UK DVDs

[Dave]

If my wife buys a DVD of last Fridays wedding, I assume it will not play in Canada, due to the region lockout.

Will DVD de-crypt cure this problem?

Dave

[Ian Jackson]

In message , Dave writes

It's a while since I used it.

However, if it's for watching on a computer, download, install and run DVD43 (freeware) before you play the DVD.

certainly works with well with American Region 1 DVDs.

If it's for playing on a DVD player, as well as the region coding, the player and or TV might not like the PAL 625-line signal.

[Ron Lowe]

Small-scale producers won't have region coding on their DVDs.

However, the vid will be PAL / 25fps.

Most DVD players in the Rest Of The World can handle PAL and NTSC and output whatever you want. But in the US ( and I'd guess Canada ), they are generally fixed NTSC only. It will just barf at the PAL disk.

Decrypting progs typically don't fix the PAL / NTSC conversion required.

You can hunt for a program, or ask if the producers can create one for you in NTSC / 30fps

[John Williamson]

There *will* be several available......

a start. I'd guess the North American continent will be one of the biggest markets.

Failing that, Any DVD decrypter will rip it, and just about any video editing program will convert it. I use AnyDVD, which is illegal to use in the USA due to the Millenium copyright act or whatever it's called.

[Ron Lowe]

Uh, I didn't realise they were discussing *that* wedding; I assumed some smaller family affair.

It kind of passed me by...

In that case, the link you provided is just the ticket.

[John Williamson]

You didn't have a coach full of passengers demanding to listen to it, I guess.

[Dave Liquorice]

But the signal on the disk hasn't, hopefully, been anywhere near PAL coder, digits all the way. It's the player that coverts the digital signal from the disc to whatever analogue is required. Be that PAL, SECAM or NTSC... Wouldn't the player be connected via HDMI anyway or at the very least RGB SCART avoiding PAL completely? Frame rate might be a problem but the programme may not last as long...

[John Rumm]

Depends on if the DVD is region coded - not all are once you move away from movies - and also if your player is multiregion - and most are even if not officially.

Yup - most ripper packages will lose region coding while doing their stuff.

[Andy Burns]

PAL vs NTSC format is a misnomer for DVDs, but is generally used to distinguish between 576line 25fps and 480line 30fps discs.

SCART in leftpondia? unlikely ...

[Ron Lowe]

As per other reply. The framerate is different. US players will generally BARF at PAL disks.

Bringing your own player is a possibility, and I've done that ( portable dvd player withcomposite out ) and guess what? The TVs are hard-coded to NTSC /30 on the composite video in. So unless your player can output that from a PAL disk, you are still stuffed.

Modern TVs with HDMI will sync at all the necessary rates, and will work, so long as you have a player with HDMI out and the player can read the PAL disk in the first place.

It's a bit dissapointing that US devices are so head-in-the-sand NTSC only, whereas everwhere else is multi-standard compatable.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

More likely a component input. And these support upscaling, unlike SCART.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Use one of the readily available DVD rip libraries and reburn as a region free DVD.

Or buy it in canada..

[The Natural Philosopher]

Not true at all.

the movie itself will be encoded at PAL frame rates and line sizes, or NTSC. there's more to PAL than a encoding..there are implicit frame rates and so on.

whether or not a modern player is smart enough to do the conversion I do not know.

But my DVD creation software certainly gives me a PAL/NTSC option when creating a DVD disc..

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Dave saying something like:

Rip and burn it as an xvid .avi file - almost guaranteed to play on any DVD player unless it's prehistoric.

[Gary]

nero will convert pal to ntsc. it will also rip the disk but you wll need to block the region code with somthing like region free dvd or simular.

[Dave Liquorice]

digital

PAL,

625/50 and 525/60 have virtually identical line rates, the frame rate is different, obviously, hence my comment about the programme not lasting as long.

'tis true but as far as the data on the disc is concerened it is not PAL NTSC or anything else "analogue". It's "only" a transcoding process from MPEG-2 to output it in any digital or analogue format you desire.

A "PAL" disc has the video encoded with as [ 720 | 704 | 352 ] x 576 pixels 25 fps and "NTSC" one [ 720 | 704 | 352 ] x 480 29.97fps.

Not that hard to drop the 96 "extra" lines when going from "PAL" to "NTSC" be a bit quick 'n dirty but who cares these days...

As you say easier to buy a disc in Canada, there won't be a shortage of versions I'm sure.

[Ian Jackson]

It's a few years since I used Nero to do PAL-NTSC conversions (just for fun). The resulting video was certainly watchable, but tended to be a bit 'edgy' and slightly 'stuttery' at times. Also, on my ancient PC, the conversion process takes a very long time (typically four or five hours).

As I said, unless the DVD is to be watched on a DVD player, it's much easier simply to watch it direct on a computer, and use DVD43 to tell the drive to ignore the region coding (and, I believe some of the forms of copy protection). It only takes few seconds to download it and install it.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It's still a misnomer because PAL only refers to the coding. You could have 625/25 NTSC if you wanted - indeed there are variations around the world.

[Richard Russell]

The fact that it's MPEG-2 coded doesn't make it any easier to do the conversion. Converting frame rates, e.g. 25 to 29.97 or vice versa, has always been very difficult if you want to maintain a high quality. Even a second hand 'broadcast quality' standards converter will set you back around £5,000 (and around ten times that when new).

It's not the *line conversion* that makes it difficult, it's the change in the frame rate. To achieve smooth motion portrayal it is necessary to interpolate frames corresponding to intermediate time intervals, and that involves some kind of Motion Measurement. The best converters use techniques like Phase Correlation to predict where 'objects' ought to appear in the output frames.

Richard.

[Dave Liquorice]

You just clock the data in at a rate that generates 29.97 rather than

25 and the programme runs 17% shorter. As I said quick 'n dirty and who cares...