PAL to NTSC converter box suggestions???

[fedge]

I don't like how some of my PAL movies look on my NTSC tv. Short of buying a pal/ntsc/secam compatable tv (which doubles the price) would one of those converter boxes between the dvd player and the tv work??

[fedge]

My dvd player does do pal but it looks crappy and there is alot of stair step artifacting so the main quesiton is will this improve quality if i get a real box to do the conversion instead of the dvd's internals

[awhitehead]

Part of the technical difficulty is the fact that PAL video has more horizontal lines (520@25 Hz, IIRC), then NTSC (480@29.997Hz) while having fewer frames per second. This poses a technical difficulty, where in order to display PAL signal on NTSC display properly, converter needs to deinterlace PAL video, scale it down, and re-interlace it again, all while performing a frequency pull-up.

Dual-mode displays usually are capable of displaying both 480i and 520i natively. This is why they are more expensive.

Good luck finding a proper conversion box. I use Canopus AVCD-110, that can take in PAL or NTSC signal, and convert it to DV over Firewire signal. Then DV signal is recoreded on a PC, and the process of video conversion is actually performed on a computer. In my case, final result depends on the quality of the software, and length of time you are willing to spend in making it look good.

[fedge]

I just want something that does it on the fly in between the dvd player and the tv itself. nothing fancy.

I am considering getting a better dvd player than my philips

Yamaha DVD-S5950

has a better built in pal to ntsc converter and does divx.

I wish it did hidef divx but I dont have a hdtv yet so not a big deal...

[jshumate]

Some of the folks at dvdrhelp.com's forums rave about various Oppo model DVD players for exactly this use - PAL to NTSC conversion. I would suggest you consider this as an option rather than buying a multistandard TV. By the way, very few DVD players support HD Divx playback. I wish more supported it too.

[fedge]

Anyone actually have one of those converter boxes (about 150.00 usd) and notice nothing wrong with the dvd's you play with them.. I just cant stand all the stair step artifacting I get all the time. And sad thing is some of the pal movies I have are not USA released!!!