I'm confused about some simple stuff regarding region codes and video formats. (1 Viewer)

[Paul D Young]

My friend's roomate moved to Dublin (which I believe is located in Ireland?). He lived in the USA up until a month ago. He decided to take his Region 1 DVDs with him. (Bad idea?) He bought a DVD player when he got to Dublin and tried to watch his DVDs on his new TV and DVD player. He says that everything is in black and white. Now for the questions:

1. Is these a region code problem or a video format problem?

2. Is Dublin using PAL?

3. What can he do to make his DVDs work over there so he doesn't have to start a new collection? (He is coming back in 3 years.)

4. Will my friend be lucky enough that his roomate will send back all the DVDs so that he can use them for the next 3 years?

5. Feel free to add any comments on issues I forgot to mention as I am not intimately familiar with the problem or video formats or region codes.

6. Is this the right section?

7. I almost forgot to ask: What region code is used for DVDs bought in Dublin?

 

[YANG]

If your friend can play his region1 collections in EUROPE(PAL region that is) with black and white pictures,there is no problem with his player.Which i assumed that is already multi-region capabled.

The problem lies on his television,which may not be friendly to NTSC signals.It can be the television color system setting,or the TV is not multi-color system at all.

During your friend's stay in DUBLIN period,if he adds more titles to his collection which are PAL discs,he will be problem playback in U.S,as TVs in STATES are not all PAL friendly...

 

[JohnAD]

Paul:

1. A format problem. The DVD is in NTSC, the TV is probably PAL. If the DVD had been from a different region, it would not have played at all (assuming he doesn't have a code-free player).

2. Yes

3. Buy a multi-format TV. From what I've heard on the forum, they're pretty common in Europe.

4. I don't know. I guess that depends on whether he gets 'lucky' or not.

5. Your friend *will* need to get a code-free DVD player to watch any movies purchased while he's there, as Europe is Region 2.

6. Probably.

 

[KDHM]

Since your friend will be returning to the US the best bet would be to get a multi region player that can convert NTSC to Pal and Pal to NTSC so when he returns any DVD's he buys in Europe will be playable when he comes back, The only other problem is that Europe and The US use different power so if he wants to use the same player when he comes back it will need to be duel power, or he can use a small transformer to convert the power. I have been using my US Apex multi region player with a transformer here in Germany for the last three years.
You might also want to pass on this web store for US DVD's The prices are almost the same as US prices and shipping is free to Europe Play.com
kd

 

[KlausWinkler]

The only problem is the NTSC/PAL issue.

Depending on the model of the DVD player tht simple solution could be to set the player to output PAL60.

As an alternative he could try to connect the player with the TV via RGB.

 

[LennyP]

Yes he's either got a R1 DVD player or a multi-region since region 1 discs already play, though in black in white, that's 'cause the player's output settings are messed up or TV's input ones, as all TVs in europe can accept Pal/Secam/NTSC, even cheap old 1992's tvs bought in germany and russia based on my experience.
Better buy a Malata N996, it perfectly converts and outputs either Pal or NTSC in any system, any region, also progressive, DTS, and zoom features, etc, best player in the world,then he'll be able to play his R1 dvds even if the TV doesn't accept NTSC, he'll just set it to pal, and when he comes back to US, just change it to NTSC and convert those he purchased there to that, there is no problem at all.

 

[stephen abbot]

Seems like more info is needed here. If he has just bought a new TV in Ireland then I would be 99.9% sure it will be NTSC capable. It sounds like his DVD player is multi regioned so region coding is not an issue.

The bottom line is for those of us in PAL territories (which includes the Republic of Ireland) most tv's (100% of under 7year old ones) display PAL/NTSC or at least PAL60. There is no need to perform hiddeous NTSC/PAL conversions as Kim stated.

It is more likely that the DVD player has been told to ouput PAL60 rather than NTSC or vice versa and the TV is not correctly detecting that, or has been set on manual detect and is not correctly detecting anything other than PAL.

Purhaps more details as two which models DVD and TV are used.

Regards

Stephen.

 

[Paul D Young]

My friend is going to email his roomate with the link to this thread. Maybe he will join the forum and give us more information on his equipment. Otherwise, thanks for the help so far.