diesteldorf

I have been looking at some VCD sites which I was given in an earlier thread.
Some of these sites sell mainly VCDs in the PAL format. Are their
any that specialize in NTSC format?

dleedlee

is that, regarding vcds, it's essentially transparent/irrelevant. I read somewhere
that most vcds are mastered in PAL yet will play fine on a NTSC player. I have a
couple hundred vcd titles and I have no idea what format they are in.
(How _do_ I tell?)

Anyway, I'm sure someone here can answer more authoritatively.

Electric2k

Agreed. I have no idea why, but all DVD players that are capable of playing VCDs should convert the PAL to NTSC. I think it's build into the VCD spec (wish they would have done this with DVD too). I've tried it on at least 4 brands of DVD players, and haven't had trouble yet.

Peep

They play with no problem on my Sony, but the vertical picture is (understandably) compressed and everybody looks just a little bit flattened. Disturbing at first, but I've gotten used to it.

houtx67

I didn't notice any big dfference on VCD's until I got one where the conversion by my Toshiba cut off the subtitles on Tsui Hark's "We're going to eat you" (early chinese zombie/kung fu). I was going to complain to Poker when I thought I'd try it on my Apex (has DVD PAL to NTSC conversion). It actually came out fine. I also noticed that some of my VCD's which appear to be almost Full Frame are now Widescreen on the APEX.

The bottom line is that (with the exception of the above) I was able to watch every VCD at least functionally.

Furious

Not true, not all NTSC dvd players are capable of PAL VCD playback. It has to specifically be supported by the chipset in use by the dvd player. The vcd spec calls for a PAL vcd player to be able to play PAL mastered vcds and NTSC vcd players to be able to play NTSC mastered vcds. That said, most vcd players and dvd players originating out of Asia include such capability given the split between PAL and NTSC formats in countries such as Malaysia and HK. Most of the major players here(Toshiba, Pioneer, Sony) include PAL to NTSC conversion, although the quality of this varies, with some Sony players not resizing the picture to the correct aspect ratio as alluded to by other posters.

For NTSC vcds, you'll be wanting to look at HK, as most of the vcds are mastered in NTSC. Unfortunately there are HK vcds that are mastered in PAL, and the packaging of course never mentions this. Take a gander at www.dvdshelf.com or www.coolashop.com and look at their selection. Malaysian etailers will only be carrying PAL format vcds, unless they are stocking NTSC bootlegs.