PAL DVD on USA player?

[mm]

On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 20:05:53 -0700 (PDT), stratus46@yahoo.com wrote:

On Mar 31, 5:42 pm, mm <NOPSAMmm2...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
I accidentally bought a PAL DVD (it was shipped from Cleveland!)**

Then, I accidentally came across a web page giving instructions how to
change the region of some DVD players to whatever one wants.

This doesn't help me, does it?

DVD recorder/players sold in the USA won't play PAL DVDs, will they?

**  In the ebay ad, he wrote clearly that it was PAL, and he wrote it
in red!, but it didn't register.

The DVD drive in our TV computer was perfectly happy switching to play
a PAL disc.

Maybe I should have said that I *was* able to play the dvd in my
computer too, using Cyberlink Power DVD, and it didnt' say a peep
about format. And I have my computer connected to my tv as of about
30 days ago. But I still wanted to understand how stand-alone dvd
players work

BEWARE!!!! you can only change the drive like 4 times and then it
stays in the last format. I'm told this is stored in the drive itself
and while I'm sure there is a way to reset this counter, I don't know
what it is. The ATI DVD player looked just fine with PAL.

The url someone else provided seem to point to a way to remove the
region limitation (by putting in either a different region number, or
255 which I suppose is the union of all possible region numbers, all
bits on? I havent' done that yet, but the dvd in question is region
0 anyhow. I'm not going looking for out of region dvds, but I may
end up with one, like I ended up with this.

Thanks

>G˛

 

[mm]

On Thu, 01 Apr 2010 09:28:45 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
<dave@davenoise.co.uk> wrote:

In article <voq7r5thoc581eq55bcalu92qo6kte59ju@4ax.com>,
mm <NOPSAMmm2005@bigfoot.com> wrote:
DVD recorder/players sold in the USA won't play PAL DVDs, will they?

There's no such thing as a PAL DVD - or NTSC, for that matter. They are
just called that to identify the region they are 'allowed' for.

That seems strange because it was labeled PAL Region 0. Sorry that I
didn't say that in the first post. And aiui Region 0 means it will
play in a dvd player set for any region.

 

On Thu, 1 Apr 2010 17:34:05 +0000 (UTC), "Geoffrey S. Mendelson"
<gsm@cable.mendelson.com>wrote:

William R. Walsh wrote:

I've seen some drives that would reset this counter if the firmware
were updated. However, it was my understanding that NTSC and PAL
playback were not constrained to the region setting.

IMHO the best versions are the ones that do not remove region code
setting, but do not remember the changes permanently. So each time you
turn on your computer, you get a fresh drive as it came from the factory.

This does not affect the operating system, which has its own counter.

To be honest, I have not done this in probably 3-4 years on a PC or
other Linux, etc drive. I've only done it on an internal Macintosh
notebook drive.

It probably did not need it as it was made before the short time Apple
disabled reading a DVD as data. It was IMHO a "trial balloon" which failed.

Geoff.

If you are going to the trouble to protect your region counter you
might as well just copy the DVD to your hard drive using software that
will make it region free. It's no less legal than not having to change
your drive's region is it?

 

[Ian Jackson]

In message <3kvcle.u44.17.1@news.alt.net>, MeatPlow@?.?.invalid writes

On Thu, 1 Apr 2010 17:34:05 +0000 (UTC), "Geoffrey S. Mendelson"
gsm@cable.mendelson.com>wrote:

William R. Walsh wrote:

I've seen some drives that would reset this counter if the firmware
were updated. However, it was my understanding that NTSC and PAL
playback were not constrained to the region setting.

IMHO the best versions are the ones that do not remove region code
setting, but do not remember the changes permanently. So each time you
turn on your computer, you get a fresh drive as it came from the factory.

This does not affect the operating system, which has its own counter.

To be honest, I have not done this in probably 3-4 years on a PC or
other Linux, etc drive. I've only done it on an internal Macintosh
notebook drive.

It probably did not need it as it was made before the short time Apple
disabled reading a DVD as data. It was IMHO a "trial balloon" which failed.

Geoff.

If you are going to the trouble to protect your region counter you
might as well just copy the DVD to your hard drive using software that
will make it region free. It's no less legal than not having to change
your drive's region is it?

If the region coding of your DVD doesn't match that of the DVD drive,
you can't play it or explore its contents until you have changed the
drive coding. However, as I suggested, if you run DVD43 in the
background, you should be able to play it and copy it without any
problems. [Note: As installed, by default, DVD43 runs at start-up, but
you can easily block that, and run it only when required.]
--
Ian

 

[William R. Walsh]

Hi!

BEWARE!!!! you can only change the drive like 4 times and
then it stays in the last format.

I've seen some drives that would reset this counter if the firmware
were updated. However, it was my understanding that NTSC and PAL
playback were not constrained to the region setting.

I don't remember which drives behaved that way and which ones did not.

William

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

William R. Walsh wrote:

I've seen some drives that would reset this counter if the firmware
were updated. However, it was my understanding that NTSC and PAL
playback were not constrained to the region setting.

IMHO the best versions are the ones that do not remove region code
setting, but do not remember the changes permanently. So each time you
turn on your computer, you get a fresh drive as it came from the factory.

This does not affect the operating system, which has its own counter.

To be honest, I have not done this in probably 3-4 years on a PC or
other Linux, etc drive. I've only done it on an internal Macintosh
notebook drive.

It probably did not need it as it was made before the short time Apple
disabled reading a DVD as data. It was IMHO a "trial balloon" which failed.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm@mendelson.com N3OWJ/4X1GM
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or
understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the situation.
i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found in the Wikipedia.

 

[Dave Platt]

In article <81ieciFu3eU1@mid.individual.net>,
Phil Allison <phil_a@tpg.com.au> wrote:

The vast majority of DVD plays sold in the USA will not play a PAL formatted
dick - those that will output a PAL signal that the owner's TV set must be
able to cope with.

Generally true. There are a few exceptions, though. Some higher-end
DVD players contain frame-rate converters, which can do an on-the-fly
conversion from the PAL format (encoding and frame-rate) to NTSC or
HDMI. It isn't necessary to have a PAL-capable television (although
you may get better results if you do, and just disable the frame-rate
and format conversions in the player).

These players are also usually "region-free" or region-selectable.
There aren't many manufacturers of these, they tend to be
lesser-known names ("boutique" brands such as Oppo), and you won't
tend to find these players in local stores, but they *are* available.

--
Dave Platt <dplatt@radagast.org> AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Dave Platt wrote:

These players are also usually "region-free" or region-selectable.
There aren't many manufacturers of these, they tend to be
lesser-known names ("boutique" brands such as Oppo), and you won't
tend to find these players in local stores, but they *are* available.

Several years ago someone brought me one to look at for them, which
cost them $50 at Radio Shack. It was a progressive scan unit and had
the ability to switch between PAL/NTSC/Autosystem TVs. It was locked to zone
2. It had a 100-240 volt autoswitching power supply.

The exact same unit, under the same brand name was sold by several stores
online that catered to the Indian population. It was "zone free". Unlocking
codes could be found on the net with a quick search.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm@mendelson.com N3OWJ/4X1GM
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or
understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the situation.
i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found in the Wikipedia.

 

[WangoTango]

In article <m5cf87-5go.ln1@radagast.org>, dplatt@radagast.org says...

The vast majority of DVD plays sold in the USA will not play a PAL formatted
dick - those that will output a PAL signal that the owner's TV set must be
able to cope with.

See, this is the problem with Phil.
When he's right he's right, but usually he's just bat shit crazy wrong.

The "TV" output on an NTSC player couldn't possibly output a PAL signal,
and who is even using those outputs anymore anyway?
The digital output of a player HDMI or Component output is straight
digital data and it could care less if the disk is intended for a
particular region and it doesn't know anything about PAL or NTSC.

I have a region free player that puts out HDMI data no matter what the
source disk claims to be its' format. I'll bet if I hooked up the the
NTSC output it will have as good a picture as the source can provide
also. All a DVD has on it is data, what the player DOES to that data is
the magic. Up scaling, output format, and so on are just things that
are done to the data after it has been pulled off the disk.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

The "TV" output on an NTSC player couldn't possibly output a PAL
signal, and who is even using those outputs anymore anyway?
The digital output of a player HDMI or Component output is straight
digital data and it could care less if the disk is intended for a
particular region and it doesn't know anything about PAL or NTSC.

True, but... Wouldn't the component output have to match the scanning rate
of the particular TV it's connected to?

The question I asked still has not been answered... How would the digital
data on a DVD be formatted so that it could be output at 480 lines or 576
lines, with minimal "adjustment"?

I suppose I'll have to pull out my copy of "Video Demystified", if I can
find it.

 

[WangoTango]

In article <hp57k3$jg6$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
grizzledgeezer@comcast.net says...

The "TV" output on an NTSC player couldn't possibly output a PAL
signal, and who is even using those outputs anymore anyway?
The digital output of a player HDMI or Component output is straight
digital data and it could care less if the disk is intended for a
particular region and it doesn't know anything about PAL or NTSC.

True, but... Wouldn't the component output have to match the scanning rate
of the particular TV it's connected to?
I can set the output to 480, 720, or 1080i, what more do you need?

Got a little button on top and off it goes setting the output of either
the component or HDMI to the selected setting.

Once again, this is all a function of the player's processing of the
data and not anything inherent TO the data.

The question I asked still has not been answered... How would the digital
data on a DVD be formatted so that it could be output at 480 lines or 576
lines, with minimal "adjustment"?
Digital processing.......

How does a player up convert to 1080i?
Digital processing......

I suppose I'll have to pull out my copy of "Video Demystified", if I can
find it.
I doubt that's going to help you with DVD info.

 

[Phil Allison]

"Wanker Tango"

The vast majority of DVD plays sold in the USA will not play a PAL
formatted
dick - those that will output a PAL signal that the owner's TV set must
be
able to cope with.


The "TV" output on an NTSC player couldn't possibly output a PAL signal,

** Shame that is just completely WRONG - fuckhead.

and who is even using those outputs anymore anyway?

** The majority of DVD viewers using TV sets.

The digital output of a player HDMI or Component output is straight
digital data

** Wrong again fuckwit - Component, S Video or Composite outputs are all
analogue signals.

and it could care less if the disk is intended for a
particular region and it doesn't know anything about PAL or NTSC.

** Wot an utter fucking imbecile.



.... Phil

 

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <81ieciFu3eU1@mid.individual.net>,
Phil Allison <phil_a@tpg.com.au> wrote:

** More bollocks.

The data is formatted as either PAL or NTSC on the disk.

Notice you've been strangely quiet about this fundamental mistake while
shrieking at others...

--
*A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.