changing region coding to get past inability to play PALs?

[theo]

I just found in the "DVD Hacks" section of this site a trick for my player (a Sharp-DV740) to change its internal setting to different DVD-regions. As it comes from the store (Region-1) I have found that it will not play CDR burned PAL-format movies. I am wondering now if I try this hack and change the region setting to Region-2(European), will this enable my PAL format flics to play? Doing this might be a whole lot less time-consuming than going through the whole PAL->NTSC conversion process as described in the tuturials on this site (I am thinking and hoping!).

Has anybody tried such a trick? Am I off-base here?

Theo

[kitty]

Be careful about region changes & format changes - check factory info if you can.

If you change your player to PAL it might just output to PAL and unless you have a PAL TV you will be highly disapointed.

Some players like the Apex 1500 play a PAL or NTSC VCD as the native format (say NTSC). I can play both types of sample VCDs & SVCDs from vcdimager.org just fine on the Apex on a NTSC TV (even before the region hack The sharp may be different as you are trying to do something the manufacturer never anticipated (or wanted to avoid).

If http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvdplayershack.php?select=Sharp%20DV-740 is correct and you make a region free machine (Region "0") then it should play your disc but again depending on the hardware it might want to output to PAL but I doubt it.

Hacks are always at your own risk - it appears the process may be reversable.

[theo]

... right. It probably would just ouput the video stream as PAL still I am gathering, which my cheapish television would still not scan correctly as it's undoubtably only prepared for NTSC signal.

Does anybody know if such a thing as a stand-alone "little black box" exists for converting a PAL signal to NTSC on the fly, between your DVD player and the telly?

Theo

[ZAP!!]

I have a Pioneer DV440 that has played everything I have thrown at until I tried a PAL SVCD. It plays but it looks like the horizontal control is messed up. After some checking I found most DVD player will can play both PAL and NTSC but the signal they output depends on the video format. What my Pioneer is doing is sending out video as NTSC if there is an NTSC disk playing and PAL if there is a PAL disk playing but my TV can't handle PAL.

I did, however, just bought a LASonic portable DVD player for about $130 online. This little guy will convert the video signal to match your TV. If you put in a PAL disk and you have an NTSC only TV it will output the signal as NTSC, and vice versa. The LASonic is a way stripped down player. It has no display of any kind and the disks are manually loaded and removed. No little retractable cup holder on this one. It even comes with a 12v car adapter. Its also region free so it should play anything from anywhere. I got mine from www.stunmaster.com

[theo]

Thanks ZAP!,

but I don't think I want to buy another player just for my smaller collection of PAL DVD's... At this point taking my unit back and finding an Apex 1500 starts to look much more attractive...

Unless anybody has heard of a "little black box" like I mentioned above...?

Theo

[ENaMEL]

I've searched for a "little black box" as well, and found that they are overly expensive. In the >$150(USD) price range. If you want to find one just search for PAL/NTSC convertor.

I would recommend just getting a low cost Apex 1500 (or 1600). I prefer the silver casing of the 1600 and I believe it has all the features the Apex 1500 has plus WMA playback.

Apex dvd players will play back NTSC or PAL discs in any format you want. So you could play a PAL disc on a NTSC Television or vice versa, by just pressing the P/N button on the remote.

I believe VCDs don't have region lockouts, they just are encoded in different sizes. so hacking it for different regions is not necessary for VCD playback--or region-free(region 0) PAL DVD playback. You would only need to hack the DVD player if you specifically want to playback DVDs that have different region codes. And most import DVDs are also available region-free.