Re: dvd and region code.

Christian Lerrahn wrote:
> 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. :-)

I bought one of those divx players from aldi (TEV-3204), only $79 and it
converts from NTSC --> PAL, the trick is to set-up the video output to
PAL, if you leave it on auto, then the player will send NTSC scan rates
to the television when it encounters an NTSC DVD/DIVX file.

-- 
regards
Robert G. Moonen
registered Linux user number 298132

I swear, we're working on restoring sanity, as soon as we can find the
backup tapes -- Charles Kuffner