Alright...DVD-ROM question...

M

Malky

Lived Through the Heat Death
Orderite
Mmkay, this is more or less in reference to my previous post about the PS2's ability to adapt NTSC/PAL formats. I kind of gave up on that.

However, I know it's possible to change the region on DVD-ROM drives...would they distinguish between NTSC and PAL discs?
 
No, unless you buy an illegal one. Those limitations were put in them to reduce piracy (it actually does). Your best bet would be to buy a DVD player from another country, and then buy a PAL to NTSC converter (about as legal as a cable black box) there aren't any built into legal DVD players.

Moral of the story, if you want to watch movies that aren't released in the U.S. you are SOL. Unless you want to pay a lot of money on assorted crap to watch them.

Of course I don't know everything, there might be some other way, but I haven't found it.

Also I usually buy Hong Kong produced movies, they don't have region encoding, and are always NTSC. They are really hit or miss on movie selection though.
 
Buh...wha...huh?

The screen ratios of computer monitors are the same everywhere, so why should it matter?
 
Malkavian said:
The screen ratios of computer monitors are the same everywhere, so why should it matter?
Click to expand...

The issue between NTSC and PAL isn't one of ratios, but rather the lines of resolution, frame rate and I think also the color coding.

NTSC delivers 525 lines of resolution at 60 half-frames per second, while PAL delivers 625 lines of resolution at 50 half-frames per second. (Courtesy of the imdb.com glossary.)

OTB
 
Right, well that's what I meant...but still...I can see where that might be a problem on the television...but what about a computer monitor?
 
The software you use usually gives you an option which region you want to view the dvd. Most dvd drives come with a viewer program which is shareware. These progs have a limit on the number of times you can view a dvd from another region. Buying a full version, I assume would get rid of this limitation. Otherwise there is easily downloadable software to allow you to view them.

With a DVD drive there is no differentiation between the two formats so you don't need to worry. The software takes care of the conversion automatically.

WinDVD site said:
PAL is the dominant video standard in Europe and NTSC (Never Twice the Same Colour - only kidding, but it's no-where near as good as PAL) is the dominant video standard in the United States. When NTSC (U.S.) movies are transferred from film to PAL DVDs, popular in Europe, they play 4% too fast. InterVideo's patent-pending PAL TruSpeed automatically corrects the 4% speed error and adjusts the audio pitch to maintain natural sounding audio. So if you are in a country that sells PAL DVDs and you want to watch American films, WinDVD 4 is the only DVD player that will play them at the correct speed and with adjusted audio.
Click to expand...

I don't know about their claim that they are the only software that does that but you get the picture.
 
I thought you were talking about output to Television, there are ways to change the region and video output on computers. Be careful though, my PC will change regions only a set number of times, after that it stays on whatever region I set last permanently. There may be some software out there that will be able to bypass this somewhere, if I find something I'll tell you.
 
I know I can change the region. I don't care about limitations, either, because I never use my DVD-ROM drive.

I'm just wondering, if I have a PAL disc, will it play on my computer monitor?
 
Yes it should, maybe need software conversion and/or additional codecs, I'll be back with more info later.
 
Got it, I have Intervideo WinDVD prepackaged with my computer and will play PAL DVD movies, if you have it, you should have no problems. You might need to change speed of playback in the options menu, it has an option for PAL playback speed. Use whatever program you have and see if something like that is in the options.

If you need a program, you'll have to buy it. I couldn't find one that was free, I suggest WinDVD http://www.intervideo.com/jsp/Home.jsp download the trial first to see if you like it.
 
Oops, I thought I made that clear in my post? I have Power DVD and although it plays European DVD's, there is some onscreen crap present. WINDVD as I stated above, allows you to play them without annoying blockiness.

The monitor has nothing to do with it. If you read on the WinDVD site or the quote I posted above, they specifically say that their software makes corrections so that it is playable without interference.

Kapitsch?
 
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