Originally posted by: Rikter
I've had about 20 DVD players (I have 5 now and they ALL play PAL - 3 are region free) and out of all of them the only ones I had that could NOT play PAL were my Sony, Denon and a Pioneer. SO for the most part MOST DVD players DO play PAL - the problem is that here in the USA the players are lock at REGION 1 (Thanks MPAA!) and MOST PAL DVD's are not Region 1 but if the DVD's were region free I bet you'd see and hear about more players that do play PAL.
Arnie.d - In Europe are all the players locked for your region or are they mostly region free (can you play US retail DVD without a hitch)?
Originally posted by: Arnie.d
I had a demo disc that had both PAL and NTSC clips. I've played that disc in a lot of different dvd players (from ultra cheap to expensive) and I have never seen a dvd player that could not play both the PAL and NTSC clips. Maybe in europe all (or most) PAL players can also play NTSC but maybe in the US NTSC players can rarely play PAL.
EDIT: The disc was region free, I made it myself.
I had a demo disc that had both PAL and NTSC clips. I've played that disc in a lot of different dvd players (from ultra cheap to expensive) and I have never seen a dvd player that could not play both the PAL and NTSC clips. Maybe in europe all (or most) PAL players can also play NTSC but maybe in the US NTSC players can rarely play PAL.
EDIT: The disc was region free, I made it myself.
I've had about 20 DVD players (I have 5 now and they ALL play PAL - 3 are region free) and out of all of them the only ones I had that could NOT play PAL were my Sony, Denon and a Pioneer. SO for the most part MOST DVD players DO play PAL - the problem is that here in the USA the players are lock at REGION 1 (Thanks MPAA!) and MOST PAL DVD's are not Region 1 but if the DVD's were region free I bet you'd see and hear about more players that do play PAL.
Arnie.d - In Europe are all the players locked for your region or are they mostly region free (can you play US retail DVD without a hitch)?
Saying you have 20 that will play PAL doesn't help if you don't tell us which you have. If you have all Cyberhomes and crap machines, of course they'll play it. Amusing that the ones you mentioned that WON'T play are higher-end players.
As for Rikters "most" claim, you can see the truth at dvdrhelp. They list all the ones that will be region free. There are very VERY few that will do the translation properly, regardless of what he tells you. I could provide a list of the ones recommended. The Oppo is definitely near the top of that list.