macnorton

I have been on a Venture Brothers kick lately and I wanted to get The Tick on DVD.

Well I knew that the two releases are missing an episode each, but I did find out that region 2 has the whole series uncut.

After a little more digging I found this DVD player to be able to play PAL discs:

http://www.oppodigital.com/dv980h/dv980h_features.asp

Do I need to do anything else to get region 2 discs to play?

theWitcher

It requires entering a code via remote to change the default region from 1 to 0: 9210.

I'm quite fond of my Oppo 981.

macnorton

Ok. Aside from that, there isn't anything else need right?

theWitcher

HDMI cable?

I don't think so. I've got both a 971 and a 981 and, to the best of my recollection, both players have played everything I've tried, including PAL disks, R2 disks, etc after entering the remote hack.

I'm not certain about the 980, but both of my Oppo players can also output a PAL signal (as opposed to simply converting the PAL-->NTSC) so if you have a display or projector that can handle PAL you can also avoid any standards conversion artifacts.

orangerunner

When you play a PAL disc on a NTSC North American player you don't get a "true" PAL signal. The machine converts it to NTSC and therefore the quality is not as good as playing a PAL disc in a PAL player on a PAL monitor in the UK/Australia.

However this is certainly much less hassle than having to deal with VHS PAL.

Mr. Salty

Oppo includes HDMI cables with their players.

statcat

I have a phillips 5992 and it plays any region as well as video off flash drives and harddrives. I didn't have to enter any code out of the box oddly, it works fine. I was expecting I had to but for some reason I didn't

DVD Guy ATL

This one has worked out well for me too... inexpensive and plays PAL and all regions without a hitch. Just make sure to download the latest firmware or you may have intermittent issues powering up the player. This has been a great value for the money.

Edited to add: You do normally have to enter a one-time code (readily available on the 'net) to go all-region, but then you are set.

X

Sounds like you might have got a returned unit that somebody had already done the region-free hack on.

statcat

possible but everything appeared new and untouched when I got it including the tape on the box being perfect, so if it was someone went to some trouble.

bsmith

Some players in North America can also output PAL without the conversion if so desired and some display devices sold in North America can also handle displaying PAL, so it is possible to get the maximum quality from a PAL disk even here.

I have a Marantz DVD player that can convert PAL to NTSC or output PAL directly. And my Sony projector supports PAL output as well as NTSC. So in my case, when playing an R2 disk in North America I go straight PAL all the way through with no conversions.

Norm de Plume

Another option is to use DVDSmith and ImgBurn (both free) to create NTSC DVD-R backups of PAL DVDs. In some cases, you may need to use DVDShrink or DVDFab5 during the process. It can be rather involved, but once you get the hang of it, it's nothing.
It's handy to create an NTSC copy, because then you aren't limited to watching the movies only on a PAL-compatible player.

mythmaker18

Not on current Philips models, though, unfortunately. I think the 5140 was the last model to allow the users to be able to switch from NTSC output to PAL or MULTI. Unfortunately, the 5140 does not upscale to full HD, though (think it upscales to 1080i, not 1080p. The 5982 and associated models were the first to not only offer 1080p upscaling, but also the first to 'hide' PAL/MULTI outputs).

There's some "unofficial" firmware floating around out there for various models that restores the colour system switching (I downloaded one for my 5990). Also, some 5982s will let you switch to MULTI by pressing the "3" button with the disc tray ejected (but some 5982s do not). I was able to restore the PAL/MULTI output to my other 5982 by some firmware trickery and a remote key-press that I, unfortunately, failed to write down. Tried the same trick on a 3982, but didn't work for that machine.

Anyway, with Philips machines, your mileage will vary as to whether you can get it to output a true PAL picture in the USA.

Alan Smithee

Anyone know which US LCD TVs will display a PAL signal with no conversion? I've asked this around a few places but haven't found an answer- I know Vizios do but are there any other brands? I'm leaning towards getting the 55-inch Vizio just because it can probably display PAL. PAL converted to NTSC looks like ass.