Live at the Marlowe Theatre DVD question

[Stuart]

Hi all,

Quick question for the group: does anyone know if this DVD was released in NTSC? I just ordered one online and they sent me the PAL version (I live in the US)...even though the listing said NTSC. I was thinking about ordering it from another seller but wanted to check here before going through the hassle.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Stuart

[Simon Nicol]

Hi Stuart.

Sorry but I know not. It was handled and controlled by a company called Sanctuary and I'd love to be able to step in and give you chapter and verse about the protocols but these things and these details become Godian knots even if one had time to unpick them.

If you can find whichever company swallowed up Sanctuary, and were then themselves were in turn swallowed up...

Apologies for any referred disappointment. It is not the FC way.

[MikeB (Mike)]

Your computer's DVD drive should be able to play both PAL and NTSC discs and if required, rip the video file so you can then recode and reburn it as NTSC.

If you need some help doing this feel free to drop me a line.

[quodlibet (Ian)]

I've had the same problem in reverse (NTSC > PAL) & was advised that most region specific players can be unlocked to play discs from any region. I can't recall the site I used, but this looks as if it might be useful. http://www.dvdexploder.com/.  A few minutes following instructions with the remote & away you go (hopefully.

[Stuart]

Thanks for the replies. From what I can tell, Live At Marlow was only PAL as all of the copies are coming from England. So, it's probably best to just get a region-free player. They're not too expensive on Amazon. If I do that, I can then go ahead and get a couple of DVDs I've always wanted from Runrig and Lindisfarne that I passed on because they were PAL.

Thanks again.  

Stuart

[Harbottle (Martin)]

Thanks for the replies. From what I can tell, Live At Marlow was only PAL as all of the copies are coming from England. So, it's probably best to just get a region-free player. They're not too expensive on Amazon. If I do that, I can then go ahead and get a couple of DVDs I've always wanted from Runrig and Lindisfarne that I passed on because they were PAL.

Thanks again.  

Stuart

Region coding is different to the TV format.  It may be a Region 0 zero DVD (i.e. no region) in PAL format.

Most DVD players in the UK can play NTSC DVDs by converting the signal into Pseudo PAL by  changing the colour signal. Most UK TVs will play them, although with modern TVs being digital there's no reason they shouldn't... Some CRT TVs would automatically adjust to the different frequency. Others wouldn't.

My TV wouldn't play Pseudo PAL, so I had to get  a player that did a proper conversion by dropping frames.

I believe that the same applies the other way round. A lot of DVD players should be able to output NTSC from a PAL DVD by duplicating frames to get 29.97 fps...

You need to get a DVD player that can play PAL DVDs and output NTSC as well as able to play a DVD with any sort of region encoding.

[Dubai Danny]

Most DVD players in the UK can play NTSC DVDs by converting the signal into Pseudo PAL by  changing the colour signal

FWIW, all Region 2 DVD players are required by the official DVD spec to handle NTSC in addition to PAL, because Japan (which uses NTSC) is part of Region 2. Not many European-market DVD players actually bother outputting PAL60 (aka "pseudo-PAL") because 99.9% of all European-market TVs are multistandard, meaning that they will happily display PAL, NTSC and SECAM natively without any need for format conversion.

Region 1 (American) players are only required to handle NTSC, so many (most?) of them just won't play a PAL disc at all even if the player is set to be region-free.

A lot of DVD players should be able to output NTSC from a PAL DVD by duplicating frames to get 29.97 fps...

AFAIK only a relatively small number of DVD players on the American market will do that because there isn't a huge amount of demand from consumers for for PAL-to-NTSC DVD conversion. They're out there, though, it's just a matter of tracking one down.

The picture quality is often a bit grotty, though. Good-quality standards conversion is quite complex (and hence expensive) and the converters in domestic decks are usually as cheap as can be gotten away with. If you don't have a PAL-compatible TV and you're in NTSC-land, the best way to view a PAL DVD is on your computer monitor.

[Bob Barrows]

My Philips DVP1540 player plays PAL discs, and it only cost about 80 dollars at the time. As a bonus, it also has a USB port and happily plays video files of many different formats. There are newer models available now with similar capabilities

[Stuart]

My Philips DVP1540 player plays PAL discs, and it only cost about 80 dollars at the time. As a bonus, it also has a USB port and happily plays video files of many different formats. There are newer models available now with similar capabilities

I talked with a friend of mine who works at a video production facility, and his input was similar to Bob's. He bought a Pioneer region-free player and has no trouble playing PAL DVDs. I found one on Amazon for about $50, so I'll give it a try. The little bit of the Live At Marlow DVD I watched on my computer looked great.

Speaking of watching it on the computer, I was under the impression that if you watch PAL multiple times, your computer will default to PAL permanently. Does anyone know if that's true or just an old myth?

Thanks for all the input everyone. It's been very helpful.

Stuart

[Chris]

Watching a certain region will tie the player to that region, that is definitely true - but as for PAL / NTSC, I can't see how it can be?....

I think you're confusing Region setting with video-out settings

[Dubai Danny]

I talked with a friend of mine who works at a video production facility, and his input was similar to Bob's. He bought a Pioneer region-free player and has no trouble playing PAL DVDs

Remember, region-free *doesn't* necessarily equal the ability to watch PAL DVDs on your TV. Either his player is the standards-converting type, or he's got a multi-standard TV. If your TV is a flat-screen, then it's almost certain to be multi-standard, but if it's an American-market CRT, it may well not be. It will tell you at the back of the manual what standards it supports.

Speaking of watching it on the computer, I was under the impression that if you watch PAL multiple times, your computer will default to PAL permanently. Does anyone know if that's true or just an old myth?

Computer DVD drives will typically allow you to change the region code a limited number of times, and after that, it's locked to whatever the last region you set was. It'll tell you how many changes you have left. Depending on the drive, it's possible to flash it with new firmware that makes it permanently region-free.