DVD is only available from Australia (PAL)- can I rip it and make a copy?

[stoker]

I've got a new iMac and MacTheRipper. If I rip the DVD - making it region free in the process - can I play the resulting DVD in my regular home DVD player? Or is there something else I need to do or software to (perish the thought) purchase? Thanks for any advice?

[filmboss80]

There's another issue besides region: the video standard. You don't list your location. Are you in a PAL country or an NTSC country? If it's the latter, you'll probably still have problems playing it on the home DVD player. However, you shouldn't have problems watching it on your iMac.

[jman98]

It all depends on whether your DVD player and TV can do something sensible with PAL DVD input video. If you live in an NTSC country like the USA and Canada, see if your DVD player has a video output option for "NTSC" and set your player to that. Your player may default to "ANY" or "MULTI" in this field and you need to change that to "NTSC". If you see no option to change the video output to NTSC then you may not have a DVD player that can convert PAL to NTSC.

[jagabo]

I don't know about MacTheRipper in particular, but in general, you can rip a PAL DVD and remove the region code. Then it becomes a matter of whether or not your NTSC (?) DVD player will play PAL DVDs. Most do. If not, you'll have to convert to NTSC DVD.

[stoker]

Hi, me again.... just to say that I'm in Canada (therefore NTSC). OK, say I rip it but then I still have a PAL DVD (albeit region free). How (if it's at all possible) would I go about converting it to NTSC so it's playable on my parents' DVD player?

[jagabo]

I would try making a PAL DVD first and see how well the player handles it. Watch for things like the smoothness of motion, the tops and bottoms of the picture being cut off (PAL is 720x576, NTSC is 720x480, some NTSC players will only display the middle 480 lines of the PAL frame).

If that is unsatisfactory then you can consider converting to NTSC. The easy ways don't give the best results.

[victoriabears]

what brand and model of dvd player do you have. as your issue may not ar ise.

all you need is a dvd player that will play out of country dvd's,