Apex AD-2600 and Philips DVDR-75 questions

[Froggie]

Hi everybody

We live in the USA and have an Apex AD-2600 DVD player and want to play some home-made region-free PAL DVDs on it. However when we play them, they only play in black and white (the sound is fine). The picture does not roll or anything - it plays perfect but just not in colour!

We have looked on the setup menu and can't find any option to make them play in colour. When I press the PAL button on the remote, it still plays in black and white. We have a normal RCA tv (not HDTV) and can't find anything on that to adjust either.

Also, we would like to connect this Apex player to our Philips DVDR-75 recorder, to make copies of some homemade discs. What is the best way to connect them if we just have a normal tv set (not HDTV)?

We also have some old VHS we would like to transfer to DVD with the Philips DVD recorder. What would be the best way to connect an RCA VCR player to the Philips recorder?

Should we just use the red/white/yellow cords for both the above jobs?

Thanks for any help you can give this newbie!

[flaninacupboard]

best connection for DVD to DVD is an RGB cable, but your recorder needs to support PAL (probably not if you're using an american model)
Also sounds like your TV doesn't support PAL, that's why you're getting black and white. buy a new TV, watch on your PC or buy a DVD player which can convert to NTSC on the fly.
for VHS to DVD, red white and yellow cables is fine, you won't get any better quality from normal VHS.

[Shudder]

Good luck with the Apex, that POS skips at every chapter break for authored dvds when I use it.

That and I can't get over the bad colour quality

[Sam Ontario]

You can play your PAL DVD Discs on your DVDR75/17.

If you have an S-VHS tape recorder/player use the S-cable instead of the RCA video cable. For VHS tapes, there is no need to set better than 4-hour mode on your DVDR75.

Make sure you upgrade your fimware to ff16f before you make any recording with DVD+R, or most likely you will end up with coasters.

[Froggie]

Thanks for all your help, guys!

flaninacupboard - Is RGB cable the red/green/blue component cable? Is that okay to connect the DVD player and DVD recorder for making copies even if we don't actually have a HDTV? We were hoping to make copies of both NTSC and PAL home-made region-free DVDs.

Sam Ontario - Do we need to adjust anything on the Philips DVDR-75 or on our tv to make the home-made region-free PAL DVDs actually play in colour? We just have a normal RCA American tv.

I was hoping to be able to find a way to play them in colour on the Apex and then make colour copies with our DVDR-75 recorder. But if not, it would be good if we could at least watch them in colour on the DVDR-75!

[flaninacupboard]

i meant RGB, you're talking about component (the three seperate cables). I keep forgetting you don't use SCART sockets over there so don't get RGB....
You'll have to check in your recorders manual if it'll record from the component socket - they're probably only an output. in this case S-video becomes your next best.

You could just buy a multisystem TV

[Sam Ontario]

Thanks for all your help, guys!


Sam Ontario - Do we need to adjust anything on the Philips DVDR-75 or on our tv to make the home-made region-free PAL DVDs actually play in colour? We just have a normal RCA American tv.

I was hoping to be able to find a way to play them in colour on the Apex and then make colour copies with our DVDR-75 recorder. But if not, it would be good if we could at least watch them in colour on the DVDR-75!

I don't have APEX 2600. Similar to all of my other DVD players, you might try to set up on the APEX to output your PAL disc thru your player to convert PAL signal to NTSC. The option is usually in the selection TV menu on your DVD Player. Just select NTSC TV on your APEX.

When I tried to record my PAL tapes to DVDR75 DVD+RW discs, I could have connected the DVDR75 to a multi-system TV and Multi-system VCR and then play back my PAL DVD on some of my PAL to NTSC signal convertible DVD Players on the 32" NTSC TV. I have to check tonight if my DVDR75 can output NTSC signal to my NTSC TV when playing a PAL DVD. I did not adjust any on the DVDR when playing any DVDs.

[Sam Ontario]

I checked last night. The DVDR75 played PAL disc but the 32" NTSC TV did not accept PAL signal, sorry, my mistake. Perhaps your APEX could output NTSC signal with PAL disc, look up your APEX manual.

[Froggie]

Thanks again for your replies, guys!

Sam - I couldn't find anything in the Apex manual about if there is a way to play PAL in colour on an NTSC tv. I will try the Apex customer support phone number again, in case they happen to know the answer! I tried the other day, but hung up because I was 11th in the queue.

Their recorded phone menu gave me a giggle. Besides the normal "press 1 for blah blah" etc, they said "To hear a cow moo, press 5".

[Sam Ontario]

I don't know your APEX but for my DVD players, if I set the TV to be NTSC on the DVD player menu/setup, it will automatically convert PAL signal to NTSC signal and then feed into the NTSC TV. APEX 2600 is relatively new compared with my players and should be able to do the same, but I might be wrong, as I do not have the APEX 2600.

[Froggie]

Sam - it worked and now the PAL discs will play in colour on our Apex. Yay!!

We had already found that option in the Apex setup menu awhile ago. It gives you a choice of setting the tv type to PAL or NTSC or Multi. But we as newbies had got confused and had it set to PAL (because we were trying to play a PAL disc and we thought that is what it should be set to).

But now I understand that of course you have to set it to NTSC so that it will convert the PAL signal to NTSC signal, so that our NTSC TV will be able to play it in colour.

So everybody in the USA, if you have an Apex AD-2600 DVD player, it will definitely play home-made region-free PAL DVDs in colour on your American tv.

[Sam Ontario]

Cheers!