DVD-Software.info

[rogereti]

1. How closely coupled are the DVD Regions with the geographic TV standards (e.g. Region 1 with NTSC and Region 2 with PAL, etc.)? I assumed they were fairly closely coupled until I came across Region 0 DVDs and All Region DVDs (which I assume are the same). I'd like to understand what's going on under the surface. I thought that a Region 2 DVD would give me PAL output, but it's obviously more complex if a Region 0 DVD will play on PAL, NTSC, Secam, and whatever other formats are out there.

2. How do HDTV, HDMI, and S-Video fit into the picture? I'm assuming that S-Video will just give me a fairly clean picture for a traditional format (PAL, NTSC, etc.) assuming I have either a multi-standard player and/or a multi-standard TV. I likewise assume that HDMI will allow me to link my DVD player to the HDTV unit directly and somehow maximize the picture quality (not sure how this works since I've read 480p lines for DVD and up to 1080p (I think) for HDMI). Is this correct? Finally, what happens if I plug a multi-region player into a HDTV unit via S-Video? Does it go down to the lowest common denominator (e.g. NTSC) so that I end up with a crummy NTSC picture on my fancy HDTV unit?

[Dave]

"rogereti" <roger@island-dot-net.no-spam.invalid> wrote in message
news:ivKdnQEH1vxs5ZXfRVn_vg@giganews.com...

[rogereti]

Thanks, Dave.

Do you know what happens when I play DVDs from different Regions and with different TV standards on my computer?

I know that I have to manually switch Regions, but having done that, the DVD seems to play happily regardless of whether it is PAL or NTSC. Does the PC take an analog signal from the DVD and process it depending on whether it is PAL or NTSC or is it able to find a digital signal on the DVD and feed that straight to the monitor?

[Gene E. Bloch]

On 2/10/2005, rogereti managed to type:

[rogereti]

Thank you, Gino.

I think I must be missing something. If DVDs are all digital, what or how is one made PAL and another NTSC? To my simply mind, the best approach would have been to have a purely digital image converted into PAL or NTSC or whatever in the DVD player, but that obviously isn't the way it's done since some DVDs are clearly labled "PAL" and others "NTSC".

Do you know what is done to a DVD to make them only suitable for different analog formats?

[Spam Buster]

"rogereti" <roger@island-dot-net.no-spam.invalid> wrote in message
news:P8mdnUJRDrrpEoDfRVn_vQ@giganews.com...
| Thank you, Gino.
|
| I think I must be missing something. If DVDs are all digital, what or
| how is one made PAL and another NTSC? To my simply mind, the best
| approach would have been to have a purely digital image converted
| into PAL or NTSC or whatever in the DVD player, but that obviously
| isn't the way it's done since some DVDs are clearly labled "PAL" and
| others "NTSC".
|
| Do you know what is done to a DVD to make them only suitable for
| different analog formats?
|

The differences between PAL and NTSC are resolution and frames per second.
These differences live in the digital world as well as in the analog world.

SB

[rogereti]

Thanks, DB.

I understand that PAL and NTSC have different resolutions, etc. But how is it that (for example) a high-definition TV will display an NTSC DVD at a much higher resolution than standard NTSC.

Or - to put it another way - why if DVDs are resolution dependent as you suggest, why aren't there HDTV DVDs as well?

[Biz]

"rogereti" <roger@island-dot-net.no-spam.invalid> wrote in message
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