Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Harmonia (A) on May 25, 2008 at 12:06:10

In Reply to: RE: Do you need that conversion in a player? posted by David Aiken on May 24, 2008 at 23:50:38

The vast majority of TVs in US are not PAL compatible. Never have been. In fact, I'd say 99.9% of displays sold in retail outlets can't display PAL - there are some front projecters that are exceptions and there may be specialty dealers still importing Loewens (doubtful, haven't seen any of these CRT German TVs in about 7 years). There were a few CRT Sampos sold a few years ago, but they're long gone and your average person never knew they existed. Most people here have no idea there are even diferent video standards.

The TVs that ordinary consumers see at their local electronics stores definitely don't do PAL. Plus many of the DVD players available in stores are set to R1 and aren't region free without hacks - plenty of players don't even have a conversion capability. Some that do don't do it very well. You have to research what players do what out of the box and which have hack codes.

Several online sellers, including Amazon, sell DVD region free converting players. There used to be a specialty dealer selling NTSC/PAL/SECAM tvs on the net - smallish 4:3 aspect ratio CRT TVs targeted for people moving from US to foreign lands. Extremely exxpensive for mediocre, outdated TVs when people can get a much better display that does NTSC and PAL at their destination.

Y'all are lucky in Oz and Europe. It's assumed you'll be watching imported discs. In North American it's just the opposite, it's assumed we won't.

That's why many of us are eagerly awaiting the BD player from Oppo, which will have BD capability, superior DVD upscaling and outstanding PAL>NTSC conversion.

Edits: 05/25/08   05/25/08