Ok, I know how the region thing works. I know that I can play european DVDs on my as of yet unpurchased DVD player if I get one that has a region free hack.
What I need to know is whether or not the player can change the PAL video from the DVD to an NTSC output the TV can understand.
I have the means to make a PAL formatted VCD on my computer for testing purposes if going to the store and trying it out is the only option I have.
Can anyone offer any advice as to which specific models I should look at or which brands? This is for my girlfriend and she wants to be able to buy DVDs from Germany and Italy and play them on a player here. I want the player to have VCD capability as well.
Thanks ahead of time for any advice you guys can offer.
-Kris
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Veni Vidi Vici
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A Magnavox MDV450 will do the trick. It plays NTSC and PAL disks to NTSC, PAL, or Multisystem TV's. I live in the US, so most of the stuff I have is NTSC. I bought a few PAL VCD's a few months ago and tried it. The only thing I had to do to get it to play properly, was to change the TV type from Multisystem to NTSC in the configuration settings of the DVD player (page 36 of the manual, for some reason it had defaulted to Multisystem when I actually had a NTSC TV.)
You can purchase the MDV450 at Walmart and Blockbuster, online:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=1972356&cat=95987&type=19&dept=0...106168%3A95987
http://www.blockbuster.com/bb/article/details/0,,ART-805,00.html
You may also be able to get it at your "local" Walmart or Blockbuster store.
This player plays just about everything; VCD, XVCD (works with all of Kwag's templates, for the K3 you need to change resolution to 544 X 480), CVD, SVCD and even JPEGs. -
Ok, but will this player play European Region DVDs? If so, it's perfect.
Veni Vidi Vici -
While most DVD cannot play PAL DVDs on an NTSC TV, a certain number of players can. So you have to make sure that you get one that can do the PAL to NTSC conversion. The Philipps DVD-724 can do this conversion. The Apex-1500 can do the conversion. Malata DVD players can normally do the conversions. However, many players that can do the PAL to NTSC conversion, cannot do the 16:9 to 4:3 conversion at the same time. In other words, you will get a slightly stretched image when playing PAL DVDs. The Malata is one of the few models that can do the PAL to NTSC and the 16:9 to 4:3 conversions at the same time. For more on this, see this website:
www.nerd-out.com -
Thanks for all the help. I think I'm going to go with a Firmware updated GE 1101PB. It does everything I need it to do. Thanks for all the help.
Veni Vidi Vici -
You may, or may not be aware of this, Philipps and Magnavox are the same company. The Magnavox MDV450 is the exact same player as the Philipps DVD-724 (that yg1968 mentions), except for a different faceplate and the DVD-724 includes a Progressive Scan feature. I have both, even the manuals and remotes are the same. Both units have region hacks listed in the DVD Hacks section of this site. Since these are basically the same player, the exact same hack is listed for both the MDV450 and the DVD-724. Unfortunately, I do not have any DVD's other than region 1 to test with.
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I actually talked the salesmaker at the store to let me run the firmware upgrade for the GE 1101PB in the store. Worked like a charm. I ran the second disc to put the firmware back the way it was. Very easy to do.
The player has a region free option, but you can also set it to any region you want to defeat RCE. You can also turn off Macrovision and play either NTSC or PAL discs while outputting to NTSC/PAL/Multiscan via an internal menu.
It plays VCD, SVCD, XVCD to 5000kb/s, XSVCD to 7000kb/s, MP3 Discs, JPEG Discs, cDVD, miniDVD. Really, it's a nice player. So far as I can tell, it can play any DVD on the planet. Anyone know if I'm wrong on that score?Veni Vidi Vici
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