[Barrybud]

Hi,


A friend is trying to buy a DVD (movie) online and it has this comment.


"Playable in all regions. Incompatible with Canada and USA NTSC systems."


I don't profess to know it all, buy that statement seems confusing. Would you buy this for for a USA player?


Thanks,

Barry

 

[William]

It is probably PAL with region 0 coding.

 

[Frode]

What william said. I'm kind of surprised though, as there's not that many legit discs that are region 0. There are some sure, but you might want to make sure you're buying from a reputable shop that doesn't sell bootlegs.

 

[Barrybud]

Thanks guys.


Are there many movies that are PAL only?

 

[mossym]

any movies from europe are going to be pal, so lots of european made movies and tv series are going to be pal only. Sports titles from europe are another that are usually only pal

 

[Frode]

Barry, PAL discs generally aren't sold in countries that use NTSC since there's very few players and TVs that are compatible with them.


However in countries that use PAL almost all discs are released in that format. Take a list at this list I googled to see which ones use what:

http://www.spcomms.com/standards.html


Incidentally for DVDs SECAM is equivalent to PAL, and PAL-M is equivalent to NTSC. The SECAM/PAL-M distinction is handled by the player output, not the disc.

 

[Gary McCoy]

Probably the most common workaround for playing disks with different Region Codes and TV standards is a HTPC and DVD-ROM drive. You don't need much PC power to do this, any old PC with 500Mhz or better can be used, and the DVD-ROMs are commonly less than $40US, and the drive vendor usually gives you a copy of a software DVD player.


The danger is that you'll catch the HTPC bug once you see how it produces such gorgeous high-quality images.


Gary

 

[Einold]

The following also work:

1. A region-free DVD player that does PAL-to-NTSC conversion.

2. A region-free DVD player that can output both NTSC and PAL, and a TV that can accept both NTSC and PAL signals.

 

[Barrybud]

Thanks for your help everyone!