/vstandards.html)

...

my TV will handle NTSC and PAL-M & PAL-N. When I play the DVD's they play, but are in black and white, as to be expected from the differences in the PAL flavors.

The TV wants to see 3.58MHz subcarrier that is common to NTSC, PAL-M & PAL-N.

I think the problem playing Euro PAL DVD is the player sets subacrrier to 4.43MHz instead of 3.58MHz. The TV is regionally multi-standard but can't seem to take 4.43MHz subcarrier. The DVD player can't produce PAL-N from a PAL disc.

This would all work if the TV could take YPbPr (component analog) which avoids the issue of PAL/NTSC subcarrier.