quote:
Originally posted by Savior
Hi,
Can you tell me what dvd players play NTSC and PAL format dvd's I need an all in one solution with no region coding.
Thanks
You are asking two very different things:
- NTSC/PAL format
- Region codes
Those two have nothing todo with eachother.
For both things there are aswell hardware "solutions" as software solutions.
NTSC/PAL format: Most players of today support both formats. But you also need a software that can play those two formats in the correct way (NTSC has a higher framerate (30fps) aposed to 25fps for PAL, but has a slightly lower quality, aka number of scanlines than PAL). Most software of today also supports both formats.
Region code: now this is a different story. Almost all DVD drives are not region free. This means they are made for a specific region. The region code is fixed within the firmware (aka chipset) of the DVD drive. You can often change this to another region code, but only 5 times!!! After that the region code is fixed forever. So be extremely carefull if you do that!
In some cases, the manufacture of the DVD drive offers a firmware upgrade to make your drive region free. But this costs big money for obvious reasons, see below.
Now, there are also software programs which can trick the DVD drive into thinking it is a region free drive. These programs act like loaders and patch DVD player programs. Thus these programs are often specific for a particular software. But, remember that such programs are actually hacking tools and are illegal. Although nobody will sue you if you just use it to play an American DVD on an European DVD drive...
Why are there bloody d*mn region codes? Another invention to make our life hard? Well actually, they are another measurement against illegal copying and above all distributing of DVD discs (so blame the guys/girls who illegal copy DVD disc for profit etc..) Movies often come out in America first. By the time they are available on DVD there, they still are playing in the theaters in Europe. To overcome the illegal and mass distribution of American DVDs to Europe, they "invented" the region codes...
(PS: don't start a discussion on how on earth can they loose money by preventing overseas distribution, because they DO loose money and it is more complicated then people think, taxes and import rights and copyrights, etc are all involved here)
Now to come to the answer to your question: Just look around and look in the specs of a particualr DVD drive. There is NO strait answer to your questions, as a certain type of DVD drive can have region code 2 in one country and region code 5 in another. Region free DVD drives often cost a whole lot more (because you also actually pay for the taxes and import rights, etc for such drives you otherwise would not when buying a region locked drive).
As for NTSC/PAL playback software and DVD drives, don't bother searching. Almost all DVD playback software and DVD drives can handle the two formats. (In fact, I never came across a program which doesn't support the two, and only very old DVD drives support only 1 format)
As for region unlocking programs, those are illegal, but you know where to look for them...
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