DVDs and PAL/NTSC.

[KCID]

DVDs and PAL/NTSC.
Since I have found this great site and so much knowledge I have learned a lot about this subject, however I am still missing some info. I have been exchanging VHS tapes with the UK using the old Panasonic AGW 1 multi standard VCR to do the conversions. I would like to change to DVDs. I know most UK players will play NTSC but in N.America ( Canada) we are not so lucky. As multi standard recorders/ players are not only rare but somewhat untested, my question is-. If I buy a a Pioneer 310 S or equivalent could I play a non regional PAL DVD passing the signal through the AGW1 to convert to NTSC and pass a PAL signal to the NTSC recorder to record in Pal .
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Kcid.

[FulciLives]

DVDs and PAL/NTSC.
Since I have found this great site and so much knowledge I have learned a lot about this subject, however I am still missing some info. I have been exchanging VHS tapes with the UK using the old Panasonic AGW 1 multi standard VCR to do the conversions. I would like to change to DVDs. I know most UK players will play NTSC but in N.America ( Canada) we are not so lucky. As multi standard recorders/ players are not only rare but somewhat untested, my question is-. If I buy a a Pioneer 310 S or equivalent could I play a non regional PAL DVD passing the signal through the AGW1 to convert to NTSC and pass a PAL signal to the NTSC recorder to record in Pal .
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Kcid.

In my opinion the best thing that is also easy would be to get a region free DVD player that can convert PAL to NTSC and vice versa.

This is something that I have researched a lot and I've had a few players with this capability and my favorite is the Cyberhome CH-DVD 500

You can order it directly from the CYBERHOME WEBSITE for $79.95 plus S&H

Don't let that price fool you. It is an amazing machine. It will any DVD regardless of region and convert it to NTSC if need be.

For more information on this player look for the CYBERHOME FORUM over at the NERD-OUT WEBISTE in the message forums section.

Sending a region free NTSC DVD to a PAL land is often times OK since PAL capable DVD players in Europe more often than not can handle NTSC as well.

But if you need to convert NTSC to PAL then you have a problem in that you need a DVD reocrder that can record in PAL and the only USA model that does this ... out-of-the box without modification ... is the Philips DVDR75 ... as confirmed by DVDRHELP user donpedro in the following THREAD:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=180704

Now the Philips DVDR75 offers no conversion so if you input a PAL singal you must record as PAL and if you input a NTSC signal you must record as NTSC. However you can use the Cyberhome CH-DVD 500 to play back the original DVD and have it to the conversion then input to the Philips DVDR75 ... in this way you can go from NTSC to PAL or vice versa.

You can also do format conversion on the computer and this gives really great quality ... better than your Panasonic unit and just as good if not maybe even better than the Cyberhome unit. However this is a long process with many steps that can take forever since you must do a software MPEG-2 re-encoding process.

Hope this helps

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Here are two links with info on doing PAL<--->NTSC conversions on a computer from a DVD source:

http://www.geocities.com/xesdeeni2001/StandardsConversion/

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=160433

[KCID]

Many thanks for your reply John. I am still a little confused. my knowledge of electronics does not go far enough!! If the Cyberhome player you recommend can play back a DVD in PAL or NTSC would that not suggest that DVD signals are laid down on a DVD in a common format and then changed to PAL or NTSC,electronically, as needed ,after after being read. If this is true then should not an NTSC recorder/player not be able to output a signal which could be converted by the AGW 1. Conversions to PAL are not too important and I would like to only get one machine ie a recorder/player.
Kcid.

[FulciLives]

Many thanks for your reply John. I am still a little confused. my knowledge of electronics does not go far enough!! If the Cyberhome player you recommend can play back a DVD in PAL or NTSC would that not suggest that DVD signals are laid down on a DVD in a common format and then changed to PAL or NTSC,electronically, as needed ,after after being read. If this is true then should not an NTSC recorder/player not be able to output a signal which could be converted by the AGW 1. Conversions to PAL are not too important and I would like to only get one machine ie a recorder/player.
Kcid.

Well it isn't that simple. There is a difference between the actual encoded VIDEO when it comes to NTSC vs PAL.

For instance NTSC is 30 fps (frames-per-second) but can also be progressive which is 24 fps

PAL is 25 fps

Also a NTSC DVD has a resolution of 720x480 vs 720x576 for PAL

So when you encode VIDEO to MPEG-2 format you would encode differently for NTSC vs PAL

However some DVD players, such as the Cyberhome CH-DVD 500, have a special chip that can, on the fly, do the conversion ... similiar to the converter built into your Panasonic VCR ... except it seems to work so much better.

You can also do the conversion on your computer however as I said this can be a very long, complicated process. Even once you get used to it you still are doing software MPEG-2 encoding which can take a VERY long time. Depending on the speed of your computer such conversions can take anywhere from maybe 12 hours to 48 hours.

So if you are going to need to do PAL to NTSC often you are better off getting a stand alone player that can do it.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[KCID]

John .I finally get the picture I shall just have to bit the bullet.
Thanks again
Kcid

[FulciLives]

John .I finally get the picture I shall just have to bit the bullet.
Thanks again
Kcid

Well think of it this way. The Cyberhome CH-DVD 500 is only $79.95 and works wonders converting PAL to NTSC. That really isn't that much money.

As for a stand alone DVD recorder you will have to get the Philips DVDR75 if you want to be able to record to DVD in the PAL format.

The only other option is to do it on a computer since any computer DVD burner can burn either PAL or NTSC but doing it on the computer ... while providing excellent results ... is not realtime and requires a lot of extensive knowledge.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[donpedro]

Try reading this if there is an answer for you.

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=673462

[donpedro]

If I buy a a Pioneer 310 S or equivalent could I play a non regional PAL DVD passing the signal through the AGW1 to convert to NTSC

If DVD player can play PAL DVD and AGW1 converts PAL signal to NTSC signal, than yes,

and pass a PAL signal to the NTSC recorder to record in Pal.

If DVD player can output PAL signal and recorder can record PAL signal than, yes.

Maybe you can specify what 310, AGW1 can do (I am lazy to do reasearch). And also you might want to say exactly what are you planing to do becouse there are so many options.

NTSC DVD->VHS VCR Conversion to PAL->Record PAL DVD
PAL DVD->Record PAL DVD
PAL DVD->VHS VCR Conversion to NTSC->Record NTSC DVD

and so on......