[H-GEN] DVD Legal Issues

[Michael Anthon]

Robert Brockway wrote:

> Thanks, that's a really good point. I have a VCR there that can play NTSC
>
>but I wonder if the DVD players are doing this too.  A bit of research may 
>be in order.
>  
>

The latest player I bought (a $70 no name brand thing) has the ability
to switch the output between auto/ntsc/pal/pal60 (from memory, not sure
about the PAL60).  My TV (also an el cheapo no name brand thing) is
capable of displaying PAL and NTSC and does both quite well (I can't
tell the difference).  The only catch I have found is that if you have
it set to PAL and play an NTSC disk then the playback is noticeably
jerky.  I suspect this is due to the way it converts NTSC to PAL
(probably just drops frames).

As to the region coding, the cheap unit has none.  My older TEAC one
that we bought quite a few years ago does have a region lock but a 10
minute search on google found a region hack that could be accomplished
simply by opening the tray and punching a code sequence into the
remote.  This brings up a "secret" menu which lets you change the region
and includes a region "9" which means it ignores the region coding.  I
believe a vast majority of players have similar methods to fiddle with
the region coding.

Cheers,
Michael