Sony BDP-S380

[ocmorph]

I just moved back from Dubai to US, and purchased a Sony BDP-S380 Blue Ray/DVD player before I left Dubai. It is supposed to be a Multi-system player which will work with any format/region. I was able to play Region 2 dvds in it with no problems with my Multi-system TV in Dubai.

Here in US I just purchased a Samsung TV, which is, I believe, only NTSC compatible. I can play Region 1 dvds in the Sony player with this TV. However, when I try a Region 2 DVD I get a message that the TV does not support this resolution. The player is playing the dvd, but the TV doesn't seem to like the signal.

Is this because the player is sending a PAL signal to the TV? I thought it would automatically convert to the correct format, but apparently that isn't happening.

Is there a hack or conversion that can fix this?

Thanks

[jman98]

IF you are lucky, the Sony player will have a video output setting where you can set it to NTSC. If it's current values are ANY or MULTI, those will cause the problem you see. Yes, Samsung TVs sold in the USA are absolutely ONLY compatible with NTSC and yes, the Sony is sending a PAL signal to the TV. Either the Sony will come with a video output setting you can change or it will not. There's no hack to fix it, but you could buy an external box to convert PAL to NTSC signals for the TV. I'll leave it to others to recommend specific models as I have no personal experience here.

Do note that in general Sony and Samung DVD and BluRay players are the most difficult in the world to make region free. There are exceptions and in the case of your player I suspect that it was hardware modded by the seller, but in general you should avoid those brands if you want multi-region playback.