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OT: Play regular MPEG on a DVD Player?

Ok, maybe there is no such thing as an international MPEG standard. The situation:

Whenever we try to play a DVD from Europe it does not work. Nothing illegal here, just old movies that were never available here and never will be because they are in foreign languages and, well, too "boring" for youngsters. Then wedding recordings and such.

On the PC all this plays just fine. The DVD spits it back out either with a wrong region message or it tries and tries (letting off some weird chirping noises from the drive) and spits it out with some other error message. Aren't those things to play regular MPEG just like PCs? At least that's what it says in the manual. I've also tried PAL-NTSC conversions and that didn't fly.

The setup here: Magnavox BDP170 upconverting player via HDMI cable into the TV. So it should be able to play stuff that isn't NTSC. I've tried lots of formats from VLC Player such as mp2v and whatnot (if someone knows which one works let me know). Nothing worked here so far. Is the only option really to convert to NTSC or to schlepp the PC into the living room? Wasn't DVD supposed to do away with all this?

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Regards, Joerg

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Joerg
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At least the region problem can be solved. You can try Google:

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But try it with a browser in a virtual machine, some webpages of the result might be dangerous.

--
Frank Buss, fb@frank-buss.de
http://www.frank-buss.de, http://www.it4-systems.de
Reply to
Frank Buss

The software program "DVD Shrink" will remove the regional player setting and allow you to make copies of the disk that will play in any region.

-mpm

Reply to
mpm

Yes, but region coding and copyright management stuff gets in the way.

Next time you are in the London elctronic district buy a chipped version of DVD player and you can play just about anything. They even chipped the DVD player for the ISS (a criminal act in the USA of course).

You might be able to find how to make a given model of player region free by poking around on the net. Quite a lot of players in the UK are chipped or easily chippable since we don't like waiting ages for PAL DVD releases (or being ripped off by the =A31 =3D $1 exchange rate.

Regards, Martin Brown

Reply to
Martin Brown

Several of the DVD decripters do the same thing. My LG player doesn't give a crap what region or encoding is used. I have several "PAL" European region disks that work like a charm.

Reply to
James Beck

I had looked for that but it never lists our model. Also, you've got to be careful. With many players they won't let you set it to "all" and you can change the region code only x times, with x

Reply to
Joerg

Ok, thanks, I'll check that out. Doesn't look like it converts PAL -> NTSC though:

formatting link 

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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Joerg

Interesting. Is a PAL MPEG playing with a distorted image or the audio pitch shifted?

IMHO this whole region business is stupid. It cuts out any inter-cultural exchange. Our rental place does carry the occasional foreign language tape or CD but most old movies never make it into the US. I really like VCR tape a lot, none of this region blocking stuff. It's simply better. Like analog TV ...

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Regards, Joerg

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Joerg

But then it would output PAL standard and our TV won't take it. I guess. No idea how HDMI plays into that.

Whoops. But I assume that "lapse" will be papered over ...

Well, I don't even want to do that. Other than some really old movies we don't watch much. Just want to be able to see stuff like a relative's birthday video, weddings and such.

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Regards, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

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Nope, because with a DVD it really doesn't matter. It is just another flag that gets set in the software, kinda' like=20 another region setting. How would my HDMI output even know what PAL is? I have never used the NTSC out, it might be trashed, but I doubt it. I didn't know about the LG being so promiscuous until I picked up a=20 Region 2/PAL disk at a flea market and popped it in my Toshiba player. =20 It bitched, I tried it in my LG player and it worked like a charm. I=20 thought that it might be doing the 'ol limited number of region swaps,=20 but I have played enough of a mix that it would have locked onto a=20 region by now, if that were the case. I recently replaced my Toshiba=20 HD-DVD player with a BluRay/HD-DVD/DVD combo unit from Samsung, I=20 haven't tried any of the "PAL" disks in it yet, I guess I might grab one=20 tonight and see what happens. I'm a video junkie, so I really enjoy my flat screen HD systems, along=20 with the digital cable and high def DVDs. However, I still have a high=20 end Toshiba VCR hooked up for all the tapes in the library too. =20

Reply to
James Beck

Aha, thanks. Since we are also using HDMI out it might actually work. What was strange though was that when I placed a single brief MPEG file onto a CD it was unable to recognize it. Guess it really does need an IFO file. Strange, because it means you can't watch a motley collection of vacation video unless you author the DVD properly.

Those can lock after merely inserting a "wrong" disk x times? That would probably be a case for an AG.

We only watch the evening news and the occasional 40's or 50's movie. But we'd like to be able to enjoy foreign language ones as well.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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Reply to
Joerg

snip

Are Euro DVD players with HDMI output feeding Euro TVs with HDMI input playing Euro region discs? Are those players not configured differently by nature of their region alone?

LG makes a NICE multi-format capable PC reader drive that is really nice too.

Nice.

How sad for you. :-)

I refuse to go back any further than LaserDisc. Heheheh! I still have tapes, and may dig out an old VCR and look at them once more before I trash them, but I doubt I have anything I don't have on LD or DVD by now. I never had camcorders, so I do not have any self made stock, per se. I had a bunch of SCTV recordings once... I have about 17 tapes filled up with The Gulf War / Desert Storm stuff. I doubt it has any value though, except to prove that we got screwed by big oil then too.

Reply to
AnimalMagic

If you want to do a little experimenting, Joerg, pick up a Philips DVP5990 (Walmart) or DVP5992 (Costco) -- about $60 -- and make the thing region free using the instructions in the first review here:

formatting link
. That review also has links to a firmware upgrade that fixes a few bugs and adds some new features. I can't tell for certain, but it seems to suggest that PAL playback is supported.

The DVP5990/2 also supports playback from a USB memory stick (or hard drive), so if your relatives start pointing you to 100MB .mpg files to download, you'd often be set as well.

---Joel

Reply to
Joel Koltner

The firewall caught some weird script being started on that link and froze it. Hmm ...

Ok, thanks, but we just bought a new upconverting player from Magnavox (which AFAIK is Philips). Says it'll play MPEG even from DVD-RW and CD-RW. But sometimes things like that are mere marketing embellishments. I'll find out.

While researching MPEG a bit last weekend I am under the impression that it may not be internationally standardized.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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Reply to
Joerg

I think the bigger problem might be that most players can only playback a subset of the full-blown MPEG standard, i.e., there are significant limitations on maximum resolution, bit rate, encoding style (PAL/NTSC), etc.

Reply to
Joel Koltner

Yep, looks like it. And their "error messages" are typically useless, containing at the most the information "I don't like this disk".

The software industry and the shareware guys have done a far better job. For example, media players such as VLC take in just about anything that smells like MPEG and render it correctly. Regardless of where it came from. They simply work. DVD player technology is far behind.

I am quite surprised that the industry fails to recognize that there is a huge market for an all-in-one media box. IOW a PC for the media cabinet in the living room. Right now it's all nerdware, you pretty much have to be able to fly a spacecraft to piece one together yourself. Plus it's huge, loud (fans) and has a paltry WAF unless it can be hidden behind some paneling or doors.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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Reply to
Joerg

Not from Amazon, idiot. You have your firewall setup screwed up.

Reply to
AnimalMagic

Bwuahahahahahahaha!

Reply to
AnimalMagic

The biggest problem with an all-in-one media box is that the "killer feature" everyone wants is to be able to stick in their DVD (or Bly-Ray disc), hit "copy to internal storage," wait 5 minutes, and then return the DVD to their bookshelf and still be able to view the DVD from anywhere in the house at any point in the future.

Unfortunately, the "copy to internal storage" functionality is illegal in the U.S. :-(

I've read that Apple TV has had some modest success... and if anything, Apple knows how to build "stylish" products.

---Joel

Reply to
Joel Koltner

That would clogs even the biggest hard drives in a jiffy. 5-10GB per movie is a lot of gigabytes.

Except that if people really wanted to do that they already can. On their PC.

But unfortunately when it comes to computing theirs are rather incompatible products.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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Joerg

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