Why DOES my DVD player play PAL discs?

[drewson99]

I am an american, I live in america, I bought my DVD player in america.

I hacked my APEX-1500 so I could play Japanese DVDs.

I bought an australian DVD set (Xena Season 1) thinking about the region, not the format.

I watch it, good show.

Then I notice it is PAL (on the case)

How is this possible?

ZZ

Also, can I convert to NTSC w/ TMPGEnc or some other software and re-burn?

[hwoodwar]

Simple. Apex is one of the manufacturers that produces multi-system DVD players. My Magnavox and Mhilips DVD players (actually the same company) also support both the NTSC and PAL standards. Consider it a plus.

[adam]

Lots of dvd players support both PAL and NTSC, they convert from one to the other in real time. I wouldn't say its the majority, but this is very common.

Sure you could manually convert PAL to NTSC, but if your dvd player does it for you then why bother?

[drewson99]

If I wanted to back it up so that I could play it on all of my DVD players.

Thanks all, I love this 1500, maybe I should pick up another one and keep it sealed up until this one goes bad.

[yg1968]

I wouldn't say that they are common but a number of other DVD players offer PAL and NTSC playback and can be made region free. For example the Philips DVD-634, Philipps DVD-724, Norcent DP-300, Apex 1100W, Lenoxx DVD-2003, Prima DVD-1500 and Malata 520 offer this possibility. This website is very informative on this subject:

www.nerd-out.com

[donpedro]

If I wanted to back it up so that I could play it on all of my DVD players.

Thanks all, I love this 1500, maybe I should pick up another one and keep it sealed up until this one goes bad.

I never thought about this Good idea.... what if in 10 years I will not be able to find DVD player that can be hacked to play all regions, PAL and NTSC ? Or..... what if I can't find DVD player in store at all I wonder if player can go bad just by staying in closet ?

[RabidDog]

In their hearts of hearts the mFrs know that PAL is inherently a far superior system and feel that maybe the americans will switch over.

[yg1968]

Pal vs NTSC.

How to start a debate!

Anyways, here are the pros and cons of both system (from a British website):

http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Contrib/WorldTV/compare.html

[BJ_M]

If I wanted to back it up so that I could play it on all of my DVD players.

Thanks all, I love this 1500, maybe I should pick up another one and keep it sealed up until this one goes bad.

:D I never thought about this :D Good idea.... what if in 10 years I will not be able to find DVD player that can be hacked to play all regions, PAL and NTSC ? Or..... what if I can't find DVD player in store at all :D I wonder if player can go bad just by staying in closet ?

in 10 years you willl not care anyway ..

[bugster]

Most (if not all ) DVD players will play both PAL and NTSC disks. As to wether you can view them on your TV, thats another matter.

Most European DVD players output NTSC disks as either NTSC video or Pal-60 (a 60 fields per second version of PAL). Some will do both and it is user selectable. Most european TV's are also multi-standrad and will handle PAL, NTSC and PAl-60.

In the US, I believe things are slightly different and very few TV's can display a PAL signal. So a few DVD players will convert from PAL to NTSC on-the-fly. If you have one of those then consider yourself lucky!

[yg1968]

Bugster said:

Most (if not all ) DVD players will play both PAL and NTSC disks.

This is true in Europe but not in North America. In North America, most DVD players will simply not play PAL. However, DVD players that can play VCDs (a minority of them can do this in North America), often can play PAL. These units often have (but not always) a PAL to NTSC converter built-in.

[adam]

I think you are kinda combining different things here yg1968, Bugster's comment was actually pretty accurate.

If a PAL dvd doesn't play on a North American dvd player its not because its PAL, its because it has different region coding. Maybe a moot point since they almost go hand in hand in the DVD format, but its pertinent when you consider VCDs and SVCDs which don't support region coding. Like Bugster said, just about any dvd player in the world can play both PAL and NTSC encoded material, the problem is that North American tv's can only display an ntsc signal so if your dvd player can't do the conversion you are out of luck.

Also, VCD compliant dvd players are not at all a minority in North America. I have no idea what the percentages are but its well over %50.

[yg1968]

Adam,

I did not say that Bugster comments were inacurate. He was talking about Europe and so his statement is accurate for Europe.

Anyways, I am not confusing region codes and TV signals. I am very aware of the differences. Not all DVD players are multisystem (i.e. play pal and ntsc). Even if you have a region free DVD player, it may not play on a multi-system TV if your DVD player isn't also multi-system. The majority of lower end DVD player can play VCDs (and are often multi-system). But a majority of higher end DVD players cannot play VCDs (and are often not multi-system). The main reason for this is that the cheaper models are almost always manufactured in China (and often have similar components). These cheaper DVD players have more in common with DVD-ROM players than video equipment. This explains their higher versality. They can often play VCDs, SVCDs, mp3s, PAL or NTSC, etc. Unfortunately, the higher versatility is at the expense of quality. For example, the quality of the Apex DVD player isn't fantastic. Threre is more on this subject on this website:

www.nerd-out.com

[adam]

Adam,

Anyways, I am not confusing region codes and TV signals. I am very aware of the differences. Not all DVD players are multisystem (i.e. play pal and ntsc).

No you are confusing dvd playback and tv display. I would argue that ALL dvd players are multisystem players. I have never heard of a single dvd player which cannot play both PAL and NTSC material, I don't think one exists. If you have an NTSC source, it will export the signal as NTSC. If its a PAL source it exports it as PAL. The problem occurs when the TV is not multisystem and you end up with a PAL signal being played on an NTSC display device. Again the problem is with the TV display only, it has nothing to do with the DVD player, it is taking the source and spitting it out exactly as is. A DVD player will never just say, "no disk" because it doesn't have the ability to convert from PAL to NTSC, it will play the DVD fine, but your tv will display it in black and white. The tv is the limitation, but your dvd player may have the ability to do real time conversion from PAL to NTSC, or from NTSC to PAL 60.

Even if you have a region free DVD player, it may not play on a multi-system TV if your DVD player isn't also multi-system

No, if your tv is multisystem then it will always play, well assuming we are only talking about PAL and NTSC and not any of the derivations that some other countries use (SECAM etc..) The real time conversions that DVD players do are only to convert the signal to the display system that your tv supports. If your tv supports both PAL and NTSC then you DVD should play properly on any DVD player unless you are prevented by region coding.

Again, any dvd player will play any regional format. The only question is whether your tv supports the signal(s) that your dvd player can export. This applies worldwide, but its really only an issue in NTSC countries.

[yg1968]

Hi Adam,

I know the difference between TV systems and DVD Formats. You misunderstood my comments. Perhaps, I should have clearer in my explanations. So here comes lenghty details...

Technically DVDs are encoded to a digital format called mpeg which is neither PAL nor NTSC (as these descriptions are only relevant for an analog signal).

Nevertheless, for convenience purposes, people will very often refer to an mpeg-2 file that uses 720x576, 25 fps as a PAL mpeg-2 (or once authored, a PAL DVD). Likewise, a 720x480, 29.97 fps mpeg-2 file will be said to be an NTSC mpeg-2 file (or, once authored, an NTSC DVD). However, this is not technically accurate.

In any event, this mpeg-2 file is decoded by a software or hardware mpeg-2 decoder. Most DVD-ROM will use a software decoder. In other words, the software mpeg-2 decoder will decode the mpeg-2 file to RGB on your computer screen. Most DVD-Video players will use a hardware decoder which will decode the mpeg-2 file to a PAL or NTSC signal (but never to a SECAM signal).

I am under the impression that the mpeg-2 decoder found in a majority of DVD-Video players sold in North America (at least as a factory default) can only decode the mpeg-2 to an NTSC signal. If it's not a DVD-NTSC compliant file (e.g. 720x480, 352x480 or 352x240), the DVD player will simply refuse to play it . However, I agree that a sizable minority of DVD-Video players can read both types of files (especially among lower end models that can play VCDs or SVCDs). We disagree on this point but that is the only important point on which I disagree with you.

There was a debate in another thread on this before but DVD players with a PAL to NTSC converter do NOT actually convert PAL to NTSC. They are actually decoding an mpeg-2 file that is 720x576, 25 fps to an NTSC signal. The signal is never actually converted to an analog PAL signal. Here is the thread that discussed this issue:
http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=127698&highlight=

Anyways, here is a couple of interesting websites on the PAL vs NTSC topic:
http://www.seanet.com/Users/bradford/ntscvideo.html
http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Articles/PALvsNTSC/PALvsNTSC.asp

[miamicanes]

Playing back a Pal disc on an American NTSC TV involves four issues:

* region coding -- the easiest to overcome

* color encoding -- not a problem, as long as the DVD player and the TV are both American NTSC models. Insofar as color encoding (half the Pal vs NTSC equation) is concerned, MPEG-2 itself is PAL/NTSC-agnostic, and could care less how the analog signal sent from the player itself is encoded.

* resolution -- The other half of the Pal-vs-NTSC issue. It's easy (but ugly) to hack interlaced Pal-res video to NTSC-res by ignoring the topmost and bottomost scanlines, but the top and bottom get chopped off, and the remainder appears vertically stretched. It's TRIVIAL to resample PROGRESSIVE source to a different resolution (it's no different than resizing an image in Photoshop), but there's no *really* good way to do with interlaced video short of de-interlacing it as an intermediate step.

* temporal rate -- easy to hack acceptably a-la-APEX, insanely expensive to do "right". As I understand it, APEX and most other players basically treat 25 frame/second (50 field/second) PAL like bastardized film-sourced material (24fps) and do 3:2 pulldown on it to produce 62.5 field/second (31.25 frame/second) output. It's not proper NTSC, but it's close enough for most TVs (and VCRs, for that matter) to handle without complaint. The *HARD* way to fix it is by analyzing each frame of each scene with a computer to identify moving objects (extracting them as "sprites"), including their direction, velocity, and acceleration, and a stationary/panning/zooming background (using earlier and later frames to guess what's behind areas that are covered at any one second). Then, it goes back and predicts what the background should look like if it were re-rendered at 30 frames/60 fields per second and does the same with the sprites. The net result is a nearly flawless, judder-free conversion from 25/50 to 29.97/59.94. Somewhere at msdn.microsoft.com is a fairly extensive whitepaper on the subject of "temporal rate correction" that explains this whole issue.

On a side topic...

I believe the sophisticated TRC technique is increasingly being used to convert film-sourced content (like movies) to NTSC DVDs (rather than encoding them at 24fps and relying upon the player's internal 3:2 pulldown capabilities to make it work). The upside is that such discs would look *MUCH* better when played back on a normal DVD player to a normal TV. Specifically, they wouldn't have that "film" look. Instead, they'd look like extraordinarily high quality video-sourced material. The DOWNSIDE is that those same discs will thoroughly confuse and frustrate most progressive-scan DVD players, and look MUCH worse when replayed by a cheap progressive-scan DVD player to a TV that supports 480p.

An *EXPENSIVE* ($250-500) DVD player with Faroudja-licensed deinterlacing capabilities won't particularly care one way or another, but most of the current cheap (sub-$100) progressive-scan DVD players are able to be cheap and support progressive 480p output because they don't even bother to try *deinterlacing* interlaced mpeg -- they only output progressive for film-sourced material that's encoded on the disc as 24fps progressive in the first place.

I believe this is part of the reason why progressive-scan DVD hasn't really caught on yet in Europe. 100Hz TVs exist (mostly in Germany and the Czech Republic), but most Region 2 discs are encoded as 50 field/second interlaced (rather than 24 frame/second progressive), so a Euro-land progressive-scan player would *HAVE* to be equipped to deinterlace it the hard (read: expensive) way. Once again, I'm speculating, but I suspect the nearly-universal practice of interlacing region 2 discs has to do with the way 24fps film sourced material gets converted to 50 field/second pal. Showing each frame twice in a row causes the movie to play 4% faster, which would distort the audio if it were left up to the player to do cheaply. By hardcoding the disc to 50hz, the creator can pitch-correct the audio when mastering the disc so that the movie still plays 4% faster, but the audio sounds the way it's supposed to sound.

Hopefully, as dual-layer discs become all but universal, we'll start to see double-side dual-layer discs that have BOTH 24fps progressive AND 59.94field/sec interlaced copies of everything, in both 4:3 and 16:9 format.

[yg1968]

Miamicanes,

Although I admit that I didn't understand all of it, thanks for the explanations.