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I compiled a video cassette of musical events from TV for American friends and sent it to them. They could not play it because it was not compatible with American players. I now want to send them a commercial DVD. Would this be playable on an American player? They don't know.
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The answer is probably going to be no.
The issue with the video cassette was probably that the UK system is PAL and the US is NTSC. These are not compatible.
Whilst dual format players exist, they're not great and not as common as they used to be.
With a DVD you have two problems. One is that it may be NTSC rather than PAL the second is that it may have region protection on it. Region protection basically means that a DVD must be played on a DVD play from the same region.
Again, multi region players are available, but they're again not as common as they used to be.
Not knowing what you're trying to send, you may find that ordering it on Amazon US and having it delivered to them will be a solution.
If you have more details, perhaps we can suggest an approach.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Tue 30 Oct 12 at 11:28
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Send them a player with the DVD?
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If you burn the DVD yourself it'll be region free and work fine.
NTSC / PAL won't apply if they have a vaguely modern DVD player and TV (basically anything made in the last ten years). I always found it far more difficult to get the interlacing right, but if it looks right on your DVD player it'll look right on theirs.
You could probably set the DVD recorder or software to NTSC but in this day and age all it'll affect is the frame rate. My own camera is set to NTSC simply to get 30 frames per second instead of 25.
Edit - oh, just seen you said commercial DVD. Use computer to rip DVD and burn unprotected and de-regioned version back to a blank disk. Technically illegal but morally fine as long as you send the original along with it.
Same notes as PAL and NTSC as above.
Last edited by: Fursty Ferret on Tue 30 Oct 12 at 12:29
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Further to what Fursty Ferret has said;
A European DVD player which plays PAL is reasonably likely to successfuly play an NTSC DVD.
The same is NOT true of a US player. Whilst some NTSC players in the US will successfully play a PAL disc, most will not.
If you will do this often, sending a player is likely to be the most successful approach. If it is once in a while, then see if you can buy the DVD with the correct region/format. Amazon US is a place to start.
Ripping the DVD and then writing your own DVD is an excellent idea. However, depending on your technical comfort level, ripping/burning a DVD is not always the most intuitive process especially if you wish to manipulate the format.
Ditto with a VHS player, it may be simpler to send a player.
Of course, dual format players are available in the US, depending on whether or not your audience wants to go to the expense and effort of obtaining an additional player, that is an alternative, you will still need to deal with region coding.
I have family in the US, South America and the UK. We all have children and used to try to send each other discs for birthdays, Christmas and whatever. It was always a disaster and never worth the effort required to play them.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Tue 30 Oct 12 at 12:56
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>> Send them a player with the DVD?
>>
We have an elderly American friend and we send recordings of UK TV programmes to her.
A few years ago, on one of her visits to the UK, we took her to Richer Sounds and got a UK portable DVD player.
With a suitable mains adapter for the unit, she watches in delight and even likes the adverts. ( Any thing British delights her)
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IIRC there used to be websites that told you how to convert DVD players to non-regional, via hidden menus. All because it was cheaper to buy US DVDs and have them sent here rather than buy them in the UK.
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My DVD player is region free - I cracked it years ago.
But the whole issue of multiregion DVD players and TVs with compatibility with NTSC and a frame rate of 60Hz is that set ups in the UK and Europe quite commonly can cope, but to get multiregion in the USA is rare, and TVs that can display PAL at 50Hz are nigh on unheard of there. (USA analogue was NTSC, 60HZ and 525 lines).
PAL effectively is an improvement on NTSC as it can be seen as the same basic system, but with Phase Alternate Lines. With a degraded picture such as might be caused by reflections, PAL colours weaken, but NTSC colours change altogether. Fields of purple cows are not unknown!
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>>NTSC colours change altogether. Fields of purple cows are not unknown! <<<
which is why in the early days is always called 'Never The Same Colour'
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Indeed... now back to the question.
Best option is a USA version of the DVD. But maybe it's not a disk available in that format? If we know what it is he's trying to do then we can help.
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>> >>NTSC colours change altogether. Fields of purple cows are not unknown! <<<
>>
>> which is why in the early days is always called 'Never The Same Colour'
>>
I thought it was "Never Twice the Same Colour".
May favourite interpretation is SECAM: "Something Essentially Contrary to the American Method".
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>> I compiled a video cassette of musical events from TV for American friends and sent it to them.
>> They could not play it because it was not compatible with American players.
>>
For some years I have recorded TV programmes using my Toshiba RD-85DTSB recorder and then edit & burn DVDs on the same machine.
When exported to the USA all these home DVDs of course play on my friends UK DVD player.
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If the media is DVD, and if the player in the US is region free (most can be "fixed") and if they are using an HDMI cable it will work.
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Who needs Wikipedia when they can use this site? Many thanks for all this amazingly detailed information but I will drop the whole idea.
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Never tried it, but would it be possible to rip the DVD using handbrake, combine the resulting files into a zip, put the file into Dropbox or similar (2GB max so should fit?) and the other end grabs it, unzips it, plays it directly or burns a DVD?
Perhaps there's some reason that wouldn't work.
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It would be better to RAR the DVD files into lots of small files, and UNRAR (combine them back) at the other end. The small packets are small enough to email.
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Whatever. The point is it doesn't need a parcel or a physical player at the other end, and it's probably much quicker.
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>> If the media is DVD, and if the player in the US is region free
>> (most can be "fixed") and if they are using an HDMI cable it will work.
>>
Multiregional players are actually illegal in the US as they contravene the DMCA, being a method of working around a commercial restriction. It is however perfectly legal to own multiple players of different regions. Go figure.
US spec players have different firmware to those sold in the rest of the world and the usual region changing and multiregion capabilities that can be activated elsewhere are not available. This different firmware is why many will not play PAL disks at all (regardless of the cabling used, which is immaterial to the reading process).
This is also why when O'Barmy gave Sweaty Gordon a load of DVDs, it was widely reported that this was pointles as Broon would be unable to use them. The story orginated in the New York Times, courtesy of that legendary Yank understanding of International affairs and was unthinkingly recycled by the dumb hacks of Fleet Street.
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>> >> If the media is DVD, and if the player in the US is region
>> free
>> >> (most can be "fixed") and if they are using an HDMI cable it will
>> work.
>> >>
>>
>> Multiregional players are actually illegal in the US as they contravene the DMCA, being a
>> method of working around a commercial restriction.
Most of the details required to "free" players come from the states. The firmware is rarely that different.
This different firmware is why many will not play PAL disks at all (regardless
>> of the cabling used, which is immaterial to the reading process).
No its not. PAL will play from a DVD over HDMI cable to a US TV. If you can get the player to accept the DVD. I send plenty to friend in the states.
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UK/USA DVD standards - No FM2R
