NTSC DVDs Released in PAL Regions?
 

Hi All,

Really random question, but does anyone know if any NTSC DVDs have ever been released in PAL regions?

I recently bought a DVD from a local high street supplier in the UK and the quality looks close to what I'd expect out of an NTSC DVD. Maybe it's Region Free?

It's not an issue but I'm a geek for this sort of thing and wondered if anyone had come across a similar instance?

Re: NTSC DVDs Released in PAL Regions?
 

A few NTSC DVDs have been released in Australia- there was a set with both The Complete Truth About De-Evolution and Devo Live in Concert that was coded for region 4 but also NTSC. Dual-format displays are more common in some areas and material shot on video looks better in its native form than converted. I have several music DVDs from Germany that are also NTSC.

Re: NTSC DVDs Released in PAL Regions?
 

Some FOX TV DVDs in Europe and Australia were released as NTSC. Just as a random example, the final season of Burn Notice: https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/ft7/Burn-...an/B00DHB3YPM/ Note that despite being an R2 DVD, it specifies NTSC in the item name.

Re: NTSC DVDs Released in PAL Regions?
 

This is not all that uncommon. Arrow Video has released DVDs in their Blu/DVD combos from the UK region that are NTSC. They have actually spoken on this issue and stated that it is intentional to maximize worldwide compatibility. I also have DVDs released by EC Entertainment from Holland and Exposure Cinema from the UK that are NTSC format.

Re: NTSC DVDs Released in PAL Regions?
 

Tartan released a R0 NTSC DVD of Battle Royale. It mentioned NTSC on the front cover. If I recall correctly, this was of particular interest to US customers at the time, since there wasn't a US release yet.

http://i.imgur.com/u29LpMw.png

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCom...eroyale-th.htm


It's not as much of an issue in PAL countries since most of their TVs and DVD Players have been multi-standard for decades. I think it would still merit mentioning somewhere on the packaging though.

You should be able to find out what format the DVD is by checking out the info on a PC:
http://www.winhoros.de/docs/bitrate-viewer/

A standalone DVD player may also be able to show some statistics via a button on the remote, or the TV could show what format the signal its receiving is in (although the DVD player could theoretically alter the signal for compatibility reasons, like the PAL->NTSC conversion most of us in the US have to rely on for viewing PAL discs).

Re: NTSC DVDs Released in PAL Regions?
 

The whole NTSC/PAL and Region coding has caused a lot of confusion over the years.

I think NTSC (Region 0) has been the international standard for any distributor who wants to create one version of a title and release it throughout the world.

NTSC (Region 0) discs seem to play on most DVD players in PAL regions. It's not a guarantee but they seem to play more often than not.

PAL discs (Region 0) will not play on a commercial brand (Sony, Toshiba, Pioneer etc) DVD player in North America. Some no-name brand players sold in North America were designed to play any PAL disc, any Region.

Basically the Region encoding is separate from the PAL/NTSC factor.

If you want, you can author a PAL Region 1 disc but since Region 1 is North America and North America is NTSC this combination would cancel itself out because it is PAL and will not play on a brand-name player in North America.

Re: NTSC DVDs Released in PAL Regions?
 

Many music companies that wanted to reach a global audience would release international DVDs in NTSC.

Most German music DVDs are in NTSC because of it.

Re: NTSC DVDs Released in PAL Regions?
 

This may have been true initially, but not anymore. I have a Blu-ray/DVD player from Sony that can convert PAL/1080i50 to NTSC/1080i60. Prior to that I bought and recommended Philips/Magnavox DVD players that could go all-region with a remote code and convert PAL to NTSC. I had a Samsung with HD upconversion that could do it too.

Re: NTSC DVDs Released in PAL Regions?
 

Sony finally caved on the PAL/NTSC issue for their hardware a few years ago.

Re: NTSC DVDs Released in PAL Regions?
 

I guess the thinking was since Blu-ray is neither NTSC nor PAL, the need to restrict DVDs became unnecessary. Many of the brand name DVD players could be easily hacked for PAL/NTSC but I'm not sure if it worked as easily for Region bypassing.

Re: NTSC DVDs Released in PAL Regions?
 

Meaning that they made their stuff more or less compatible? The Sony Blu-Ray player I had before giving it to my crazy ex-girlfriend wouldn't play PAL discs. I don't know if their TVs in the US can display a PAL signal.

Every Pioneer player I've had has been able to play PAL discs in their native format, meaning they won't display on a non-PAL capable TV.

BTW an issue the Oppo BDP-203 has right now is if you have it set on "Auto" it will output PAL material as NTSC. It doesn't have the setting their previous players had where you could tell it if your TV supported PAL, NTSC or both, but Oppo told me they're working on adding that. Right now I have to manually switch it to UHD 50hz if I want to see PAL discs properly.

Re: NTSC DVDs Released in PAL Regions?
 

Their players now play and can convert PAL to NTSC. They used to have a strict policy that their hardware wasn't supposed to handle PAL video in NTSC countries.

Re: NTSC DVDs Released in PAL Regions?
 

Yep, I have a 2 year old Sony Blu-ray player that plays PAL DVDs just fine, but I also have a 4 year old Sony DVD player that will not.

Re: NTSC DVDs Released in PAL Regions?
 

Does this only apply to Region-Free PAL DVDs? Do the players disregard the Region designation as well?

Re: NTSC DVDs Released in PAL Regions?
 

Mine is chip-modded so it will play DVDs from any region, but one straight out of the box would likely only play region 1 or 0.

Re: NTSC DVDs Released in PAL Regions?
 

That isn't quite true, though. In "PAL" countries, there is a blu-ray standard that is incompatible with many US players and TVs, called 1080i/50, meaning 1080i playing at 50hz, to match PAL countries' traditional refresh rates.

This is the native framerate for HD television shows in the UK and therefore, many UK TV blu-ray releases in their native Region B countries will be 1080i/50 releases. If those same shows are released in the USA, they are standards-converted to 1080i/60 or 1080p/24fps, the latter of which results in the exact opposite of the old 'PAL speedup' phenomenon, something I like to call '24fps slowdown', meaning the converted picture's sound and picture plays 4% slower than it should.

As with DVD (and NTSC), all three standards (50i/60i/24fps) are required components in every country's blu-ray standard except for the USA. Naturally, the US doesn't require compatibility with 50i, bringing us back to the old PAL/NTSC thing.

Re: NTSC DVDs Released in PAL Regions?
 

Yep, mythmaker18 is correct about 1080i/50. Technically, Blu-ray also supports 720p/50, although I don't know of any Blu-rays that use that resolution/framerate. Possibly some extras on some BDs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray#Video

I recall with the UK Red Cliff (International Version) Blu-ray, the disc was region free, but the trailers that play before the menu were 1080i/50, causing some issues with US BD players.

I also recall that the UK Planet Earth BD was 1080i/50, while the US BD was 1080p/24. However, for Planet Earth II UHDBD, it was released 2160p/24 worldwide:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarc.../#1281fd0c1b67