Moved to the UK...

[leleyusa]

I moved from the US to the UK, and of course my DVDs won't work here, so I'm thinking of having my mom keep the originals and send me the backups so I can convert them from NTSC to PAL-I, but how would I do that? Any ez ways?

[ha13may]

Hi!

You don't need to convert your dvds to PAL. They will play just fine on UK equipment. I have several US NTSC region 1 DVDs and they all play fine. All UK equipment plays NTSC. The televisions are okay with the picture, all the videos and DVD players are fine too. With some equipment, you might have to switch it to NTSC playback. For this purpose there is usually a switch at the back of the appliance.

Hope this helps.

[andydd]

hi13may's answer is not quite true. Unless your TV is sold as a multi-format it wont play NTSC. (PAL/NTSC TVs are normally a higher end/pricey option).

A standard (unmodified) UK DVD player will only play Region 2 (Europe) and not region 1 (US) discs

Although these days its true to say that most DVD players are (sold as)multi-region or at least can be modified or a secret hack typed in to allow them to be multi-region and they can play Region 1 US NTSC discs although the output (in most cases) will still be PAL (but as your TV will be PAL too this is no problem).

[leleyusa]

thx a lot guys, this helps a bunch....

[mpack]

And just to add to the fun, I have to disagree with andydd in a couple of respects...

hi13may's answer is not quite true. Unless your TV is sold as a multi-format it wont play NTSC. (PAL/NTSC TVs are normally a higher end/pricey option).

My experience is that most TVs sold nowadays support both PAL and NTSC. This makes sense if you think about the point of view of the Japanese or Taiwanese company that made it. They don't want separate production lines for PAL and NTSC, it is far more cost effective to make a single product that serves both markets, whether or not you explicitly say so on the outside of the box.

Also :-

they can play Region 1 US NTSC discs although the output (in most cases) will still be PAL (but as your TV will be PAL too this is no problem).

I'm pretty sure this isn't usually true. Converting NTSC to PAL is a relatively complex process which also impacts quality, so this is not something you can expect any DVD player to do. You can expect all DVD players to accept both PAL and NTSC disks, and provided region coding is not a problem then the player will output PAL or NTSC signals - ie. whatever the disk is.

However, whether Andy or I has the details correct it comes down to the same thing: playing NTSC DVDs in the UK is not a problem these days, provided the tv is reasonably new and the DVD player is not from one of the companies that are fussy about region coding compliance (eg. Sony).

[iooi]

hi13may's answer is not quite true. Unless your TV is sold as a multi-format it wont play NTSC. (PAL/NTSC TVs are normally a higher end/pricey option).

Well my daughters 14" £45 cheapie plays nstc disks just fine...... Biggest problem is making sure dvd player will be region free. A lot arnt... Tend to be the more you pay the less likly they are to be region free....

[andydd]

Hello me again.

Yep..You are quite right. I was actually aware that a NTSC disc in a multi-region player will output NTSC and a PAL disc will output PAL so therefore my first statement about TVs accepting only PAL doesnt make sense ! Should of thought about it a bit more.

Interestingly though. I have some US NTSC discs that I have made a copy of and removed the region coding. So they are now ALL region NTSC discs and will play in nearly all DVD players (wether multi-region or not) EXCEPT my friends playstation which seemed to have a problem with an NTSC disc. (Which of course it wouldnt normally play as it would only accept Region 2 discs).

iooi is also right, the mult-region brigade seems to exist soley in the cheapo range of players...I bought one for £30 which was mult-region out of the box and yet my £250 Panny recorder is strictly Region 2 (and at the time I bought it was rather expensive to get it modified).

[doppletwo]

Some DVD players have built in PAL NTSC conversion.


Most Phillips do, but you have to go into the setup menu of the DVD player.

[doppletwo]

Quit bashing Himay.


I rent region 2 DVD's from Scarecrow (in Seattle the BEst Video store ever by far) and player them on my Phillips Q35 (Phillips crappiest DVD player)

I don't have a special TV.


I did have to do the region "hack" for it though, but the PAL NTSC converter is built in.

The hack is just opening the tray and pressing "1 1 1 1" then press "0" for region free or press the number that corresponds to the region you want.


You all are just mad because you bought "GOOD" DVD players.


SUCKERS.

[mikesbytes]

Yep..You are quite right. I was actually aware that a NTSC disc in a multi-region player will output NTSC and a PAL disc will output PAL so therefore my first statement about TVs accepting only PAL doesnt make sense ! Should of thought about it a bit more.

Some DVD players will output the video in the same format as the disk, where others will convert to the preferred output. My experience is that it is better to output in the origional version, however some DVD players only permit conversion to the perferred output.

[RottenFoxBreath]

just head on down to asda,pick up one of there cheapo pacific players(£30),they play everything,just stick the code in(found on this site,) and lo and behold,all your dvds will play.if the tv plays them in black and white,set the pacific to PAL(in the menu) or leave it as auto.works well and if it breaks just take it back for a refund or get another.

[lordsmurf]

DVD players DO NOT CONVERT.

The most they can do is output quasi signals that the tv sets will accept, namely PAL-60 and another mutant often called NTSC-50.

[Timmychuck]

Check this out.

http://www.goldenshop.com.hk/AI-trad/Misc_htm/m_pal2n.htm

[Gurm]

Lordsmurf - the issue is of course one of whether the output is "acceptable" or not. I have several PAL DVD's, and my cheapo Cyberhome player outputs them as quasi-NTSC well enough that I'm perfectly happy watching them.

[mikesbytes]

DVD players DO NOT CONVERT.

The most they can do is output quasi signals that the tv sets will accept, namely PAL-60 and another mutant often called NTSC-50.

Then why then does the picture jerk. Looks like my one was adding or substracting frames.

[Gurm]

DVD players DO NOT CONVERT.

The most they can do is output quasi signals that the tv sets will accept, namely PAL-60 and another mutant often called NTSC-50.

Then why then does the picture jerk. Looks like my one was adding or substracting frames.

It's called pulldown.

The picture jerks because the player isn't doing pulldown properly, and you ARE seeing a framerate discrepancy - PAL is 25fps, NTSC is either 24 or 30 (usually 30). In the case of 24fps NTSC, you would be hard pressed to see the difference no matter which way you go. But in the case of 30fps... well, you're either losing or gaining 5fps now aren't you? If the player's algorithm for this is either deficient (or outright missing) then of course you'll see jerkiness.

This is ALSO the reason why doing NTSC->PAL conversions (or vice versa) is such a nontrivial thing.

[mikesbytes]

This was my point, if it is outputing PAL60 or NTSC50 ie no frame rate conversion, then I shouldn't be seeing the jerking and therefor the frame rate conversion is happening.