DVD Players with PAL/NTSC converters

[Xden]

Dear All,

Currently I have Pioneer 333 and bunch of european PAL DVD's. Pioneer has no problems reading and playing those disks, but my TV supports only NTSC. I tried to pass video signal from DVD through my Samsung -5000W VCR which has a built-in converter but, of course, there is a loss of quality and I cannot use S-Video/Component DVD output.

I know that there are several DVD players which have built-in PAL/NTSC converters in it. My friend just bought one of them - Phillips 724 - and its converter sucks big time. It is not acceseptable at all.

So please help me to decide which player should I chose - because only few of them are available in nearby stores like Walmart or BestBuy...
Approx price range is $80-$200.
Actually I am planning to keep my Pioneer 333 but it would be nice if new player could read and play VCDs, SVCDs and other formats properly as Pioneer.

I would really appreciate if you will post any usefull links here also...

Thank you

[yg1968]

I have heard good things about the Malata. See this website for more help:

www.nerd-out.com

I am not sure what you mean by unacceptable but most PAL to NTSC converters will stretch the image when doing this conversion. The Malata is an exception.

[Xden]

Yeah.. That is what I was talking about. It is streching image...

[clayts]

Sampo DVE612(N) (note the extra N - this is vital !) does a perfect anamorphic PAL to NTSC conversion too (the first Sampo to do so - shame it's a real limited edition deck)

One retailer is knocking it out for $60 online - well worth the dough. See our guide to the DVE612(N) at Area 450 here

[PlayingKarrde]

It's down to the video differences in PAL and NTSC. NTSC is a wider image and so when PAL is converted to NTSC is needs to be stretched in order to fit in with the new dimensions. I've not looked at the converters that have been suggested above, but I suspect if these don't stretch then they crop the top and bottom of the screen so that nop stretching occurs. Unfortunately there isn't really any feasable way around this.

If only there was a universal format