Will the Pioneer DV-275A (and 578A) play PAL DVD-R (i.e. convert PAL->NTSC) ? (1 Viewer)

[Matthew_V]

I have a CH-500 that will play multi-region and convert PAL --> NTSC, but it won't play back DVD-Rs without locking up after about a minute or two.

I thought it would be handy if the player I get would be able to handle any PAL DVD-Rs that I might record in the future. I had very briefly looked up at videohelp.com what it would take (using a computer and the right software) to convert PAL to NTSC before recording that content to a DVD-R, and it sounded like an involved enough and time-consuming process that I thought it would be far easier to just simply record the PAL content to DVD-R and then just have a dvd player that's capable of both playing DVD-R and converting that PAL to NTSC.

So that is why I am wanting to verify whether the 275A can convert PAL to NTSC (e.g. while playing a region-less PAL DVD-R).

Thank you in advance

 

[Matthew_V]

I thought I'd pass this along in case this might be helpful to anyone else down the line.
I located a region-free PAL dvd of some tv series (so the aspect ratio was 4:3) and brought it into an Ultimate Electronics (which is oddly the only chain down here that sells Pioneer dvd players). The Pioneer 275 played it just fine and didn't appear to vertically squish it like my Apex 600a would (which didn't correctly convert PAL to NTSC). So I figure it's safe to assume it'll handle any region-free PAL DVD/DVD-R, and that's what I will go ahead and buy.
But just for the heck of it, I emailed Pioneerusa.com to summarizing my findings and what has been said here about the 275 and 578A and PAL playback, and I said to them that I was wondering if they could confirm that the 275 would correctly/accurately convert PAL to NTSC.
The reply made me wonder if the person bothered to read the whole email or bothered to read it carefully.
"Pioneer USA does not provide DVD players that are multi region or Pal playback capabilities, the DV578A is NTSC only, the DV-275 is an overseas model and is not handle by Pioneer USA."

 

[Scott Kriefall]

Those support people rarely know much more than the minimal information printed on the spec sheets that are distributed to resellers.

I've tried 4:3 format PAL-encoded discs in my Pioneer DV-563A (the preceding model prior to the DV-578A). It was able to play them, but the video was jumpy. So it does indeed have a PAL->NTSC converter, but the framerate conversion does not work well and I cannot recommend using it.

My Zenith DVB-318 handles PAL -> NTSC conversion much better than the Pioneer.