SVCD Help on Pioneer DV-444

[sickdoctor]

Plays DVDs and VCDs wonderfully, I just can't get it to play my SVCDs correctly. No matter what I do, whenever I put in an SVCD, it plays the movie, but it is in black and white and is like a "rolling" picture, like the picture keeps leaving the screen then coming in from the top and there are a bunch of refresh lines all over the place. Like an old movie from old film would look like but worse (seriously!). I can hear the audio fine, but it has to fight with the noise of static or something or other that i attribute to the bad video. I have read the other posts about bitrates and things, but I was just wondering if anyone else has this type of problem with their SVCDs on this player... please respond.

thanks.

- sickdoctor

[Craig Tucker]

With those symptoms doctor it sounds like you are trying to play a PAL SVCD on NTSC only equipment.

[thor300]

This is not a problem with the 444. RTFM =)
Seems like your TV dosnt support PAL and your disk is PAL. The pioneer is great when it comes to this, i think it was just to hold in the forward button (not on the remote) while turning it on, then you can repeat this to change between Auto PAL and NTSC. if your TV is NTSC, then do this till you get NTSC in the display when turning it on, then you will force the player to output NTSC signals even when playing a PAL disk.

Usually the picture will not roll when wrong system is used (or at least i think its not common), but it can happen, i experienced it once when connecting my Canon A20 digital camera, set to PAL, to an NTSC TV during a vacation in Philippines.

[sickdoctor]

thanks for info guys, but thor300, i tried holding down the forward button on the player while turning it on several times and it still rolls maybe there is a setting in my burning software that is making my svcds go to PAL... could that be it?

[troyvcd1]

what is your bitrate. Pioneers dont go above 2600 very good.

[thor300]

Sickdoctor, are you sure it actually changed to NTSC? It will say NTSC in the display on the player when you do that thing, then next time PAL, then Auto again (default). Over here its hard to find TV sets that doesnt support both PAL asnd NTSC, so i cant really test it, but i can see it changes system in the DV-444's display, so far it works just as specified in the manual. I also checked the TV, and it doesnt have any way of manually setting system to PAL or NTSC.
Its not likely that it is your disk making trouble, this change of system on the pioneer is said to force output. Only when set to Auto it will output the system the disk was recorded in. Maybe in your case it is not performing as specified by Pioneer, and i cant test it, so i hope someone else who owns a 444 and an "NTSC-Only" TV can take the time and effort required to test it for you to confirm your problem. ANYONE?