Re: dvd and region code.

On Sat, 3 Dec 2005 19:03:44 +1100
"Andrew McGlashan" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Christian Lerrahn wrote:
> > This is not 100% correct. With DVDs you still have PAL and NTSC
> > encoding (720 x 576 pixels (PAL DVDs), or 720 x 480 pixels (NTSC
> > DVDs)) and most players will only play one of them. There are players
> > that will convert PAL to NTSC/NTSC to PAL but it's hard to find out
> > if there's such a converter in your DVD player because manufacturers
> > are (at least in many countries) legally not allowed to include this
> > in the technical specifications. As the US use NTSC but Australia
> > uses PAL, you will most likely run into problems. However, in the US
> > you can still view these DVDs on a comnputer I think.
> 
> This surprises me a little, but it has nothing to do with the region coding 
> itself.  It would surprise me even more if modern equipment couldn't 
> actually handle PAL vs NTSC; I guess this could be an issue with equipment 
> older than about 5 years though [or probably more like 15 years, but I am 
> only guessing here].

According to what you find on the web it's still quite common that there
are DVD players that can handle only one of the 2 formats (there's no
SECAM with DVD). If you consider that many manufacturers try to sell
their devices at lowest prices possible, it is very likely that there are
still lots of devices out there that can handle only PAL or only NTSC.
I've unlocked my player in terms of getting in region code free. But I've
never got the chance to try playing an NTSC encoded DVD on it. So just
like you, I'm just guessing about modern devices. However, Rick should at
least be aware of the "encoding risk" even though it might not be a big
one any more. :-)

Christian

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