PAL DVD doesn't play in NTSC DVD Player but PAL VCD does?

[xpress]

I made a PAL DVD from PAL Minidv footage. I need to make a version in NTSC so it can be watched on NTSC DVD player/TV. I know there are plenty of posts about converting PAL to NTSC, but I was curious as to why can I simply convert it to a PAL VCD and it WORKS fine in the NTSC DVD Player and TV (I reencoded the PAL mpeg2 file into PAL mpeg 1 in TMPGENC and then burn the mpeg1 file to VCD using Nero)??

Although the resulting output is inferior to DVD, it's still watchable, and I wonder if going through the longwinded conversion effort from PAL to NTSC will be worthed it. Anyone care to comment?

Thanks!

[xtreemkareem]

Simple. VD does not have region coding. Most DVD players have a built in PAL<-->NTSC converter so watching a PAL VCD on a NTSC TV is no biggy. But your DVD player won't let you play any DVD out of its region - even if it is NTSC (depending on your model player of course). So take a look at your DVD player in the players section to the lesft and see if you can find a Region coding hack. The downside? Firmware hacks are really risky and can end up destroying your player. So converting it to a high quality NTSC can allow NTSC users to easily watch and distribute the DVD amongst a variety of NTSC platforms. Hope that helps.

[xpress]

This does not make sense! The PAL DVD I created is region free. The NTSC DVD player is region 1. Are you saying if I had a DVD player that was region free, it would be able to play the PAL DVD on an NTSC player and TV?

I have seen some NTSC DVD players as being advertised as having a built in converter, but this seems to be the exception rather than the norm.

[xtreemkareem]

NTSC --> PAL converter agin is usually no biggy for MOST players. The thing is, the firmware of some players will ONLY play that region and will NOT play play Region 0 (region free). Again, every single DVD player model is different... which is why DVD's are still kinda ahstle of VHS which was only NTSC or PAL/SECAM If your player support an upgradbar firmware an you can hack it to make it region free, do so at your own discretion. Otherwise encode as the region your player is set for. But fraankly, I hear that some methods of PAL to NTSCFilm (not NTSC 2.970 fps but NTSCFilm 23.976 fps) should be easy beacuse your are dropping every 4th out of 5 frames or something as opposed to trying to dublicate a frame. I believe this only works for a PAL non-interlace source. Whatever.... PAL to NTSC is the most widely discussed topic in this forum, you will find hundreds of guides in no time, most of which should be simple to follow... after all it's nice to have all your VDDs in your native resolution/frame rate and region... saves having to play around with firmware after all!