Hello all, I know there have been dozens of postings on this issue, and trying to follow them start to finish would give an aspirin a headache. I recently obtained a retail copy of Season 5 of Ally McBeal. It is in PAL format. I attempted to use VOB Blanker to convert it to NTSC, and while it worked on my PC and my multi-region player, it did not work on my regular player. It comes up with 'Disc Error'. 'Playback option not available' Can anyone please suggest something else to try, or perhaps other options within VOB Blanker to make it work. Thanks
You aren't really converting anything, you are trying to trick your player into thinking it's NTSC. Your PC and multi-region player will play it as is, no tricks required. Your regular player ain't buying your 'trick'. One thing to note my JVC plays PAL, but I have to run it through DVDShrink to remove any region coding if it has it.
what you could do is use dvd shrink to do it's thing, but don't let it burn to disk, so you will have vob's, use convertxtodvd to convert the saved vob's to ntsc verry easy, good luck
Hello again, I realize this is all a 'trick' to fool the machine. I tried what the earlier postings had suggested, with no success. I will try the ConvertXtoDVD option, and see how that goes. Thanks
Running through ConvertXtoDVD will result in yet another resize/encode, further degrading video quality, will it not?
Am I missing something? Of course you need to re-encode the file to change it from PAL to NTSC! PAL has 576 lines of resolution, NTSC has 480! Not to mention the frame rate differences... floepie, you are right. RailAce, I really don't think you need to worry about the conversion at all. As long as you have removed region coding then it should still play without a problem. I can't even remember seeing a DVD player that doesn't support both NTSC and PAL. It's usually the TV that has the biggest influence. The DVD player just outputs the signal. The worst that could happen is you see a mildly stretched video due to the 480 lines of NTSC being stretched to fill the 576 lines of a PAL TV or vice versa. Doesn't your TV support a PAL signal?
yup your right he does need to re-encode the pal to ntsc ------------------------------------- its compression that looses quality and hes got the iso on his pc already done... ------------------------------------- you will find that a dvdr size compressed file of pal wont compress any more going to ntsc... unless you force it too, but if already 4300meg ish why shrink any more, just convert it
Hello again, Well, ConvertXtoDVD did the job, to a point. The trial version left a watermark, which was expected. Now, I just need to figure out how to create the original Ally menu. I know I can make menus with ConvertX, but I wonder if there is a way to use the original Ally menus. I appreciate all your input.
Rotary, you have obviously been posting on here for quite some time and I don't mean any offence but you aren't making any sense. Re-encoding to mpeg2 is lossy therefore you lose quality... Period! Just because you recode to the same target size means nothing! Hell, you could even have a 4.35gb PAL DVD and recode to a 8.5gb NTSC DVD and you will STILL be losing quality because you are running the video through the lossy mpeg2 encoding process again. Again, I don't mean any disrespect but I really think you need to dedicate some time to learning more about digital video and compression technology.
OMG!!! Don't you get it? How long have you been on here? Sorry, I don't want to cause any tension but to convert from PAL to NTSC... You need to convert PAL mpeg2 to NTSC mpeg2. They are the same codec, and yes they are both DVD compliant. However, due to the fact that you are running the video through the mpeg2 encoder again. It is lossy, so some information will be lost. Hopefully no visually noticeable artifacts will be present if done correctly but mpeg2 is lossy, so information loss is inevitable. Can I ask you this... If you had a 160kbs mp3 file and recoded it again to 160kbs mp3, would the quality be the same? Or would you lose some quality? I know the answer but I just want to see your understanding of this.
there no tension buddy all good here chap... what im saying to the guy is it wont be as noticeable as the first time he ripped compressed, as the compression isnt a big issue this time round, but yes it will use mpeg2 codec again for sure on the change over... so dont worry on quailty go for the convertion from pal to ntsc and with your mp3 not noticible to the human ear either
Do you live in the USA? Many of the decent players here will not play PAL regardless of the region code. And for the ones that do the TV used makes no difference.
No, I live in Australia... Are you serious? What are you referring to as decent? You are talking about brands like Samsung, Sony, Toshiba etc., right? Every one I have seen can play both PAL and NTSC discs. I even bought a DVD player a few years from the USA and it plays PAL without a problem. I was under the impression that NTSC/PAL playback was a standard feature of almost all DVD players, In fact, I am yet to see a player that can't play back both.
Hey all, Seems some people are getting a little testy over this issue. This was not my intention. I have a multi region, multi format player downstairs. The one upstairs is a VCR/DVD combo. It says when I try to play the original PAL disc that playback is not available in this region. I will attempt to simply decrypt the discs here, and burn with DVD Shrink, making them region free. Otherwise I will have to take them to a retail outlet that does professional PAL/NTSC transfers. Cheers
Well you are wrong, and by decent I mean excluding the Asian junk with their $2 video processing chips. I have 3 at this moment, an older Pioneer, a relatively new Sony and a new Magnavox upconverter... and the PAL discs are all Region free. Haven't you noticed the myriad of posts regarding PAL to NTSC conversions?
RailAce, it's totally cool here. I was just amazed at Rotary's understanding of compression and the mpeg2 codec. Many times I excused myself before I made any comment. The last thing I want to do here is offend somebody. If you see some of my other posts, I go to great lengths to help people. :-D MysticE, it must be different in the USA. I have never had a problem with any of my DVD players playing NTSC discs (my Country is PAL) and I buy quality players. I have the Samsung HD870 in my lounge room and a LG DV9723P for the bedroom (and a couple spare ones packed away). Come to think of it even the cheaper Chinese ones played them too. As I said I have NEVER experienced this problem. Anwyays... My apologies for you guys in the USA. All I can say is... It sucks to be you! LOL... That was a joke! Seriously, I would really not enjoy having to recode a DVD everytime I got one in NTSC format. Just to offer advice towards this thread... I always use TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress for my mpeg2 encoding. It has PAL and NTSC DVD templates, a solid filter base and can encode with full motion search options, producing very clean video. It is slow but that is the price to pay for better quality.
I just found this review on You Tube for my DVD player... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARptziTjfmI (part 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztLfRd-xawc&feature=related (part 2) This guy has got some serious issues! I found it very funny... Accurate and educational... NO! Funny... Well, I thought so. :-D
Ryu77 is very much correct on the lossy mpeg2 codec and were only debating my comment (which isnt really true) which is kool, i was literally trying to keep it simple with my comment to floepie, which of course he is correct also, i should of said hopefully you wouldnt notice a degradation after conversion, and not that it wont loose any quailty at all becuase it does! but hopefully not to the human eye this time round. i would just rip each ep to hd, then load to convertxtodvd or like Ryu77 mentioned TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress which is very good same as TMGenc DVD Author 3 (with DIVX authoring)which is handy, i have both these and are top apps. and 2 mentioned make menus for your ep's
