1-click'er for PAL -> NTSC dvds?

[7-Zark-7]

I've got a whole boatload of PAL dvd's we purchased over in Europe. Most have AC3 5.1 stereo. I figured there -should- be a way to convert them to NTSC so I bought them. This was many moons ago. Now I'd like to convert them to NTSC dvd playable on any standalone. I don't want SVCD, VCD, or anything else but regular NTSC DVD-5 format. Is there a 1-click (apart from ripping, say with DVDDecryptor) proggy capable of converting PAL to NTSC? TIA.

[rpboy]

Originally posted by 7-Zark-7
Is there a 1-click (apart from ripping, say with DVDDecryptor) proggy capable of converting PAL to NTSC? TIA.

This has been addressed many times. If you search through the forum you'll get a quite a bit of good information.

Short answer though: No. No one click tools.

[maa]

Don't NTSC Players play PAL ?
My Pal Players play NTSC - no need to convert this way around.....

[rpboy]

Originally posted by maa
Don't NTSC Players play PAL ?
My Pal Players play NTSC - no need to convert this way around.....

Some NTSC DVD players will convert PAL to NTSC. Not all. And not most of the name-brand models.

But it is very easy to obtain a low cost model that will ...

[7-Zark-7]

Yeeah, searched already. No, didn't find anything current except about Canapus' Procoder, which costs too many dead presidents for me.

[Richk50]

Your better off buying a $40 mintek. Mine plays everything.

[alexM]

Transcoding the AC3 audio streams of a PAL video to NTSC or vice-versa is extremely difficult because a PAL movie runs 4% faster than NTSC.
But most low-budget DVD players use the same video chips no matter where they are sold. Such a player will output PAL when sold in Europe and NTSC in the US but that can be changed in the setup of the player.

[Richk50]

"But most low-budget DVD players use the same video chips no matter where they are sold."

I wouldn't be surprised if the chips in the higher budget players are the same for Pal and Ntsc, with some kind of internal switch, to change the format. It's much more expensive to produce 2 chips than 1.

[alexM]

Years ago I had one of the first and expesive Panasonic region-1 players. After I had it modified to be multi-region it suddenly became able to handle PAL signals.

[jawzforlife]

IF you buy a player that can play both NTSC and PAL, doesn't it need to be region free, to play a PAL disc, becasue PAL is not region one?

Unless the PAL disc is region free ofcourse.

I have a protable Mintek DVD player. There is a switch to change from NTSC to PAL. My guess is for when traveling, so you can play or NTSC region 1 discs in the player, but hook it up to a PAL tv. IS this true. And are there anything else I can do with my player. Can I play a PAL disc and watch it on a NTSC tv. IF I can play a PAL disc, my guess is it needs to be region free, because I know my player is only a region 1.

Thanks.

[alexM]

I don't know about the Mintek. I have a H&B player and by pushing the right bottons on the remote you can set it to any region you like. It plays PAL and NTSC discs and you can select output "same as disc", "always PAL" and "always NTSC" so you can watch any disc on any TV. Of course transforming 30frames/sec NTSC into 25frames/sec PAL or vice-versa sometimes creates artifacts but it works. I suppose that this player is sold under various names in the whole world so it should not be difficult to find it or a similar machine for about 100 $ or euro.