UK DVD player in the U.S.

[mikeos]

MY daughter took a Panasonic DVD player to the U.S. and finds it will
not output video to her new TV. Different TV standard of course, but is
there any solution?

[Gene E. Bloch]

A region change will be needed to play local (USA) disks, but it's still
unlikely to work, for the reason you cited. You didn't mention what
model of player and what region(s) of DVDs are involved.

Some players can be hacked to output the other standards, in this case
NTSC, and some TVs will play PAL.

DVD players are cheap, and if she is playing NTSC region 1 DVDs, she
should just spend the $30.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

[mikeos]

She bought a Panasonic player which IS multi-region, and does play both
PAL and NTSC discs (I tested this myself before she left last week). She
and my son-in-law intend to return to the UK in a couple of years so
it's not money wasted. She wanted it to play her collection of UK DVDs.

However, she has now managed to connect her laptop to the TV with an
HDMI lead so this solves the problem.

Thanks for the reply.

[Gene E. Bloch]

I'm glad they successfully tried the laptop, but from what you say
above, the player really should have worked.

Years ago I owned a player with similar features; it was able to play
all regions and both formats, and it could output the results to my NTSC
TV of the day.

My player could be configured to output PAL or NTSC; maybe your
daughter's player couldn't do that. Otherwise, it's a mystery to me.

[mikeos]

On 05/02/2013 18:52, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
>
>> Thanks for the reply.
>
> I'm glad they successfully tried the laptop, but from what you say
> above, the player really should have worked.
>
> Years ago I owned a player with similar features; it was able to play
> all regions and both formats, and it could output the results to my NTSC
> TV of the day.

From the manual it says this:

"Signal from PAL discs is output as PAL. Signal from NTSC
discs is output as “NTSC” or “PAL60”. You can select
“NTSC” or “PAL60” in “NTSC Contents Output” for NTSC
discs. (􀀾 26)"

So it seems the output is tied to the format of the disc inserted, and
as the majority of the discs (brought from England) are PAL it seems
that she'll be relying on the laptop.

[Gene E. Bloch]

It is, of course, possible that I misremember the capabilities of my
player. It's been years.

But in any case, today when I want to play one of the few non-NTSC DVDs
I have, I use the computer. Just like your daughter :-)