Posted by Ian Jackson on 04/29/07 12:37

In message <mri9pcccejx5.1l8ozgf1ecood.dlg@40tude.net>, Kate
<lorisoard@sbcglobal.net> writes
>ERROR: Please check the TV system.
>
>What is this Region 1 DVD player trying to tell me?
>* I bought a dozen DVDs at the thrift shop for a buck each
>* Nothing on the label says whether they are PAL or NTSC
>* They play perfectly on my Windows XP computer
>* But in the NTSC DVD player, they all give the error
>"Please check the TV system"
>
>Could these thrift-shop DVDs be PAL instead of NTSC?
>How could I prove the DVDs are PAL or NTSC?

Is your machine a DVD player or a recorder? If it's a recorder, it might
be possible to make it region-free, and possibly also with some
players-only. Many (if not most) of the recorders sold outside the USA
can be changed to another region or made region-free by punching in a
few magic numbers from the remote control. However, I believe that this
is not so common in the USA.

In the UK, a lot of the really cheap DVD players, although specified as
being Region 2, have no problems playing Region 1 NTSC. I have one which
actually has an NTSC/PAL button on the R/C.

Regarding playing DVDs on a PC, if the DVD isn't Region 1, I'm surprised
that your PC hasn't told you that you need to change the region setting
for the DVD drive. The DVD drive is usually locked to your region (in my
case, 2). If you try to play another region, you are given the option of
changing the region - but only four times. After that, it is permanently
locked. However, this depends on what you use to play the DVD. Things
like VLC Media Player ignore the region coding. If you are using one of
the 'normal' programs, and you are NOT being prompted to change the
region code, it is possible that the DVDs are actually Region 1.

I don't know about freeware, but I've successfully used Nero to convert
from PAL to NTSC. But it's very, very slow.

Ian.
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