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  #1  
Old 2007-06-05, 12:42 AM
AustinSoul AustinSoul is offline
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NTSC & PAL Questions

Now that I can Burn DVDs I ran into the PAL problem. My DVD player plays NTSC but not PAL.

1. If I read other threads correctly I'd be better off buying a new DVD player that plays both NTSC and PAL than buying converter software. Is that correct?

2. Doh - I'm an idiot - I better edit out this second question before the whole world knows it.

Last edited by AustinSoul; 2007-06-05 at 12:51 AM.
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  #2  
Old 2007-06-05, 02:20 AM
spiritinaphoto
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Re: NTSC & PAL Questions

Correct. If you have to convert from one format to the other, it's going to degrade the quality.

So go get yourself a nice cheap DVD player and stop worrying about it. You may also want to do some more research and make certain the model you buy is region-free (or can easily be made region-free). I have encountered some DVDs that were sourced from standalone DVD recorders, and the resulting filesets were Region 2 instead of 0, so this is a problem to watch out for.
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  #3  
Old 2007-06-05, 10:30 AM
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U2Lynne U2Lynne is offline
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Re: NTSC & PAL Questions

videohelp.com has a great list of DVD players. You just put in your criteria and it spits out the players that meet it. http://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers We got a cheap apex player many years ago and it worked great up until a year ago. We are gonna wait to replace it since we are wanting to finally get an HDTV soon.

(PS I saw your second question last night but didn't have time to answer the post so I bookmarked it for this morning. )
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  #4  
Old 2007-06-05, 11:52 AM
AustinSoul AustinSoul is offline
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Re: NTSC & PAL Questions

Quote:
Originally Posted by U2Lynne
(PS I saw your second question last night but didn't have time to answer the post so I bookmarked it for this morning. )

You know -- when you try something entirely new, and there is so much to comprehend, sometimes the most obvious slap-you-in-the-face thing goes unnoticed. I'm just glad I saw it and corrected it quickly enough to hide my shame from almost everybody.
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  #5  
Old 2007-06-07, 02:11 AM
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itsrare itsrare is offline
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Re: NTSC & PAL Questions

HDTV..Hmmm, we are on our second HDTV the first one died two weeks after the 12 month warrenty ran out It was a 42" Philips Plasma.
Our new one is a 42" Philips LCD. Despite using expensive cables etc I was never pleased with the picture quality of either except when playing most official DVDs or watching HD cable. My eight year old 25" Sony is still way better to watch than the pixel filled crap of the other two.
Re NTSC/PAL as the others said just get a cheap player from Walmart etc the cheaper it is the more chance it will play everything, god knows why
Do not do transfers from PAL to NTSC or NTSC to PAL etc I would drop any trader I dealt with who did system conversions of DVDs had them on his list and did not state he had done so, its simply not required these days.
John



Quote:
Originally Posted by U2Lynne
videohelp.com has a great list of DVD players. You just put in your criteria and it spits out the players that meet it. http://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers We got a cheap apex player many years ago and it worked great up until a year ago. We are gonna wait to replace it since we are wanting to finally get an HDTV soon.

(PS I saw your second question last night but didn't have time to answer the post so I bookmarked it for this morning. )
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  #6  
Old 2007-06-07, 04:57 AM
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Re: NTSC & PAL Questions

Didn't I read somewhere else here that there was a quick way to not re-encode a pal disc to ntsc, but to make it 'trick' most ntsc players into playing pal discs?

Am I crazy?

I swear I remember seeing something about it.

It left the files as PAL, but gave the disc some code that made MOST ntsc only dvd players read and play them relatively unscathed.

Where the hell was that?


Oh yeah here it is:
Quote:
Originally Posted by direwolf-pgh
"Convert Trick" for Windows:

1.get ifoedit (freeware)
2. install the program
3. Select OPEN (point to DVD folder)
(note: files in folder will be: VIDEO_TS, VTS_01_0, VTS_02_0, VTS_03_0...etc)
4. Start with the Last VTS file -Select it.
5. Double click the VIDEO attributes line.
6. From pop-up info shown: Change ONLY the VIDEO from PAL to NTSC (radio button)
(you may have one, two or three changes per VTS file)
7. Select SAVE >
8. Prompt will ask if you wish to change the .BUP file - YES! >
9. Repeat these steps for each VTS file & VIDEO_TS file.
10. You are now ready to burn your video for NTSC playback.

*note - this does not "convert" - but tricks the NTSC DVD player
*note - you can not seed this "converted/modified" DVD back out
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Last edited by Audioarchivist; 2007-06-07 at 05:07 AM.
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  #7  
Old 2007-06-07, 05:22 PM
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Homebrew101 Homebrew101 is offline
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Re: NTSC & PAL Questions

Quote:
Originally Posted by itsrare
HDTV..Hmmm, we are on our second HDTV the first one died two weeks after the 12 month warrenty ran out It was a 42" Philips Plasma.
Our new one is a 42" Philips LCD. Despite using expensive cables etc I was never pleased with the picture quality of either except when playing most official DVDs or watching HD cable. My eight year old 25" Sony is still way better to watch than the pixel filled crap of the other two.
John
Why would you buy another Philips if the last one was a POS that died just after 1 year?

FYI, never buy expensive video cables for digital, go to Monoprice.com and get cheap video cables. Monster cable is a RIP-OFF!

Unless you're tempting the gods with long (over 35 foot) HDMI cable runs you don't need expensive cables, it's digital - you either get a signal or you don't.

I agree that many standard definition programs will look worse on an HDTV (actually any digital TV, not just HDTV) because the signal into the TV is crap and a digital TV's clarity exposes the flaws in the signal an analog TV can't. This is even more noticeable the larger the screen is. This is kinda like how a cheap FM radio sounds better than FM on a good tuner and a really good stereo - weaknesses are revealed.

Oh, this was about PAL-NTSC, IFOEdit is the bomb if you only have a NTSC dvd player, it has worked for every PAL DVD I through at my Sony dvd player (probably over 50). So many more shows available, especially all of the great rebroadcasts of Rockpalast!
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  #8  
Old 2007-06-07, 06:01 PM
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paddington paddington is offline
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Re: NTSC & PAL Questions

Quote:
Originally Posted by AustinSoul
If I read other threads correctly I'd be better off buying a new DVD player that plays both NTSC and PAL than buying converter software. Is that correct?
just chiming in with the rest. Don't do it. It's a pain and the results suck.

PAL has 25 frames every second. If you run that on an NTSC player that will looking to reproduce 29.97 frames every second, it's going to 'run fast' i.e. each second will have a few frames from the next second it, and so one. Time will pass faster.

The only was to fix is to make the 25 frames last 1 second when passing 29.97 in one second - in other words, you have to add 4.97 frames to each set of 25 before the next set starts to keep time constant. This doesn't usually work too well, as the frames have to be built from the existing 25 - basically duplicating a few that make it seem like it drags here and there like an old VCR tape.

The method has been refined a bit, but it still sucks. DVD players that do both are pretty common now - nearly all stores will have one or two models that will do both, and they're not too much higher$ than the NTSC only units.

The IFOedit trick is a good one - it's really fast and it'll let you watch the DVD in a pinch on an NTSC player. Much better than wasting shitloads of time actually doing the conversion to yield mediocre results.
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  #9  
Old 2007-06-08, 02:39 PM
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dementrium dementrium is offline
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Re: NTSC & PAL Questions

Quote:
Originally Posted by Audioarchivist
Didn't I read somewhere else here that there was a quick way to not re-encode a pal disc to ntsc, but to make it 'trick' most ntsc players into playing pal discs?

Am I crazy?

I swear I remember seeing something about it.

It left the files as PAL, but gave the disc some code that made MOST ntsc only dvd players read and play them relatively unscathed.

Where the hell was that?


Oh yeah here it is:
I tried the IfoEdit patch method just "for fun" and the results SUCK INCREDIBLE BALLS.
It was explained several times why that trick doesn't produce a decent watching experience.

Just don't do it.
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  #10  
Old 2007-06-08, 05:20 PM
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KoolKat KoolKat is offline
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Re: NTSC & PAL Questions

Quote:
Originally Posted by dementrium
I tried the IfoEdit patch method just "for fun" and the results SUCK INCREDIBLE BALLS.
It was explained several times why that trick doesn't produce a decent watching experience.

Just don't do it.
It does depend on your standalone player.
It will say somewhere that Ifo-Edit is only a 50/50 chance on the trick.
Some will say its the next best thing to X,others have poor results.Suck it & see basically.

BUT...it has tremendous gleeful other uses like creating bups & ifos when clever people seed just vobs for example.

Anyway,
Get a Standalone that plays both chap....THAT is the true clever way

K_K
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  #11  
Old 2007-06-08, 05:35 PM
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Re: NTSC & PAL Questions

I spent a lot of time and money getting it right. Software is very expensive for the good stuff. I bought convertXtodvd and it works okay but has streaking artifacts with quick pans of motion.
I have bought four standalones and only one works flawlessly - the Philips DVP642. Unbelievable PAL>NTSC conversion. I use it to make copies of PAL to NTSC on my standalone burner for friends who don't have the right deck. I've made over 300 DVD conversions with my Philips and it works perfectly. All my friends have bought the same deck with complete satisfaction. Found everywhere for $45 -$65.
Stay away from Daewoo (very scary, power issues, bad hardware) Toshiba (good sound but seems to skip a frame or two every 30 seconds to compensate for the frame rate) and Memorex (Good picture, but seems to have a sound glitch every 30 seconds or so) .
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  #12  
Old 2007-06-08, 05:51 PM
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dementrium dementrium is offline
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Re: NTSC & PAL Questions

Quote:
Originally Posted by KoolKat
It does depend on your standalone player.
It will say somewhere that Ifo-Edit is only a 50/50 chance on the trick.
Some will say its the next best thing to X,others have poor results.Suck it & see basically.
I've just said I tried the fake conversion "just for fun". Yes, maybe the problem are with my two cheap standalones.

Quote:
Originally Posted by KoolKat
BUT...it has tremendous gleeful other uses like creating bups & ifos when clever people seed just vobs for example.
Yes, IfoEdit is a handy tool. Recently, I learnt how to do the chapters, fix aspect ratios and some little things.

Quote:
Originally Posted by KoolKat
Anyway,
Get a Standalone that plays both chap....THAT is the true clever way
K_K
I have no problems with pal/ntsc. In this country almost every TV set & every dvd standalone sold PLAY EVERYTHING tv system & region wise.
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  #13  
Old 2007-06-09, 02:10 AM
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itsrare itsrare is offline
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Re: NTSC & PAL Questions

[quote=Homebrew101]Why would you buy another Philips if the last one was a POS that died just after 1 year?

Simple..There was a woman involved, I looked up TVs with the spec I wanted and then my GF picked out the one that looked "Nice"

"FYI, never buy expensive video cables for digital, go to Monoprice.com and get cheap video cables. Monster cable is a RIP-OFF! "

The leads such as IXOS, Monster etc remain from my days working with video tape, I bought everything and anything to maintain quality of tape recordings and copys back then so these are now used to connect an S-VHS and Betamax recorder to the TV, the DVD recorder and Hif Def box are connected to the TV with short standard cables.
John
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