PAL, NTSC and regions

[browser]

A question. Is PAL and NTSC encoding something different to regions? If I make my player regionfree will it play everything? PAL and NTSC or will it only play PAL?

[bugster]

A question. Is PAL and NTSC encoding something different to regions? If I make my player regionfree will it play everything? PAL and NTSC or will it only play PAL?

Regions and PAL/NTSC are different issues. A Region free player will not necessarily play both PAL and NTSC, though the odds are in your favour.

[browser]

Is there somewhere to download NTSC samples or sample DVD's of different regions? e.g a sample of a region 1 NTSC DVD?

[bugster]

You can dowload some VCD samples HERE .

Some DVD samples are Here, jsut scroll down a bit, not sure if they are PAL or NTSC though.

[Markie]

PAL and NTSC are colour systems. They're completely non-existant on DVD. However, the two systems are associated with different resolutions and scan rates. "NTSC" DVDs are designed to be easily output as an NTSC signal, and "PAL" DVDs are designed to be easily output as an NTSC signal. MOST players will work fine (oddly, cheaper ones more so) taking a PAL DVD and outputting NTSC (and vice versa), but the quality won't be as good as the "right" DVD. This is where a multiformat TV (which most PAL country TVs but few NTSC country TVs are) that natively handles both really helps. Region coding is completely unrelation. It's an artificial limitation, unlike a standards barrier. And region DVD can be either format. A region 1 DVD can be PAL for example. And a region 1 only player with PAL/NTSC convert can produce NTSC from an all-region or region 1 (rare) PAL DVD. So, PAL/NTSC's the TV standard. Region coding is the motion picture industry's attempt at international trade barriers, and to hang onto an outdated system of differing regional release dates and rightsholders.