Cluttermagnet Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 (edited) Hi, All- I'm wondering if a DVD I just ordered is going to play on my hardware and software. I have perhaps made a mistake in ordering a DVD from England on Ebay which I found out is going to be in pal format rather than ntsc. I hear ntsc is the standard in the US, but a lot of the world uses pal format. I'm running Linux Mint 20 on an older Dell desktop tower, a Precision 390 at the moment (most of my boxes are Dell T3400). My DVD is an Optiarc DVD RW AD-7200A. What do you think? Is the pal format going to refuse to play on this box? Or can the player software handle it OK? BTW my native player software appears to be Celluloid. Thanks, Clutter Edited April 17 by Cluttermagnet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 Most dvd drives are region specific (well they were when I messed with DVDs) so a PAL would not work in NTSC drive. Ok, it's changed: With very few exceptions, most players sold in NTSC countries have been able to play region-free PAL for at least five or six years now (since about 2003). PAL players all play NTSC, using the PAL-60 quasi display very similar to analog Brazilian PAL. https://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/video/convert-pal-ntsc.htm I do not think it has anything to do with the OS itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 So basically if your drive is newer than 2003 you will be fine, otherwise it may not work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted April 17 Author Share Posted April 17 Thanks! I kind of expect the DVD will play on my hardware, more likely than not. I will know in about a week when the disk shows up. Every now and then I buy a DVD movie used off of Ebay. Average price usually runs 5 to 7 dollars. Today the best prices I could find on this particular movie came from France and England. So I took a chance... US versions of this DVD release were running about twice that. Seems my movie is a 'cult classic' and so commands a better price. Clutter 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 I have thousands of movies but only 2 dvds, Scareface and Shawshank Redemption. I probably haven't watched a dvd in 20+ years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted April 18 Share Posted April 18 Whats the DVD then ? Don't keep us in suspense mate. You used to be able to set your DVD player to play UK or USA discs and change it if needed. Can not remember if it was in Windows or Linux though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted April 18 Share Posted April 18 9 hours ago, securitybreach said: I have thousands of movies but only 2 dvds, Scareface and Shawshank Redemption. I probably haven't watched a dvd in 20+ years. Yeah me too. All my DVD Players lurking around are on the old big hdd type connection and all my mobos do not even have that connection anymore they only have sata connectors. I know you can get connection converters but I have no need. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bookmem Posted April 18 Share Posted April 18 (edited) Am I missing something here. PAL and NTSC are analog broadcast formats that have nothing to do with digital DVD formats like MP3 etc. The original recordings may have been PAL or NTSC but when converted to DVDs they would be in a computer format, not an analog TV format. Edited April 18 by Bookmem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted April 18 Share Posted April 18 58 minutes ago, Bookmem said: Am I missing something here. PAL and NTSC are analog broadcast formats that have nothing to do with digital DVD formats like MP3 etc. The original recordings may have been PAL or NTSC but when converted to DVDs they would be in a computer format, not an analog TV format. So back in the day, DVD players/burners were region specific so a PAL DVD would not play in NTSC players/drivers and vice versa. I had to learn this back in the day when I was ripping and burning dvds. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted April 19 Share Posted April 19 15 hours ago, Bookmem said: Am I missing something here. PAL and NTSC are analog broadcast formats that have nothing to do with digital DVD formats like MP3 etc. The original recordings may have been PAL or NTSC but when converted to DVDs they would be in a computer format, not an analog TV format. It was an early form of DRM. Meant that if you travelled to the USA or Japan say from the UK then you would not buy the latest blockbuster movie on DVD which in those days were a lot cheaper in the USA as they would not play on your UK player. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bookmem Posted April 19 Share Posted April 19 7 hours ago, abarbarian said: It was an early form of DRM. Meant that if you travelled to the USA or Japan say from the UK then you would not buy the latest blockbuster movie on DVD which in those days were a lot cheaper in the USA as they would not play on your UK player. Yes, but that had nothing to do with PAL vs NTSC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted April 19 Share Posted April 19 2 minutes ago, Bookmem said: Yes, but that had nothing to do with PAL vs NTSC. I am confused, that is literally the answer to PAL vs NTSC. NTSC was for the US and PAL was for the rest of the world. Since the introduction of digital sources (ex: DVD) the term NTSC has been used to refer to digital formats with number of active lines between 480 and 487 having 30 or 29.97 frames per second rate, serving as a digital shorthand to System M https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bookmem Posted April 19 Share Posted April 19 (edited) 20 minutes ago, securitybreach said: I am confused, that is literally the answer to PAL vs NTSC. NTSC was for the US and PAL was for the rest of the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC Back in the days of CRT monitors, was there a difference between monitors for the U.S. and the rest of the world? The wiki article you linked refers to ANALOG T.V. standards and NOT computer monitor standards. DRM has nothing to do with NTSC or PAL. DRM us more like an encryption key. Edited April 19 by Bookmem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted April 19 Share Posted April 19 Yes, it has everything to do with DRM. Per the DRM wikipedia entry: Quote DVDs are also formatted for use on two conflicting regional television systems: 480i/60 Hz and 576i/50 Hz, which in analog contexts are often referred to as 525/60 (NTSC) and 625/50 (PAL/SECAM) respectively. Strictly speaking, PAL and SECAM are analog color television signal formats which have no relevance in the digital domain (as evident in the conflation of PAL and SECAM, which are actually two distinct analog color systems). However, the DVD system was originally designed to encode the information necessary to reproduce signals in these formats, and the terms continue to be used (incorrectly) as a method of identifying refresh rates and vertical resolution. However, an "NTSC", "PAL" or "SECAM" DVD player that has one or more analog composite video output (baseband or modulated) will only produce NTSC, PAL or SECAM signals, respectively, from those outputs, and may only play DVDs identified with the corresponding format..... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code#PAL/SECAM_vs._NTSC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bookmem Posted April 20 Share Posted April 20 (edited) 9 hours ago, securitybreach said: Yes, it has everything to do with DRM. Per the DRM wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code#PAL/SECAM_vs._NTSC You must not be reading that article fully. Yes, it does mention PAL, SECAM vs NTSC, but it also says DVD players can play both and that there is an entirely different set of region codes for DRM and that media players like VLC ignore DRM anyway. Edited April 20 by Bookmem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted April 20 Share Posted April 20 7 hours ago, Bookmem said: You must not be reading that article fully. Yes, it does mention PAL, SECAM vs NTSC, but it also says DVD players can play both and that there is an entirely different set of region codes for DRM and that media players like VLC ignore DRM anyway. I went through this daily for years. I burned dvds for a living, literally. You can claim what you want but I know for a fact the difference between the region formats. I am tired of trying to convince you of facts so I will not respond any further,. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts