PAL and NTSC on DVDs

[trev]

thanks jonathan,

i test them on realplayer, windows media, and a dvd player...i am in the UK

maybe i should say that?

...to cover myself.

lol

trev

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From: "Jonathan Clark" <jonathan at ATT.NET>
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2008 6:56 PM
To: <BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET>
Subject: Re: PAL and NTSC on DVDs

> trev wrote:
>>> anyway, the PAL thing only applies to videos, not dvd's doesn't it?
>
> No, it applies to DVDs as well.
>
> This is a subject with a lot of piece-parts, and I'm sure I do not 
> understand
> it fully, but here's a summary. Corrections and/or pointers to a better 
> article
> welcome.
>
> There are three main TV broadcast systems in use in the world (plus 
> variants on
> each): PAL (mainly Europe and the ex-Empire countries, but not France and 
> its
> ex-Empire, plus China, Brazil, and Argentina); SECAM (France, its 
> ex-Empire and
> Russia), and NTSC (North, Central and South America except for Brazil and 
> Argentina,
> and Japan). NTSC was the first system and is the simplest, SECAM came 
> later and is
> more complex, and PAL came last and seems to give the best results.
>
> The video on a DVD (or a videotape) will always be always be encoded with 
> one of
> these formats.
>
> Nearly all TVs will only "do" one format. The capabilities of DVD players 
> seem to
> vary greatly around the world.
>
> Multi-system TVs do exist, as do multi-system DVD players. These work 
> together because
> this sort of DVD player just outputs whatever format the DVD is in, 
> without conversion.
>
> A PAL/NTSC converting DVD player will read both PAL and NTSC disks and 
> output either
> PAL or NTSC, converting as necessary. It turns out that up-converting NTSC 
> to PAL is
> so easy that most DVD players in the UK include this feature. Going the 
> other way is
> harder (I don't know why) or perhaps just rarer. But Wait There's More - 
> keep reading!
>
> Carl Edlund Anderson replied:
>> My limited understanding is that most DVD players convert on the fly 
>> between NTSC and PAL, so that's not an issue usually.
>
> That seems to be true in the UK, but is certainly not true here in the US.
> Basically all DVD players sold here are NTSC-only. Converting DVD players
> do exist, and are quite legal, but they are hard(er) to find. You will not
> find one in your local Wal-Mart, for example.
>
>> between NTSC and PAL, so that's not an issue usually.  However, a 
>> Yooessan will need to check that their DVD player is multi-regional  in 
>> order to play discs from the Yookay (and vice versa); the US is  Region 
>> 1, and the UK is in Region 2.  (Here in Colombia, I'm in  Region 4.)
>
> You are quite right, and that is the other thing to watch out for. DVDs 
> also
> come with a 'Region code' number (0-6) on them, which is just a way of 
> restricting
> where they can be played. DVD players also contain this number. When you 
> put a
> DVD into a player it compares its number with that on the DVD, if they 
> don't
> match then the player will refuse to play the disk. However, if either 
> number
> is zero (0) then the test always passes (hence the occasional reference to 
> a
> Region-0 disk). See http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#1.10
>
> Some players come with their region code set to zero, and others can be 
> 'hacked'
> to set this. See e.g. http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks
>
> So if I (living in the US) go to the UK and buy a DVD, I have two hurdles 
> to jump
> to get it to play here: first, the PAL/NTSC conversion, second, the region 
> code.
> The simplest solution is to purchase a converting region-free DVD player. 
> There
> are other solutions - some video authoring packages have this capability 
> so
> you can read the disk in on a PC, convert it to the other format, then 
> burn it
> to a DVD. You still have to strip the region code off, though (there are 
> other
> programs which will do this).
>
> The whole issue of playing DVDs on PCs is even more insane - any format 
> can be
> played, but the PC may or may not respect the region code. However, at 
> least for
> Windows, there is a secret counter in almost all drives which gets 
> incremented
> every time you switch formats. Once this hits five (5), the drive is 
> locked in
> that format, and refuses to play any other. So if you only play NTSC or 
> PAL DVDs
> this won't affect you, but if you play one, then the other, then the 
> first, then
> pretty soon your DVD drive will stop playing one or the other disk. It may 
> be
> possible to reset or disable this counter, see e.g. http://tdb.rpc1.org/
>
> I believe that Apple computers work the same way, but I'm not sure. I have 
> no
> clue about the various flavours of Linux.
>
> There is no PAL/SECAM/NTSC stuff with Blu-Ray disks, but there are region 
> codes still.
> So far most disks seem to be region-free. Also note that the regions are 
> different
> from DVD region codes (there are only three of them, for example).
>
> I must say I'm grateful to Hawkwind (among others) for putting their DVDs 
> out as
> NTSC Region 0, it means that I can "just play them" here, as can those in 
> the UK.
>
> Jonathan
>