Do any DVD players handle NTSC & PAL?

[mojo]

I have an old Apex that does this and it's great for playing overseas DVDs... but I'd like to replace it and I can't find any info on the charts here that document this feature on players!

Anyone know of any?

[tw1st3dkn0t]

If you are looking for players that can PLAY both formats, most will, if you are looking for players that can convert (ie. PAL VCD/DVD in drive, NTSC output to Television) that reduces the field to a handfull.

You can look here for a start, I am sure there are more...

http://www.codefreedvd.com/dvd_dvdplayers.htm

TK

[KaBoNG]

Well, I have a Sony DVP-NS400D hooked up to my NTSC TV and just played a PAL VCD on it tonight. Worked fine.

[rsaforjm]

I have a Toshiba 4109x in NTSC TV and I can play a Pal VCD and see the full picture. The same VCD played on a friends Panasonic RV30 cut off the Top. I saw the same video in another friends Sony and it seemed ok. I am not sure if the Toshiba/Sony just compressed the image vertically. If it did I probably just didn't notice it because it was a small compression. Cutting off the head was really bad, almost unwatchable.
Now what does a multisystem DVD do. Does it compress the whole image and put some black space on the right and left?

Now I want to replace that Toshiba with a Pioneer 440, so I can watch cd-r homevideos. I have read some posts that say that the Pioneer will cut off the top and bottom. Pioneer has really disappointed me. It is perfect in all other respect. I would rather get one that will just compress, than one that cuts off the top and bottom. Seems like the older Pioneer handles PAL correctly. If you don't care about MP3, Pioneer 343 seems like the best bet. If you want MP3, you have to compromise between a APEX's bad quality and Pioneer 44x .
If I can find a Decent Sony/Toshiba for $125-$150 or so, I am thinking of getting a Apex 1500 for $79 and use both.

[dphirschler]

My Pioneer DV525 plays PAL VCDs just fine. Star Wars Trilogy is PAL, so are my Bugs Bunny VCDs. Come to think of it, I think The Lion King is PAL as well. All played fine.

FWIW, I live in America and bought the player at Best Buy. It's not some special European model in other words.


Darryl

[zzyzzx]

You could buy one of the newer Apex models.

[resnullius]

contrarly to what the majority of users here seem to say i've had problems with pal vcds... i was using a sylvania 3000 and it gave me a pal output therefore quite unwatchable... anyways id' recomend you stay away from that model since it only accepted vcd and only on some brands of cdr....

[pants]

from what i have gathered reading around at various sites, playing a pal vcd is pretty commom with most dvd players, not all though, even if your tv is ntsc. but if you want to start playing pal dvd's, some issues start to happen, most sampo,apex and some others can do a pal to ntsc conversion but don't do it that well, especially if the pal dvd is anamorphic, but other players like the malata n996, and some newer jvc's can do the pal to ntsc conversion beautifully. because these players use a different chip than the others, you can read more about this on the avsforum.com board in the dvd hardware section and at the international forum at dvdtalk.com/forum.

pants