PAL and NTSC on DVDs

[Edmund Clout]

I just hacked my £25 DVD player to region 0! Now I can watch "The Corner" on DVD!
Thanks Jonathan!
 
BTW saw the Hawks at Hard Rock Hell at weekend. Cut down 1 hour set, but very tight. New bloke v. good, twiddly guitar stuff and keyboard stuff too, as well as bass (yes, two basses) on one song. Seems Mr. Dibs' sound has beefed up a bit too, although the sound didn't really balance at all until halfway through first number, masters. Apparently, Black Label Society the headline act hogged all the soundcheck time and also Litmus and Hawkwind almost came to blows when setting up. American band, Clutch, who'd been in Glasgow the night before went on cold and were ace, reallly hard southern blues based rock. Met some very nice Hawkfans and looked at photos of each others dogs!
 
> Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2008 13:56:14 -0500> From: jonathan at ATT.NET> Subject: Re: PAL and NTSC on DVDs> To: BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET> > 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
_________________________________________________________________
Get Windows Live Messenger on your Mobile
http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/msnnkmgl0010000001ukm/direct/01/