I have tried the IFOEdit/NeroVision technique which
does convert to NTSC, but leaves the menus inoperable.
Any ideas for converting the whole DVD, including the
built-in menus??
Are you sure you really need to convert the DVD's? Most TV's from recent
years work with both systems. If your TV doesn't, many DVD players (even the
cheaper ones) can do the conversion from one standard to another on the fly,
so the result can be viewed on TV that supports just one.
Living in a PAL country (well, now DVB), a few years ago I bought a cheap
NTSC DVD just out of curiousity, to test if/how it could be viewed with my
then PAL TV. After creating a region-free copy of the disc on DVD-R, it
turned out the TV (21" Sony CRT) actually could display NTSC video
correctly. Even if it hadn't, my DVD player had the option to convert NTSC
to PAL, so the only actual challenge was the region-encoding.
P.V.
Thanks for all the help, but I really need to convert a couple of
disks. And while my DVD players will play absolutely anything,
my neighbor's will not.
So please, suggest some software that will convert a PAL disc
to NTSC including the menus.
The only software package I've had any success with for system
conversion is ProCoder3 - hope you have a fast computer!
I do not know of any programs that convert PAL to NTSC that retains
the menu structure. I use TMPGEnc DVD Author to do the conversion and
create a new menu.
> This is interesting. My TV, a JVC, can read NTSC however, my Samsung
> DVD/HDD cannot and I have a camera that records on HD in NTSC. What
> make of DVD player do you have, and is it a recorder?
First I tested the NTSC disc on some cheap, 40-50 €, player that I bought
around 2005 (don't remember the brand). The disc also plays on my DVD
recorder (Philips DVDR 3355, no harddisk, bought in 2005) and Playstation 3
I recently got.
So far all players I've had have been able to _play_ discs of both formats.
I suppose that's the case with most players these days. But if you mean
you're trying to _record_ NTSC on your DVD/HDD designed for PAL, I have no
experience on that, but I guess it could be different case.
I guess the components used in your Samsung themselves might be able to
receive and encode NTSC as well, but to keep the discs created with the
recorder as standard discs readable by standard DVD players, each recording
should be whole time either PAL or NTSC -- no switching allowed suring
recording. Hence the recorder would have to be sure about the format it's
going to receive to be recorded, and even a brief interference in signal at
the moment of detection could cause misdetection and hence a failed
recording. So I'd imagine the format to be used in recording might quite
likely be hardcoded in the recorder's firmware, or at least it could be in
some hidden service menu.
P.V.
But as I said, my DVD players play everything
no probs.
However, a neighbor has a son who has a family in
another state, who have young children who would love
to see the Mist movie from the UK. So far as I know,
their DVD player will not do PAL (I already made the disc
Region=0). I am not going to buy them a cheap Philips.
Not my job. I am probably not gonna give them a prescription
for buying and hacking a Philips deck to see one movie either.
Really just hoping for an easy software solution.
Oh well ...
> ...
> Living in a PAL country (well, now DVB), a few years ago I bought a cheap
> NTSC DVD just out of curiousity, to test if/how it could be viewed with my
> then PAL TV. After creating a region-free copy of the disc on DVD-R, it
> turned out the TV (21" Sony CRT) actually could display NTSC video
> correctly ...
I'm living in a PAL country too. More than ten years ago, I spent a
month in the USA and brought home some TV recordings on VHS tape. They
could be played fine on my VHS Player, albeit with weaker colors. So
it may be, that PAL players support NTSC, but not vice versa.
--
Cheers
Franz
Good point. It's actually easy to imagine how people in PAL countries could
be more interested in material produced in NTSC part of the world than vice
versa. And that naturally would affect on how much people appreciate the
player's ability to playback 'the other' format.
P.V.
> Good point. It's actually easy to imagine how people in PAL countries
> could be more interested in material produced in NTSC part of the world
> than vice versa.
Actually some of us in NTSC-land vastly prefer stuff from PAL-land.
T'aint much watchable in the US unless you are 12 or younger.
Most of what we watch, excepting the evening news, has been
downloaded off TheBox.bz and burned to disc. But that's
exactly why I want to convert some of these to NTSC for
neighbor's grandkids whose DVD players do not do PAL.
It's the faster and cheaper solution, and it works!!!!!.
And Philips is not the only pal/ntsc player. I have several
Philips, and a recently acquired Pioneer as well. They are
all PAL/NTSC compatible and either come hacked or are easily
hacked to be region free. As the years roll by, I believe there
are more of these than there are the others.
Actually, if you have a computer equipped with DVD burner, and have
experience on installing drivers and software for new equipment, I'd suggest
a capturer like these:
http://www.diamondmm.com/pvr.php
It's quite common among these devices to support both PAL and NTSC (you'll
have to manually choose the standard somewhere in capturing program's
menus). And better yet, these multi-standard devices are relatively easy to
find in any country regardless of the local video standard. After capturing
the videos on your hard drive with the video capturer, you would burn the
videos on DVDs that would be playable on any DVD player that plays NTSC.
But if the computerized solution is out of question, you'll need to find a
DVD recorder that's natively NTSC, which can be difficult in a PAL country.
Probably such a device would be easiest to find in an American web store;
just make sure the DVD recorder you're buying can operate on European
electricity.
P.V.