I’m looking for a good but affordable DVD player that will play both NTSC and PAL DVDs properly.
Can those of you who have such a player let me (and others who are interested) know what you have and if it works properly and if you would recommend buying one.
I’ve read that several of these players aren’t as good or reliable as one would want.
I think all the well known brands are good quality, Yamaha, Pioneer, Sony etc. They all have multi-region players. They don’t cost that much nowadays either. dvd-recorders are more expensive but the cost for them is also getting lower.
if you’re interested in high quality and higher-division products (in the 700 dollars and up class) i can’t give you much advice, but so many internet sites sell multi-region dvd players. just pick the best one.
I’ve got a ten year old TV that doesn’t even have digital inputs. Cost about 100 USD new. No way I would consider spending 700 USD on a DVD player, even if I had that much money (which I don’t).
I was hoping I could get a decent one for $100 or so.
The problem is not only do NTSC and PAL have a different number of lines on the screen, but a different frame rate. I’ve read a lot of the inexpensive multiregion players either don’t work or create a lot of “motion blur.”
I’d love to get all those Koch DVDs. Thanks for the Amazon links. Maybe someone who has one of those players can make a recommendation to me and user “me”.
To play both NTSC and PAL discs properly you might also want to consider the option of investing into a HTPC.
And if you have TV-out in your computer, the cheapest way is just to buy a certain cable between your TV and computer and use the computer’s DVD-player. That’s how I’ve done it and there has been nothing to complain about. The de-interlacing and all the aspect ratio stuff can be done by software filters which work perfectly assuming you have enough cpu power.
I’ve 2 multi-region players. One cost €50, the other €65. Cheap and nasty, but between them they play everything I can throw at them. One thing to be aware of: there is a difference between multi-region and region free. Some mult-region players don’t play all regions, while region free will play everything. I buy mine from amazon. Checking out the buyer comments will give you a good idea what’s to be avoided.
Most DVD players are capable of being made multi-region with a hack. Just type into google - dvd manufacturer, model number, and the words multi-region hack - (eg. philips dvp3020 multi-region hack) and you should be directed to the information. In order to watch both PAL and NTSC discs you must have a compatible TV. If you haven’t the picture may appear in black and white or not be viewable at all, but most UK tvs these days seem to play NTSC discs ok, so I presume US tvs will play PAL.
Most DVD players can be “cracked” but still you need to worry about the NTSC/PAL conversion issue.
I watch all my non-NTSC and non-region 0/1 discs on my computer.
Computers are able to display NTSC & PAL correctly unlike TV sets in America.
By default, DVD-Rom drives will “lock up” after you change the region code 4-5 times, however, to override this you can simply download a region-free patch for like 700kb. That’s less then a megabyte folks!
Cracking a DVD-Rom drive in a Mac is way more complicated compared to a IBM compatable PC.
Once you’ve found your multi region DVD player hack and implemented it (pressed a sequence of buttons on the remote to access a hidden menu) and have a PAL & NTSC compatible TV (MULTI), remember to set your DVD player’s Video Set-up TV Type to MULTI. I don’t leave my DVD player on standby when not using it so this setting reverts back to PAL after being switched off. If I forget to change it back to MULTI and play a NTSC disc the picture is noticeably jerky. I’ve found the above method to work perfectly on a variety of machines. If you’ve a DVD player that is unable to play PAL/NTSC discs give it a try. Also I’ve heard that SONY DVD players cannot be hacked, so be sure and check that the machine will play both the format and region of discs you have in your collection, if you are considering purchasing one.
Phillips DVP642 is cheap and is great (even though my first one didn’t work properly). You can find it at Wal-Mart and a lot of other stores. Very popular model. I paid $60 Canadian for it, shipped and including taxes.