Zonefree DVD player into Panasonic Plasma not working

[Mark_MB750M]

I can't get in touch with Panasonic's Plasma Conceirge, so I thought I'd throw this question out here.

I've got a new Panasonic Plasma TH-C50FD18 – Connected to a Panasonic Home Theatre (SC PT-954). The home theatre is connected to TV with HDMI 1, digital audio from TV to Digital input. That all works fine.

However, from some time in Europe, I have a Toshiba SD-210E for Zone 1, 2 DVDs. This previously worked fine with component, composite, and S-video into our old (US-bought) Polaroid FLM-2601.
When connecting the Toshiba to the component video inputs of the Panasonic, there is nothing - just a perfect black screen. When connecting to composite or S-video, I get some picture, but is scrolls vertically. There is no audio with any of the video connections.

I've tried several DVDs to test this - some are marked zone 2 PAL, one was Zone 0 PAL, another Zone ALL PAL. None of them work, and since we have a pretty large collection of movies bought overseas, I'd like to be able to view them.

Zone 1 or Zone ALL DVDs labeled NTSC play perfectly from the Toshiba into any of the Panasonic video inputs. So it must be something in the PAL-> NTSC within the Toshiba.

I checked out some video converters. There is a cheap one at Sewelldirect.com that mentions that it needs an NTSC 50hz compatible TV. What does this mean, exactly? I did find, when I looked in the manuals for both TVs, that the Polariod accepts AC input from 100-240VAC at 50/60 Hz. The Panasonic is strictly 120VAC/60 hz. Could this be the root of the problem?

I'd been working on the assumption that either the Panasonic somehow knows that I am using a zonefree DVD player and refuses to deal with the signal in PAL, or else the conversion in the Toshiba from PAL to NTSC is too 'sloppy' for the Panasonic to handle. Does this make sense?

Has anyone else had a similar experience, and if so how did you solve it? Any recommendations on zonefree DVD players would also be welcome, since if I can't get the Panasonic to accept the Toshiba signal, I may get another zonefree player - World-Import has some for under $100. Converters PAL->NTSC are running $150-$500 at various places, so the new player would make better economic sense.

Thanks!

[jagabo]

My first thought was that the DVD player outputs PAL as PAL and NTSC as NTSC. and the TV only accepts NTSC. But that seems unlikely in Europe.

You can get Philips (and may other) region free, PAL/NTSC converting DVD players for under $50 in the USA.

[jman98]

I can promise you that your home theatre system does not in any way check or care that your DVD player is zone free.

Your DVD player may not be outputting true NTSC. It may be that bastardized hybrid known as PAL 60. Your NTSC TV won't be able to play it except with EXACTLY the scrolling image that you see now. You'll have to find out if your DVD player can output true NTSC. If not, buy another player - it's cheaper than buying a video converter.

It could be that somehow your home theatre system is changing your signal to PAL 60. You'll have to hook up the Toshiba directly to the TV and see if it still looks like crap or not to tell if the home theatre system is hosing you.

An NTSC 50hz compatible TV means that you CANNOT use a US/Canada bought TV (well, unless you bought a multistandard TV there and those are quite rare in those countries) and must use a multi-standard TV for the converter to work correctly. This means that the converter is outputting PAL 60 and NOT NTSC. So that converter won't work for you. True video converters cost hundreds of dollars. That's why I said you might as well buy a new DVD player.

One final thing - it is highly unusual that your US bought TV can operate on European power. I have never seen this on anything but a multistandard TV.
Please check your TV settings and if the picture can be changed from NTSC to "multi" or "any", try that.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Your tv is NTSC,either take the tv back or buy a multi-system DVD player:
http://www2.panasonic.com/consumer-electronics/shop/Televisions/VIERA-Plasma-HDTVs/mod...00000000005702

[Mark_MB750M]

Thanks for all the help. I wound up going with a region free player from World-Import (any comments on them?). I got it pretty quickly, but unfortunately it doesn't read most of my DVDs. It will read the odd one, but the rest of the time it just shows 'LOAD' in the display for well over 90 sec, by which time I just eject the disc.


What's funny is that it would not read any store-bought disks except 'The Recruit' (NTSC ALL) and 'Alien (PAL 2 - but it only worked once!). It did read 2 DVD-R copies I have - 'Re-animator', copied from an NTSC 1 disk, and 'Star Trek 2' - copied from a PAL 2 disk. I would almost expect the opposite. Pre-recorded disks that were PAL ALL, NTSC 1, and PAL 2 refuse to load.

I'm in the process of getting an RMA number to get a replacement. It's a Toshiba SD-780 KR, and other than the fact that it won't read the DVDs, it's pretty nice. HDMI output (cable included), upconverting, allegedly de-zoned so it should play all my region 1, 2 disks.

I hope to have a new one soon and once it's all working I'll post. In the meantime, if anyone has any experience with that model Toshiba, I'd be interested in hearing them.

Thanks!
Mark

[jagabo]

Just get something cheap like a Philips DVP-5990. For US$70 (any day of the week, sometimes you can find them for as little as $50) you get a region free (with a few button presses on the remote) PAL/NTSC converting player. It's also a decent 1080p upscaler and plays Divx, WMA, etc.

[Mark_MB750M]

Well, the Toshiba was only $89 or $99, and they threw in the HDMI cable as well. So it's not really a cost issue. I've been happy with my old Toshiba and figured I would get another one.
World-Import.com gives a lifetime warranty on the codefree modification and the price was reasonable, so that's why I went with them.

We'll see if I'm still happy once I get a working player...As I mentioned, it's not a problem in the actual playing - I've gotten 2-3 DVDs of varying region/system to work - but that is out of 10 or so I attempted. That's a pretty bad score, and the fault is in the loading - the player just keeping flashing 'LOAD' on most disks. I suppose it's something in the laser mechanism.

[MOVIEGEEK]

I agree with jagabo,get a cheap Philips from Circuit City or Best Buy.
I have a 5982 and it plays everything.

[jagabo]

Walmart has the Philips DVP-5990 for less than US$58:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10050628

[Squash]

Another vote here for the Philips 5990. You have to manually change the region with the remote (it brings up a screen where you use the up/down arrows to go from 1 through 6), then change it back when you're done. The only disc I've tried this on was my region 2 PAL "Royle Family" DVD, and the 5990 converted to NTSC and played it fine.

[jagabo]

Can't you set the region to 0, all region? My 5960 has that option. There are a few discs that won't play with that setting though. So occasionally (~once a year) I have to change back to region 1 or whatever.

[Squash]

jagabo,

Yes, you're right, you can set the 5990 region to 0; I just checked it out. I hadn't noticed it before since I had used the down arrow to go from 1 to 2 and back, with a brief look at the other numbers beyond 2. When I went back to "1" I didn't bother to look above it. It only shows one region number on screen at a time.

Just tried the same R2 DVD with region code set to "0" and it played fine, of course.

I guess Philips gives the individual regions as an option to get around the old "Region Code Enhanced" scheme, but I don't think any studios use that anymore. Probably quite a few RCE discs floating around out there, though. That probably explains those discs that caused you problems with the region 0 setting.