About this Huw DVD

[Michael Blackman]

PAL / NTSC are just different frame rate speeds, encoding etc - to put it
very simply and basically without going into to much detail

When you buy your dvd player pay a little extra for a multi zone player that
also does ntsc/pal.  Well worth it.


----- Original Message -----
From: Arin Komins <akomins at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU>
To: <BOC-L at LISTSERV.SPC.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 1:54 AM
Subject: Re: About this Huw DVD


> On Tue, 22 Oct 2002, Paul Mather wrote:
>
> :Subject: Re: About this Huw DVD
> :
> :I think the situation is the same in the USA, but I can't comment from
> :personal experience as I don't own a DVD player.  But, of people I
> :know who have them, their DVD players seem to support both PAL and
> :NTSC (changeable via a menu option), and there are lots of firmware
> :hacks available that can disable/set the region of the player (not an
> :issue with the Huw DVD as it is mastered to be region-free).
>
> Most dvd players you will buy at a consumer outlet will not be region
> free.  (I was burned this way on my first DVD player.)
>
> Many consumer players (noncomputer players...but retail settop
> models) have undocumented hacks (Sampo, for instance) to allow
> players to switch region.
>
> However, unless your TV supports PAL playback (such tvs used to be called
> "multisystem" tvs.)
>
> It could be that modern tvs support pal/secam/ntsc playback, but it didn't
> used to be.
>
> :The point I was trying to make is that I think the stated PAL
> :requirement is a red herring, as any half-decent DVD playback system
> :ought to be able to do the resolution/frame rate conversion on the fly
> :to play on any type of TV.  I would hate to think that someone would
> :eschew buying the Huw DVD just because they thought, "but my TV is
> :NTSC, not PAL, so it won't play..."
> :
> :I could well be wrong, though.
>
> ...but I don't think it's the dvd player that cares, but the TV.
>
> but this is only as far as I know.
>
> Arin
> (back to lurking.)
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> Arin Komins                                   akomins at uchicago.edu
> Manager of Web Systems Architecture
> University of Chicago/NSIT                      tel: (773)834-4087
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