Can American DVD players play reigon free PAL format DVD's? If not, can PAL format DVD players play NTSC RFree

Question

I am attempting to produce a tutorial DVD set, but I live in the UK and wish to ensure that I don't have to re film everything for a UK and US version. So I need to know if I should produce the footage in NTSC or PAL formats, both reigon free.

Answer 1

Let's start with some basics... UK is region 2 PAL and America is region 1 NTSC

That being stated, if someone owns a multi-region (or region free) and multi-standard DVD player they will be able to play region 2 PAL discs BUT almost all the American TVs are only NTSC (due to the electric current here) which means even though an owner might have a multi-region/standard DVD player that could play it, the TV might not process it properly.  Therefore the viewer would need to also have a mutli-standard TV that can process PAL video if the video was PAL. Most Americans do not own multi region players or have multi standard TVs, so your audience will be very limited here. I know in Europe it is very common to have multi-region players but most Americans don't buy them because generally they cost a tiny bit more.

Someone watching it on a computer would not have quite the same issues but would again have to deal with some issues to make it watchable too.  Hopefully your audience is tech savvy enough to figure it out.

I would suggest,  if you can afford it, to just invest upfront in a standards conversion from your PAL video to NTSC (or vice versa depending on how you shot it)(if you shot it in HD then do one down-conversion to NTSC and one to PAL... This would give you the best image of all...) and then burn discs in both PAL region 2 & NTSC region 1. There are great quality standards conversions that can be done at a professional post-house.  The easier you make it on your audience the better... Most people don't want to work hard just to watch a DVD...

May the force be with you!

Answer 2

we did a tutorial dvd for world wide distro.

we filmed 1080p 24fps on an arri d20

we then made 2 video version from this 1 pal and 1 ntsc.

with different language voiceovers

you will have to produce 2 dvd versions,but you will only have to film once

Answer 3

Some can and some can't. I have a cheap Toshiba I was able to UNLOCK and it will play both NTSC and PAL disks so long as they are either region 1 or region free. However, most DVD players will only play one or the other. You should only have to film once, but you will need to transcode into both NTSC and PAL for use in the USA and UK.

Answer 4

no!

region 1 is NTSC and region 2 is Pal

Your DvD must be region free to play all DvD regions.