PAL to NTSC conversion - software based.

[Rspaight]

(I can also now choose PAL or NTSC output, though I have no reason to.)

I have a few discs I would like to try on your player.

Bring 'em on. Don't let me forget to give you that needle-drop that I forgot to remind Natalie to give you yesterday.

The URL history in this laptop is kind of interesting.

Ryan

[lukpac]

This POS Cyberhome that I'm using is absolutely unbearable.

Which Cyberhome? We've got one of the "mini" $35 ones from Best Buy (from a year or two ago), and I've never had an issue with it, other than the remote being a bit annoying. No idea if it does PAL or not, though.

[David R. Modny]

Which Cyberhome? We've got one of the "mini" $35 ones from Best Buy (from a year or two ago), and I've never had an issue with it, other than the remote being a bit annoying. No idea if it does PAL or not, though.

The 300. Honestly, the picture is so bad that it almost looks like it's defective - even when playing normal NTSC discs.

I'll have to let you see for yourself on your next trip to Cleveland.

[Matt]

I have done this conversion using software from:

http://www.tmpgenc.net/

They offer a free trial. I was very pleased with the results.

[Jeff T.]

This POS Cyberhome that I'm using is absolutely unbearable.

Which Cyberhome? We've got one of the "mini" $35 ones from Best Buy (from a year or two ago), and I've never had an issue with it, other than the remote being a bit annoying. No idea if it does PAL or not, though.

The 300. Honestly, the picture is so bad that it almost looks like it's defective - even when playing normal NTSC discs.

I'll have to let you see for yourself on your next trip to Cleveland.

This thread is old and perhaps no longer active and nobody cares, but anyway, I have a Cyberhome 300 from a couple years ago and it puts out beautiful NTSC off of PAL discs. I have also read others comments that they got a good one, and yet others with a poor one. So there seems to be some good ones out there. Consistancy must not be Cyberhome's strong suite. You'd think that the chips are set up and that is that, but with this model apparently not.

These Canapus boxes such as the ADVC - 100 are known to be the best for capture to DV via firewire 1394 to PC. I ended up getting another one, the model ADVC - 500, which was expensive but I can use it professionally, anyway, it has a couple of things going for it. It has YBR in, so you can take the Progressive out of the DVD player, and connect it to NTSC at the best quality (progressive) providing the DVD player has quality to begin with. That's impressive for a 27 dollar pos DVD player.

I capture with an ADVC to PC, and one can edit with plenty of cheap or free sw, the Pinnacle Studio 8 program is a good editing sw that can handle simple capture, edits, joins, fades. Then convert (to mpg2) with the remarkable tmpgenc encoder, author with another cheap sw, and burn with Nero.

This is a bit of work and takes some time. But I find it fun and interesting. I have done some PAL to NTSC that looked stunning on final disc. I generally just do LD and VHS concert stuff with this method and not PAL material. I have also done some movies like The Loved One which has yet to appear on DVD. For B&W films, some color can seep into the picture, so I take the extra step during encoding to knock out all color saturation and this results in a nice clean picture.

I have tons of VHS concert stuff still to transfer to DVD along with some LDs. I'm not in a big hurry.

Anyway, back on subject, I have read that the checp JVC units do a good job of PAL to NTSC. I am affraid to give up my Cyberhome 300 for fear I will not get another one this good. BTW, I do get some skipping once in a while with this unit, and then I have to recapture from that point on, and later edit the two sections together. I got my $27.00 out of this machine, but I handle it really carefully so that it does not fall apart in my hands.

[Jeff]

Though it's a bit pricier ($199), the very best PAL>NTSC DVD player I've found is the Oppo OPDV971H. The conversion is perfect, with no skipped frames. In addition, it has a Faroudja deinterlacer which does a beautiful job of upconverting to 1080i. It also decodes HDCD and plays DVD-Audio. I bought a refurbished model for $149 and it is one of the most satisfying purchases I've ever made.

There is also a DV-970HD ($149) that was just released and is getting stellar reviews. The main difference is that it doesn't have the Faroudja chip; all upconverting is performed by the Mediatek MPEG decoder/deinterlacer. All other features are the same, though, and it supports SACD. If you don't have a HD monitor, it is probably a very good option.

The trick is to find a player that supports the 2:2 video cadence found on all PAL discs. Other players I've used, such as the Samsung DVD-HD841, only support 3:2 cadences and do an overall lousy job of converting PAL to NTSC. If you're looking for something cheap, though, the $60 Philips DVP-642 has 2:2 support. It doesn't look nearly as good as the Oppo, but it's acceptable.

BTW, it is relatively easy to create a PAL DVD that will play on nearly any "NTSC-only" player. Just download a free copy of IFO Edit and manually change all of the PAL flags to NTSC flags. It works like a charm.

[Jeff T.]

BTW, it is relatively easy to create a PAL DVD that will play on nearly any "NTSC-only" player. Just download a free copy of IFO Edit and manually change all of the PAL flags to NTSC flags. It works like a charm.

Really...I've read it does not work with consistancy. Not so easy as 1 2 3.

[Jeff]

BTW, it is relatively easy to create a PAL DVD that will play on nearly any "NTSC-only" player. Just download a free copy of IFO Edit and manually change all of the PAL flags to NTSC flags. It works like a charm.

Really...I've read it does not work with consistancy. Not so easy as 1 2 3.

I don't know, maybe I've just been lucky. Most US DVD players are able to play PAL--this functionality is just not enabled on many of them. I've seen it work on a Sony and those things are a bitch.

[Jeff T.]

BTW, it is relatively easy to create a PAL DVD that will play on nearly any "NTSC-only" player. Just download a free copy of IFO Edit and manually change all of the PAL flags to NTSC flags. It works like a charm.

Really...I've read it does not work with consistency. Not so easy as 1 2 3.

I don't know, maybe I've just been lucky. Most US DVD players are able to play PAL--this functionality is just not enabled on many of them. I've seen it work on a Sony and those things are a bitch.

Once in a while you can run into a PAL disc that does not have the right region code to play in a PAL/NTSC DVD player. I guess you could hack the player. But anyway, what I do is copy the disc (use Decrypter or Shrink if needed) with Nero, and that will change the region code for sure. If doing a dual layer DVD-9, then I split the movie to two discs, thus not having to do any compression. Use the two DVD-Rs to play back in correct region on the player.