Wanted: Unedited Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas

[Muppetsdownunder]

It probably would play because most homemade DVDs are region free. Commerical DVDs can also be made region free quite easily but it is illegal and especially if it is being sold.

I dont think the "odd" trade here and there is bad at all especially if it hasnt been released officially but to charge $70USD for a 50cent blank DVD and a bit of time, its daylight robbery, lol!

 

[anathema]

It probably would play because most homemade DVDs are region free.

True, but this is a PAL disc. Not too many US players can play those.

 

[pollick529]

True, but this is a PAL disc. Not too many US players can play those.

True, but the incompatibility of playing PAL discs is mainly on US PS2s. I tried playing a region-free PAL DVD on my PS2, and it comes up saying "TV system doesn't match." Most US players can play PAL DVDs, but only if it's Region 0 (all regions). The only reason that sometimes these DVD players can't play PAL discs is because the disc is formatted to either Region 2 (Europe) or Region 4 (Australia).

 

[anathema]

True, but the incompatibility of playing PAL discs is mainly on US PS2s. I tried playing a region-free PAL DVD on my PS2, and it comes up saying "TV system doesn't match." Most US players can play PAL DVDs, but only if it's Region 0 (all regions). The only reason that sometimes these DVD players can't play PAL discs is because the disc is formatted to either Region 2 (Europe) or Region 4 (Australia).

In order for a US player to play PAL discs, it has to have a standards-converter chip. These are not that cheap! Hence, players with them are not common. More common than they used to be, but there still isn't a huge demand for the things.

There is no such thing as 'Region 0' or 'region-free', btw.

 

[Stulz]

Region Free

There are DVD players availible that are region free.They aren't readily availible in US stores though. You have to get them over the internet or jump the border.

Also there are DVD discs that are Region 0, which means they will work in any region. Some you can buy anywhere. A good exampleof this would be the GoodTimes release "Muppets Magic: From The Ed Sullivan Show."

Hope that clears things up.

 

[anathema]

Also there are DVD discs that are Region 0, which means they will work in any region.

No such thing as 'region 0'. There is such a thing as an 'all-region' disc or player.

 

[Stulz]

The all region players and discs are more commonly reffered to as region free since it deosn't matter what region coded dics are played or where you play them them.

I know this isn't most scientific way to back up my point but if you look up "All region dvd playes" you'll get about half "region free" and half "all region" hits because they're just different names for the same thing.

 

[anathema]

The all region players and discs are more commonly reffered to as region free since it deosn't matter what region coded dics are played or where you play them them.

I know this isn't most scientific way to back up my point but if you look up "All region dvd playes" you'll get about half "region free" and half "all region" hits because they're just different names for the same thing.

Yeah, I know. No reason to perpetuate the misunderstanding, though :-P

(Professional DVD and video engineer ;-)

 

[Muppetsdownunder]

Its strange how US players and TV's can't play PAL material. It would be hard to find a TV or DVD player here in Australia that doesnt support NTSC. Even an old TV I have works fine with ntsc, the old video player doesnt player NTSC just comes out black and white. The new video player does though, but it doesnt record in NTSC. Why do they have to use NTSC in the US, just to complicate things! wouldnt it be easier if there was only PAL? You Americans love being different with your 100-120v electricity system too!

 

[anathema]

Its strange how US players and TV's can't play PAL material. It would be hard to find a TV or DVD player here in Australia that doesnt support NTSC. Even an old TV I have works fine with ntsc, the old video player doesnt player NTSC just comes out black and white. The new video player does though, but it doesnt record in NTSC. Why do they have to use NTSC in the US, just to complicate things! wouldnt it be easier if there was only PAL? You Americans love being different with your 100-120v electricity system too!

Ok, there are several questions here

Most PAL video players and DVD players can play NTSC tapes, correct. However, they don't output 'pure' NTSC - instead, they output a hybrid signal called PAL60. (Some high-end players can be set to output pure NTSC as well.) This signal is essentially the same timing as NTSC, but uses PAL colour encoding, and is supported by pretty much any TV built in the last 10-15 years. The reason you're seeing a B&W with the equipment you mention is because it does not fully support NTSC recordings, and so cannot decode the colour part of the signal. No PAL video recorder is capable of recording in NTSC - for that you would need a multi-standard deck (which will of course output pure NTSC if required).

The reason for all of this is that there is a high demand in Europe/Australia/etc for American videos (and these days, DVDs), so it's worth the manufacturers' while to support playback. There is virtually no demand in the US for non-US tapes and discs, hence hardly any US TVs support a PAL signal. In order to play a PAL disc or tape in a US machine, the machine has to have a full-blown PAL->NTSC converter built-in so that the output signal is pure NTSC. These are not cheap and, as there is little demand, very very few machines have them.


NTSC pre-dates PAL by a good few years. PAL was actually developed to fix some rather nasty problems encountered with NTSC (which NTSC suffers from to this day, btw ;-). It is by far the superior system, although it has its own set of flaws.