PAL DVD?? Any help please!

 

By the way, if you ever want to play region-coded DVDs on your PC, you can purchase DVDidle:

 

 

This will enable you to view region-coded DVDs from other regions even if you have used up the 5 or so times you can play other region codes before the DVD firmware 'locks' into one region code.

 

My guess is that, if you play this codefree DVD on your PC, it will work.

 

 

EDIT: By the way, just to confuse matters, there are several versions of the PAL standard. For example, the UK uses PAL-I whereas the majority of other countries that use PAL have different variants which are non-compatible. Thus a PAL TV from Greece or Germany, for example, will not work in the UK out-of-the-box. I had to have my Sony TV modified to work with PAL-I when I relocated from Greece (PAL-B or PAL-G if I recall correctly) to the UK. My TV would display the image OK but there was no sound, Most modern TVs allow the user to select several different TV standards, and my Sony TV allowed me to select various versions of PAL, SECAM (the French TV standard) and NTSC, but no PAL-I, so it went to the TV repair shop to be modified.

 

 

 

 

The problem is not the region coding in The Lost Chord's case, as The Lost Chord mentioned that it is a code-free (a.k.a. Region 0 or Region All) DVD. The problem is that the DVD he wants to buy is a PAL DVD, and would therefore not be displayed on a standard US TV set, as the TV standard in the States is NTSC. Thus, even if TLC had a multi-region or modded DVD player, he would not be able to play the PAL DVD and watch it on his TV set.

 

For example, I also have a modded DVD player that can play DVDs with any Region Code but I still cannot watch NTSC DVDs on a PAL TV. However, I have a TV set that enables me to use the remote to switch between PAL-I, PAL-B, PAL-G, PAL-D and PAL-K, SECAM (the French standard) and NTSC. So, if I configure my TV set to NTSC, then play a Region 1 NTSC DVD in my modded Region 2 DVD player, I can watch Region 1 (or any other region, come to that) NTSC DVDs on my TV.

 

If The Lost Chord's US TV set has the facility to enable him to switch to PAL mode -- I'm not sure from which country the DVD is from, so it could be PAL-I (British), or PAL-B/G/D/K -- and he uses his Region 1 DVD player then he could watch the DVD on his TV. This is because 'Region 0' (a.k.a. 'Region All' or 'code-free') DVDs can be played in any DVD player. But, as I say, they will only be watchable if the TV set is compatible with the TV standard of the DVD (PAL. SECAM, NTSC - each of which has several variants to make matters worse).

 

(Just to confuse matters, in Brazil they use PAL-M which, if I understand correctly, is a sort of hybrid between PAL and NTSC.)

 

I don't have the same problem on my PC, though, because it can play NTSC and PAL DVDs. However, the firmware of a PC DVD drive locks to a specific region (Region 2 in my case) after having played five region-coded DVDs, so the solution to that problem is to use DVDidle (see my earlier post) which allows you to play DVDs from other regions on a region-locked PC DVD drive.

 

I even had to buy a multi-standard (PAL, SECAM, NTSC) VCR player so that I could play VCRs from various countries. For example, PAL videos bought in Malaysia won't play correctly on a British PAL VCR - you can watch the picture but not hear anything (well, hear a lot of static). Different variants of PAL: PAL-B/G in Malaysia, PAL-I in the UK.

 

With so many different TV standards, then DVD Region Coding on top, it's very confusing. The following article is quite a good introduction to DVD region coding.

 

 

For TV standards (NTSC, PAL, SECAM etc.), which are nothing to do with DVD Region Codes, the following site has a comprehensive guide:

 

Why manufacturers think that people don't need everything that comes outside US?

 

For example, all DVD players and all TVs in Russian stores  play both formats.