Can you switch from PAL to NTSC on dvd player?

Question

ii have some dvd-r's that are from canada, and are in PAL format...is there a way to switch it to NTSC on my dvd player?
Please email me: [e-mail]

thanks,
Tim

Answer 1

Odd, considering that Canada also uses NTSC. Anyway, most cheap/no-name brand DVD players actually have the ability to convert PAL to NTSC; it's just not a feature that's advertised because they don't expect people to actually use it. Big-name brand machines like Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, and JVC on the other hand usually aren't able to perform this conversion.

Also note that among the players that *do* convert PAL to NTSC, some do the job better than others; usually it's a case of aspect ratio--some players will squeeze or stretch the image somewhat, while more desirable players will properly display the image.

You might also consider watching the DVD on your computer instead, if you have a DVD-ROM drive; computers don't usually care if the video is in PAL or NTSC (since it has to convert the image to whatever scanrate it's using anyway), though, like most DVD players, region encoding might be an issue.