X-Treme DVD...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
Just got a DHL package from our Red Bull friends in Austria containing a couple new Xtreme Sports DVDs that I licensed music for. I’ve got tunes on a lot of these DVDs, and something bothers me: I can’t watch them, because they’re usually PAL. Does any multi-media junky here have a DVD player that does both PAL and NTSC, and is it worth a shit? (And by “multimedia junky,” I mean “bizarre Dutch man-boy bondage fetish junky,” of course. I know how you guys are.)
Caveat: it has to shit NTSC out its output holes; I don’t care ’bout PAL, because my TV doesn’t understand it. Which is what got me in to this mess in the first place.
18 comments
can't help with the dvd's, but i am totally digging the rabbit with a pipe. what's the story there?
check the Pioneer players, pretty sure they all do PAL, I have two and they also play DVD-A and SACD, but it they're region code locked, then you need something else with a simple hack or a firmware hacked Pioneer.
Many do PAL (NOT SONY) the region code free is harder to find.
You can always make it region code free and burn a new copy with your mac or pc.
I'm a little surprised - here in the antipodes where PAL is the default, playing both PAL and NTSC is the sort of 'premium' feature you'd expect, say, a $50 DVD player from China to have, let alone one you'd paid real money for.
I can't remember the model number but Target has a Phillips for $40 that has a firmware update available or special code to enter that will get it to play PAL. One of my friends got one for that very reason.
The rabbit is a new model Smorkin' Labbit, a series that Frank Kozik does for KidRobot.
http://www.kidrobot.com/products.cfm?&dept=TOYS&typ=KIDROBOT
I have them all over my house, in sizes ranging from tiny to medium (in the pic) to obscenely large. There are literally dozens of smoking bunny rabbits in my house.
-CR
Well, thought one is to play DVDs on your laptop - If your laptop has a NTSC video out, you should be good.
But, if this was an issue for me, I would walk a block down to Chinatown, and plop down the fat $50 for the grey-market DVD players that play ALL country codes, and NTSC and PAL, and have mangled english in the setup menus. Definitly a nessecity for the international set who want to watch their pirated Hindi Bollywood movies, their pirated Chinese Kung Fu movies, and their 100% authentic Dutch man-boy videos ('cause image quality is important on those).
If you don't have a Chinatown nearby, then check out the local flea market. Anyplace where you can buy pirated DVDs and blatently fake designer clothes, you can buy the really sweet DVD players.
really just about all(most) do PAL>NTSC conversion, again not Sony, but it's very common- but are they region code free or 0?
i only suggested pioneer, because it sounded like you wanted something a little better. About all the cheapo's do, the $20 Fred Meyer one will probably be fine... for awhile. Damn, just gave away my old Sampo which was nice Code Free and PAL to NTSC.
Philips DVP3040 should do the trick. I got one for $40 at worst buy. Region-free, dirt cheap and it plays divx, xvid and stuff off DVD-Rs as well, which is pretty nifty. I haven't tried the PAL<->NTSC conversion yet, but it's supposed to do it well.
I'm not positive about this, and if it is region coded it will be a pain in the ass, but if you have an imac, download vlc player. In my experience, it will play pretty much any format except for windows media player. It's also free.
If you don't mind watching on your computer, the delicious open-source VLC will play anything without regard for stern region coding.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Don't think I saw this previously mentioned, but you should google the model of your dvd player, quite a few dvd players have codes that can be input via-remote that will let them suddenly play all regions...
If that doesn't work(and you're not down to use VLC as others have suggested), Region-free dvd players are the shit. There are a lot of kickass boutique-y companies in Europe that release great obscure films(Second Run, Masters of Cinema, Artificial Eye, etc.).
Most of the el-cheapo dvd players at wal-mart/costco/sams club that are off brand (i.e. coby, daewoo) will play PAL in addition to NTSC, though it won't list that feature on the packaging.
I've got both a coby and a daweoo player, both purchased for about $35 from sams and wal mart that i got for the purpose of playing some PAL discs i got off of ebay.
For the person with just tons of useless time on their hands, they could rip the disc to their drive, convert it to PAL and burn it back to dvd. But that defeats the purpose of being lazy and just buying a player that will play it to begin with.
MacTheRipper -> Popcorn
or Handbrake
go here and learn:
videohelp.com
I've been very happy with the Oppo Digital OPDV971H http://www.oppodigital.com/
If you go to the dvd benchmarking on http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-bin/shootout.cgi?function=search&articles=all you'll see it does very well.
It upconverts to 1080i and outputs
* Analog Stereo Output (RCA): 1
* Coaxial Output: 1
* Optical Output: 1
* Composite Output: 1
* S-Video Output: 1
* Component Output: 1 - supports 480i, 576i
* DVI Output: 1
$228
I use it to watch movies on a Sony VPL-HS51 projector. It rocks. And yes it does convert pal to ntsc.
http://www.hkflix.com/ has a variety of multi-region/pal players.
But its often best to order directly from oppo.
That's what I'm talking about, right there. Thanks for that. I have no interest whatsoever in monkeying with any sort of DVD playback on my computer(s). I only have one region switch left on the iMac, and that's just a big pain in the arse, and life is too short to spend an afternoon trying to convert something.
-CR
Whoo hooo! Labbit!
I love the corncob pipe, and the giant moustache is pretty amazing too.
Multi-region DVD players that handle NTSC/PAL are easily and cheaply found, but doing it isn't the same as doing it well. Be sure to get a few opinions about image quality, regardless of the device you buy. You need to make sure that the image scales properly {on cheap Cyberhomes, eg, widescreen DVDs from the UK will play back as stretched, full-frame monstrosities} and that the jitter on the edge of the screen is at least unnoticed in use.
HK Flix have always done right by me:
http://www.hkflix.com/hardware/
I use a hardware-modded XBox, and it's been perfect 98% of the time.
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