Technical question about PAL and Blu Ray upconversion

[donaldheil]

I kinda need an explanation for this.

I know that PAL is different from NTSC because it has more lines of resolution.

I know that this problem in HIGH DEFINITION doesn't matter, because the conversion to 720 p and up makes whatever is under that standard (e.g. 480 in NTSC) irrelevant.

With that in mind, I tried to play a PAL dvd (REGION 0) in my "REGION A" BLU RAY player, wihich upconverts to 1080p to a TV that supports that signal.

The question is: WHY AM I NOT ABLE TO WATCH THAT DVD, if the native resolution is upconverted?

The same would be applied to some bonus materials in some Region Free Blu Rays, in which you can see the main feature but not the PAL extras.

I hope that the answer is not too technical. Whatever, I want an answer.

Thanks-

[cueman98]

I believe the problem is simply that a region A blu-ray player cannot play PAL standard dvds, the player is expecting input resolution (NTSC 720 x 480) and while your disc being region 0 isE "playable", it is not the right dvd input resolution standand (PAL 480 x 576) Simply the Region A blu-ray player is not capable of upconverting a dvd that is not NTSC resolution native.

I'm not an expert, but this is probably the problem.

[HDJK]

Well the region coding is one issue (if the extras are on a separate disc or you want to watch a DVD), the other is the frame rate. NTSC is 30 frames/second (60i) and PAL is 25 frames/second (50i). The US PS3 for example cannot handle 50i. Most PAL DVD players can read 60i though.

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by donaldheil

The question is: WHY AM I NOT ABLE TO WATCH THAT DVD, if the native resolution is upconverted?

It's the firmware. Hardware wise, the builds of video decoders in BD players and PS3 are the same. The firmware determines what video input the player is allowed to play.

Back when the PS3 launched, the HK/TW/SG version can only play PAL DVDs. Then the next available firmware updated it to be able to play PAL and NTSC Region 3/0 DVDs. It's the same thing with DTS HDMA decoding with the PS3 recently.


fuad

[welwynnick]

There are two problems - SD video formats, and region-coding.

A US DVD player will only play region 1 DVDs (unless hacked) and will generally only play NTSC DVDs (though there are exceptions).

It’s the same with US BD players. As you say, the video format isn’t relevant any more, but they only play region A or region-free BDs.

Not only that, but they only play region 1 and NTSC DVDs. There are hacks and mods available for some players, but they are generally much less flexible about this than DVD players.

I think this a great shame, as the hardware that every player uses is capable of decoding and processing ALL video formats!

Sorry, Nick