[MacDV] Re: pal or ntsc for dvd

[thomas fritscher]

> Message-Id: <EB3D4A50-2E8B-11D8-9580-000A959BD1EC at afu.com>
> From: Peter van der Linden <pvdl at afu.com>
> Subject: [MacDV] Re: pal or ntsc for dvd
> Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2003 15:19:08 -0800
> 
> The video signal stored on a DVD platter is the same all over the
world.
> The DVD **player** contains circuits to read that one signal and 
> convert it into the appropriate national TV signal standards.  So you 
> just create a DVD, and it will play anywhere.
> 
> Note that this is different from the video signal stored on a
videotape 
> - the signal on video tape is stored in a way that is different for 
> each national tv broadcast protocol.  Why does tape have this
drawback? 
>   Probably because it is an older technology, or because worldwide 
> region compatibility has no benefit for the content providers.
> 
> The US film companies actually got together to enforce additional DVD 
> restrictions, known as "region encoding".  That prevents DVDs sold in 
> the US from being played on players for the European market, and vice 
> versa.  A few DVD players don't enforce the region limitations.  But 
> that limitation doesn't apply to you, since you are creating your own 
> content.
> 
>       Peter


Hello Peter, 
first let me say i'm no dvd technician, i know this stuff only from
watching dvds and building DVDs in dvd studio pro. i'm not too sure what
you say is true though. we tried watching our (PAL) made DVDs in the USA
to figure if we need to make specials one to sell them in america and
couldn't find a single american DVD player that would play a PAL DVD.
the other way worked perfect, i watch american DVDs all the time. keep
in mind that this is no region code problem, our DVDs don't have a
region code. well it turned out that we need to get the footage
converted to NTSC and rebuild the DVD with that in order for it to work
in NTSC countrys. 
As I said, i'm definitely no expert on this matter, so if you know
anything i don't please let me know.
thanks,
thomas