Playing PAL discs in the US..which player?

[wildcard21]

Hi people,

I have a friend in the US that would like to play his PAL discs in the US.

Can you recommend a decent player that can transcode in real-time, and therefore output NTSC in the US? He only has an NTSC TV set.

He would also like to handle DVD-R media on the player.

I saw some on Amazon but am confused and worried about recommending something that would not work.

'Thank you' for any help you can give me.

[Barnabas]

I bought a Lite-on 5006 for exactly that reason. Plays PAL disks perfectly.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Any OPPO player:
www.oppodigital.com/

[ntscuser]

This is a sweeping generalization but people who bought early PAL to NTSC converting DVD players tell me they couldn't "unsqueeze" PAL widescreen discs. You either needed a widescreen TV or had to put up with a "squeezed" picture. Things may have changed since then.

[Krispy Kritter]

I second the Oppo.

[jagabo]

I have an old Liteon LDV 2002. It converts PAL to NTSC by repeating every 5th frame so the result is a little jerky. But the image is scaled (720x576 -> 720x480) well.

The Philips DVP 642 has smoother video (probably 3:2:3:2:2 pulldown) but scales badly (I think it uses a nearest neighbor filter).

I hear the newer Philips players, like the 5140 and 5960, scale better and are all-around better players:

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=301153&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
http://home.wi.rr.com/ntngod/dvp642_vs_dvp5140/