Industry guru Dave Taylor answers free tech support questions about a wide variety of business and technical topics, including blogging, Google AdSense, MySpace, Sony PSP, Apple iPod, Mp3 players, management, Linux, SEO, Mac OS X, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Microsoft Windows.

SupportSpace: Immediate Live Tech Support. Free Assessment + $10 coupon!!

How can I watch PAL DVDs on a regular NTSC TV?

Dave, I want a DVD player that plays PAL DVDs on a regular NTSC TV. My dear brother bought me a Philips dvp642; we popped in a DVD he had bought me from amazon.de and it wouldn't work. Somebody had mentioned a cyberhome dvd player they had gotten at Fry's for around $50, but it doesn't seem to exist. How can I make the present DVD player work or do I need extra parts or a different TV. Help!!

Dave's Answer:

I went through just this situation with some UK DVDs I bought a few months ago, and I bought a Philips DVD player that was already advertised as mutli-region, multi-format. It's not a great DVD player funcionality-wise, but it plays every kind of DVD and CD I have tried, which is very nice.

From sites like Popular Elect.com I get the impression that the Philips DVP642 can be made into a multi-region, multi-format DVD player, but given what you're saying, I expect that there's some tricky stunt or fiddling you need do to have it switch and give you access to all its capabilities.

According to the site Video Help, here's what you need to do with your remote control to make your player region free:

Turn on the player
Open the tray.
Press the following sequence on the remote: 7 8 9 OK 0
The number 0 will appear on the lower left side of your screen.
Your player is now region free! Put in a DVD and enjoy! :)

The site also adds this note: "The 0 in the sequence above represents the region code. 0 = region free. If you want to change your player to just a specific region code, replace the 0 with the region number you want. "

Try that, see if it works. Please note that any time you mess with these sort of devices, there's a chance things will get messed up. If that happens, cycle power or even unplug it overnight to reset it.

Good luck!

Help others find this article at Del.icio.us, Digg, Netscape, Reddit, and Simpy.

Categorized: d) None of the Above (Article 3876)
Tagged:
Previous: How do I flatten a directory structure in Unix?
Next: How do I have both language versions of my site spidered?

Subscribe!

Never miss another useful Q&A article again! Subscribe to AskDaveTaylor with Google Reader.

Comments

Hmmm...I just can't help it...I stumbled onto your site in a search for DVD player info and read the question/comment form terms, and I just had to ask this... If I wasn't paying attention, or I was drunk, and I happened to accidentally dump my newly published, and best-selling, novel into your comment form, thinking it was a window for my own data program rather than your comment form, I would 'relinquish ANY subsequent rights of ownership' to my novel, and you would be free to print up millions of copies and make a fortune selling them on the street, or seriously increase your ad revenues by advertising that you had my best-selling novel available for free download, thus attracting millions of hits for the free novel, while also attracting hordes of high-paying advertisers that are eager to expose their ads to such a large audience...and then take me to court, because some people would still be buying my novel from the bookstores, and sue for my remaining royalties claiming that I relinquished my royalty rights from the ownership of my novel to you when I accidentally dumped it into your website's comment form?
I'm guessing that the Napster gentleman assumed the same when he figured Mick Jagger wouldn't want his share of the ad revenues when Napster doled out free copies of 'Brown Sugar' to anyone that hit the site and asked for it...Mick couldn't expect anything if the Napster guy listened to his music himself, or with his friends, for fun...but the minute the Napster guy derived ad profits from giving free copies of the song to anyone, just becuz some guy happened to download it onto his website's database, Mick would make sure he got his share of the money too...nonetheless, the simple addition of one letter changes the entire meaning...like the letter 'M' added to the word 'ANY'...and makes the whole statement seem much less harsh and more reasonable...'relinquish MANY subsequent rights of ownership' sounds better, and would likely be much more accurate....for instance, I couldn't very well ask you to pay for a copy of my best-selling novel after accidentally giving you a copy for free...or exercise much control over how you chose to market it, maybe...but I'd sure-as-shootin' collect my royalties from any and all revenues you chose to create by dispensing my novel. More simply...you can only sell your neighbors house and keep the money if your neighbor doesn't ever catch you...and when it's something as big as a house, or a best-selling novel, or a hit song, it's always easy to catch...
Anyway...Have a great day...I'll just say that I meant no offense, and leave it at that...
Best of luck to you and yours...QLoftheR

Posted by: Queen Linda of the Rosaria at October 12, 2006 2:20 AM

Please advise: I have purchased (from a USA store in Ohio) a DVD which (the seller tells me)says on its case/package that it is "PAL Region Free". I have a DVD player that is nothing special, on which I can play Region One DVDs (but not other-region DVDs). I have no ability to alter the DVD settings nor my TV settings. Am I in an incompatibility situation? Thank you for your advice.

Posted by: Michael Morris at February 16, 2007 5:08 PM

Michael, PAL and NTSC are indeed incompatible, so unless your DVD player has the circuitry enabled to do the conversion, you are out of luck, sorry to say.

Posted by: Dave Taylor at February 16, 2007 8:54 PM

I have a Philips DVP3020 dvd player purchased in the UK and am trying to play using an NTSC TV in USA. The DVD player has been bashed to make it a region free player (before I bought it) and I am trying to play UK DVDs on it to view through my NTSC TV. The DVD has a SET UP screen which allows a change from PAL to NTSC (as the DVD literature says it works with both) but when I try to change it to NTSC it just jumps back to PAL again as if ignoring my instruction to reset it. Do you think there is something wrong with the DVD player or have I got the wrong end of the stick here and have the wrong type of dvd player? By the way if I try to play the DVD it is either jerky, will not play at all or plays in b&w.

Posted by: Mrs Y Newbury at December 18, 2007 9:35 AM

I have a Panasonic dvd-s35 that plays ntsc dvds. Is there a chance of watching pal dvds on it?

Posted by: Ximena at December 23, 2007 4:12 PM

I have a Sony dvd player and I'm trying to play my PAL dvds on an NTSC TV but I can't so what do I need to do to to be able to watch it?

Posted by: Teresa at January 27, 2008 9:07 PM

I have a lot to say, but ...

I have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but most of all I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a chai!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!