dolphinboy

Hi!

I own hundreds of dvds, so I'm not a newbie but I've never been able to justify getting a region free player. It's already a very expensive region 1 habit and keeping up with releases here takes up enough of my time. If I had more time, more money or money energy I'd get everything.

That said, for the first time I've found something that I want so badly that it's driving me crazy. But I still don't want a player because of all the reasons listed above. The disc was listed as region 2 PAL, so I thought I was clearly sh*t out of luck. But then I was told it was region free.

That confused me because it's region free, but still PAL. Isn't PAL used only in region 2 anyway? What point is it to make it region free and still have it be PAL anyway? Who benefits from this? Then I wondered if it would play on my computer or what a PAL, region free DVD would do in my Sony players.

Can someone please give me some info? It would suck to only watch this on my computer, but if it's only this one I have to do it. I would just like to find out if I even would be able to play it without the PAL conversion.

Thanks.

LBPound

It will play in your DVD player, but your TV most likely will not be able to display the video properly.

It will play in your computer's DVD-ROM drive just fine, though.

Giles

region free NTSC will run on American NTSC based tvs

region free PAL plays on TV that accept the PAL signal.

Someone correct me if I am wrong in this respect, but most of Europe is Region 2 PAL. Region 2 is also Japan but they have NTSC televisions/monitors.

dolphinboy

Thanks. I'll have to think about getting it and just watching it with my computer then.

I just don't understand why it makes sense to make something region free if, in other regions, they won't be able to watch it without a special player anyway. If it's PAL it might as well not be region free.

llzackll

I have seen players that will convert PAL to NTSC and vice versa.

tasha99

Australia is pal too, I think. As for why they chose pal, it has to be ntsc or pal. If they'd chosen to make it a region 0 ntsc, then it wouldn't play on pal tv's.

tasha

Hendrik

"...If they'd chosen to make it a region 0 ntsc, then it wouldn't play on pal tv's."

...sorry - no cigar!... just about any PAL TV produced in the past, say, ten years or so, will let you play Region 0 NTSC DVDs - in glorious color... if the DVD player is region-free, a.k.a. code-free, a.k.a. 'chipped', then you can play NTSC DVDs from Region 1/USA&Canada, Region 2/Japan, Region 3/Korea...

...yup... us DVD fans in PAL regions are lucky that way - unlike DVD fans in NTSC regions, whose NTSC TVs cannot reproduce PAL - unless, of course, you own a (code-free) DVD player that does the PAL-to-NTSC conversion...

. . . . . .

Seezar

While this is usually true, I have found that my current player, the Denon 1600, will not even load up a PAL disc. I find it rather strange, but it will refuse to even attempt to play any PAL discs, and it has nothing to do with region coding, the discs I've tried dont have region encoding.

Hendrik

...erm... "...the discs I've tried dont have region encoding..." ...Titles of these 'Region 0' PAL discs?

Note: "Region 0" is often referred to as "U" (for 'Universal') or 'ALL' (for all regions)...

. . . . . .

LBPound

Weird. That sucks. Probably something to do with video card issues, but I don't know anything about that.

Electric2k

It's NOT weird. Quite a few standalone NTSC players will not play ANY PAL disc, regardless of region.

renaldow

Because multiple regions use PAL. By making it R0 the movie can be marketed and sold in all the various PAL countries w/ out a problem. Also, Region Coding is mainly a concern for major US and European studios that are a member of the MPAA. You'll find that a lot of smaller international studios often don't bother with region coding. It's not mandatory, and I believe there might even be a small fee to be paid to the MPAA when using a region code, not unlike having to pay for a rating symbol. Don't quote me on the last part though.

littlefuzzy

Does anyone know if the old Apex 600A will do PAL conversion? It has a PAL/NTSC switch, but is that only if you are outputting to a PAL TV?

renaldow

Yep, it does. I believe 90% if not all the Apex's do PAL conversion, as do most Chinese players. The thing to be aware of is that none but the regionfree Malata and JVC's (maybe another brand too, I don't remember) can actually convert anamorphic PAL. The chip that does the Anamorphic conversion is also the one that does the PAL conversion, and it can't do both at once.

If you're watching an anamorphic PAL DVD there will be no letterboxing and the picture will be stretched to fill the screen, the same effect as if you set the player up to be used on a widescreen TV. If you have a widescreen TV, or one that does anamorphic squeeze then this won't be an issue for you. If the DVD isn't anamorphic, it also won't be an issue.

People will post that Apex's don't do proper PAL conversion, this is false, they do. They just don't do proper anamorphic conversion.

calhoun07

I am able to watch any PAL DVD I get on my Malata DVD player (you will find a link for it here on DVDtalk!) and the Malata is the best in handling the PAL to NTSC conversion. Hands down, it's the best player I have ever owned!

bboisvert

Exactly. I see people make the claim a lot that "all DVD players will try to play PAL discs." I don't know how that rumor got started, but it simply isn't true. My Pioneer DVL-700 won't recognize PAL discs, including Region 0 ones. You just get a "no disc" error message.


The APEX 600A will do the PAL->NTSC conversion for you, with very slight geometric distortion (barely noticeable). However, it cannot do both anamorphic downconversion and PAL conversion at the same time, so if you have an anamorphic PAL DVD and are watching it on a 3x4 NTSC TV, images will appear stretched.

matome

Yep my Daewoo 3000 will squish a PAL anamorphic disc a little, but it's not unwatchable in 16x9 mode. If I set my Tv to Zoom1 it almost straightens it out.

LBPound

I totally misread his comment. I thought he meant his computer/DVD-ROM drive, hence my video card comment.

dolphinboy

Ok, a lot of talk about players, but are you all sure that a computer will have no problem playing a PAL, region 0 or 2 dvd?

It's close to brand new (the computer). What is it about a computer that converts PAL that can't be easily duplicated on a stand alone DVD player?

As I wrote, I just can't go down the path of a region free player. I have 2 Sonys and they work fine. I think it's great that other people do it, but the cost of even more dvds is too much for me now.

But I really want this one DVD and it's PAL. I will order it if someone can confirm it will play on my computer for sure.

Thanks

LBPound

It's highly unlikely that your computer will give you any problems playing a PAL-encoded disc. I don't know the specifics, other than to know that a computer monitor works differently than a TV monitor in the way it reads video content, interlacing, weaving, all that crap.

You should be fine.

Static Cling

Moving to Hardware.

nekobus

Region 1 JVC players right out of the box will play PAL 0 discs (doing an internal PAL->NTSC conversion) .

dolphinboy

Do you mean that the JVC will do the conversion on its own or do I need to do something? If so, what and are JVC players really good? I've only ever had Sony. How would JVC compare (jvc xv-s302sl and xv-s500bk were the ones that i saw at amazon) and which ones would you suggest that I look at?

Thanks.