Hack of the Year--PAL to NTSC in one minute!

[Kstyle]

I wanted to thank rherron for this in the PAL to NTSC thread at the top of the page where I found it, but I can't post on that thread, for whatever reason, so I'll to do it here where maybe a few more folks will be as blown away as I am by the incredibly quick, easy and effective hack rherron posted:

"You can use a program called IFOEdit to sort of trick your DVD player into playing PAL DVDs, and it is VERY, VERY easy to do.

Using IFOEdit, open .IFO files. The program will have two windows of information. In the bottom window there will be lots of lines of text. Look for the lines (there will be 1 or 2 or more depending upon which IFO file you are looking at) of text containing the word "PAL." Double click those lines. A dialog box will open. There is a button to select PAL or NTSC. Select NTSC. Save the file. It will ask if you want to change the .BUP files as well. Answer "Yes." You're done. Burn away.

This is not a true conversion (PAL to NTSC) but changing the info files like this will trick many DVD players into believing this is an NTSC recording. I have heard it will not work on all DVD players but it works great on mine. No problems whatsoever. It does nothing to alter the actual video files, so there is no deterioration of the quality. It is my understanding that many (most?) newer DVD players are capable of playing both NTSC and PAL though they are not sold that way (perhaps because of pressure from the movie industry because it helps make it easier for them to maintain its region encoding system -- just a guess).

The worst thing that could happen is that it wouldn't work on your player and you'd have wasted $.50 cents on a DVD+R. Back up every file in the "VIDEO_TS" folder that is not a video (VOB) file and if this doesn't work for you you can restore the folder to it's original state (this is also a good idea in case you ever wish to trade the show or reseed it, etc.)."

Man, it works perfectly. All my old PAL vids are now happily playing on my 2002 Sony dvd player, with better pic/sound than my NTSCdvds. This simple hack is so easy, so free, and so useful. Probably the best hack I've ever found for sheer usefulness. Makes you realize what a load of crap the region stuff is, just a simple line command, and just there to make our lives harder and the big boys richer. Times is a changin', boys!

Thanks again to rherron! (And the ifoedit folks for the freeware! It also deletes menus, FBI/HAL warnings, etc, and is here:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/IFOEdit.htm)

Another Happy New Year of endless fine music to all!

[dcbullet]

You know what is REALLY the hack of the year? The $30 DVD players that are the size of a paperback that play NTSC and PAL so you don't have to do anything.

That just might be me though.

[pawel]

It works because most players have a chip for decoding both format but i.e. PAL is disabled on the memo level. You may check www.videohelp.com database of hacks how to enable certain features for some players by entering a code from the remote control.

[Karst]

NTSC is baaad! Nearly equal to lossy. ;)

[pawel]

NTSC is baaad! Nearly equal to lossy. ;)
agree :lol = Never The Same Color :lol

[AAR.oner]

You know what is REALLY the hack of the year? The $30 DVD players that are the size of a paperback that play NTSC and PAL so you don't have to do anything.

That just might be me though.

:thumbsup

[Kstyle]

You know what is REALLY the hack of the year? The $30 DVD players that are the size of a paperback that play NTSC and PAL so you don't have to do anything.

That just might be me though.

Yeah, guess it is. I've got a much sweeter dual-region machine than that in the main soundroom. If you care enough about lossless quality, you might want to care enough to look at ARCAM and NAD rather than $30 crap. That just might not be you, though.

What I don't have is all my friends also owning a good dual player, so this hack enables me to give them copies that will play on whatever they have.

Anyhow, thanks for the friendly reply. Have fun with your paperback-sized player! Might want to get an ipod to go with that; it's really small and the quality should be good enough for you.

[dorrcoq]

You know what is REALLY the hack of the year? The $30 DVD players that are the size of a paperback that play NTSC and PAL so you don't have to do anything.

That just might be me though.

Bill - you ARE the man!:D

[KoolKat]

Yeah, guess it is. I've got a much sweeter dual-region machine than that in the main soundroom. If you care enough about lossless quality, you might want to care enough to look at ARCAM and NAD rather than $30 crap. That just might not be you, though.

What I don't have is all my friends also owning a good dual player, so this hack enables me to give them copies that will play on whatever they have.


You might want to let on to them about the NTSC/PAL players then
Or even share the Ifo-edit trick......times are a changin'.

Glad to see that you are slowly catching up :lol

K_K

[lastepic]

Yeah, guess it is. I've got a much sweeter dual-region machine than that in the main soundroom. If you care enough about lossless quality, you might want to care enough to look at ARCAM and NAD rather than $30 crap. That just might not be you, though.



What's all this about 'lossless quality'? When we are talking about DVD, we are talking about MPEG which is ALWAYS lossly..in other words all DVD is lossy.

[pawel]

What's all this about 'lossless quality'? When we are talking about DVD, we are talking about MPEG which is ALWAYS lossly..in other words all DVD is lossy.
do you mean that $30 player is as good as $xxxx? :lol

[tgunn2760]

I wanted to thank rherron for this in the PAL to NTSC thread at the top of the page where I found it, but I can't post on that thread, for whatever reason, so I'll to do it here where maybe a few more folks will be as blown away as I am by the incredibly quick, easy and effective hack rherron posted:

"You can use a program called IFOEdit to sort of trick your DVD player into playing PAL DVDs, and it is VERY, VERY easy to do.

Using IFOEdit, open .IFO files. The program will have two windows of information. In the bottom window there will be lots of lines of text. Look for the lines (there will be 1 or 2 or more depending upon which IFO file you are looking at) of text containing the word "PAL." Double click those lines. A dialog box will open. There is a button to select PAL or NTSC. Select NTSC. Save the file. It will ask if you want to change the .BUP files as well. Answer "Yes." You're done. Burn away.

This is not a true conversion (PAL to NTSC) but changing the info files like this will trick many DVD players into believing this is an NTSC recording. I have heard it will not work on all DVD players but it works great on mine. No problems whatsoever. It does nothing to alter the actual video files, so there is no deterioration of the quality. It is my understanding that many (most?) newer DVD players are capable of playing both NTSC and PAL though they are not sold that way (perhaps because of pressure from the movie industry because it helps make it easier for them to maintain its region encoding system -- just a guess).

The worst thing that could happen is that it wouldn't work on your player and you'd have wasted $.50 cents on a DVD+R. Back up every file in the "VIDEO_TS" folder that is not a video (VOB) file and if this doesn't work for you you can restore the folder to it's original state (this is also a good idea in case you ever wish to trade the show or reseed it, etc.)."

Man, it works perfectly. All my old PAL vids are now happily playing on my 2002 Sony dvd player, with better pic/sound than my NTSCdvds. This simple hack is so easy, so free, and so useful. Probably the best hack I've ever found for sheer usefulness. Makes you realize what a load of crap the region stuff is, just a simple line command, and just there to make our lives harder and the big boys richer. Times is a changin', boys!

Thanks again to rherron! (And the ifoedit folks for the freeware! It also deletes menus, FBI/HAL warnings, etc, and is here:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/IFOEdit.htm)

Another Happy New Year of endless fine music to all!


I just tried this with the Pink Floyd documentary and it works great.

I burned a copy of the originally seeded DVD in PAL format and then converted this with IFOEdit, burned it to a DVD-RW and am now watching it.

The entire conversion took less than two minutes.

Amazing! Thanks!

[pawel]

The entire conversion took less than two minutes.
It's not any form of conversion - AV stream is left untouched. The trick changes just a control data in ifo/bup files which allows to pass a lock on PAL format of a player.

[tgunn2760]

It's not any form of conversion - AV stream is left untouched. The trick changes just a control data in ifo/bup files which allows to pass a lock on PAL format of a player.

Yes, I ran the "converted" files through GSpot. The framerate was still 25 FPS and the resolution was still 720X756.
After the "conversion" I reverted it back to PAL and am still seeding the torrent at Yeeshkul.
Very handy application to have around if your dual player breaks down, like mine recently did.

[dementrium]

Yes, I ran the "converted" files through GSpot. The framerate was still 25 FPS and the resolution was still 720X756.
After the "conversion" I reverted it back to PAL and am still seeding the torrent at Yeeshkul.
Very handy application to have around if your dual player breaks down, like mine recently did.

That was because actually you did not converted anything in the .vob files. Just a bit of info in the .ifo file(s).


My non-pro opinion on the subject. I don't need to convert videos but tried this "trick" out of curiosity (and because my father's old TV cannot display european PAL. We have PAL-N, here, which is incompatible with PAL443).

My results were crap: at the end of every second the video does a kind of "jump" to catch the frame at the next second. My guess? You are fooling the player to run 29 frames per sec, whereas the original video has 25 frames/sec.

Of course, I can be completely wrong. :D

BTW, all this debate is well documented here: http://www.thetradersden.org/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=3556

[tgunn2760]

That was because actually you did not converted anything in the .vob files. Just a bit of info in the .ifo file(s).


My non-pro opinion on the subject. I don't need to convert videos but tried this "trick" out of curiosity (and because my father's old TV cannot display european PAL. We have PAL-N, here, which is incompatible with PAL443).

My results were crap: at the end of every second the video does a kind of "jump" to catch the frame at the next second. My guess? You are fooling the player to run 29 frames per sec, whereas the original video has 25 frames/sec.

Of course, I can be completely wrong. :D

BTW, all this debate is well documented here: http://www.thetradersden.org/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=3556


I had no such problems. Mind you I only tried it on one show, results may vary later on, but from what I have seen so far, I like this tool.

[dementrium]

^^ Yes, IfoEdit is a very handy tool. I'm actually using it to make chapters or create new .ifo files for isolated .vob files.

I know you can do a lot more with it, if you dig deeper.

[Dave_Jr]

Thanks so much for the IFO edit...it worked wonders for me..now I can reseed a show....

[direwolf-pgh]

Thanks so much for the IFO edit...it worked wonders for me..now I can reseed a show....:nono: :nono: :nono:

[toad]

I tried the trick method once or twice , but did not get it to work (?), so I bought an inexpensive player (30 bucks) and it plays all now . . . even some old scratchy DVDs.

new question : What method should PAL be viewed on HDTV? I've heard that even if you have a PAL compatible player , it's the resolution of PAL that does not play/view on HDTV?? . . . tricks, techniques, converter(?) . . . anyone . . .

[mikey4603]

I got some Region 0 PAL DVD's from Australia from one of my favorite comics, and figured the Region 0 would be OK with my DVD/Blu-Ray players...NOT. I did the DVD Shrink thing to make sure the region 0 thing was really really stripped off since my players did not like these DVD's at all...no luck. So I tried the IFO EDIT 'hack' to change the PAL specification to NTSC, and burned the DVD's again (using CDBurnerXP, and awesome freeware program which even supports dual-layer DVD blanks, which I used). And YEEHAH! I am watching it right now, and it looks GREAT with my fussy Samsung BD-C5500 Bluray (loaded with firmware and a source of major bitching on the net). And the video quality was NOT compromised, which I have read on other posts with others that have used various methods to convert PAL (a better video quality, BTW) to NTSC.