making DVD for all regions

[Dagon]

What would be necessary or what program would be best to make a final DVD that will be playable in all regions. I have a couple of DVDs which do so.

I am currently using DVD Architect, but it really only seems to give the choice of Pal or NTSC.

Also in DVD Architect is it possible to create a custom "stop" screen? To better explain, when the user hits the stop button this would be the picture that they see while the dvd is stoped.

[ormonde]

"What would be necessary or what program would be best to make a final DVD that will be playable in all regions."

DVD Shrink will make a DVD rip region free. Also SmartRipper will do the same.

[ashy]

I am currently using DVD Architect, but it really only seems to give the choice of Pal or NTSC.

What other choice do you need, SECAM?

Any DVDauthoring program will allow you to create a region free DVD, so I don't really know what you are asking.

If you wish to make a commercial DVD region free then ripping it to the hard drive with one of the DVD rippers out there such as DVDdecrypter or Smartripper will do the job or as Ormonde states you could use DVDshrink to Rip, re-encode, and author your DVD ready for burning for you.

[Dagon]

What other choice do you need, SECAM?

No, To explain,
Im fairly new to the whole DVD authoring thing. So from what I have looked at in Architect it only seems to give the choice to output for Pal or NTSC. What would I choose to make it region free? Maybe I am just overlooking something.

DVD Shrink will make a DVD rip region free.

I just downloaded that yesterday, so if all else fails I can at least take what has been created and use DVD Shrink to make it region free, though hopefully I will find the sulotion within Architect and save time.

Thanks alot for the info!

[setarip]

To Dagon

I just wanted to make certain that you understand the following:

Regions are different than formats.

Although you certainly can create a region-free DVD, a PAL format DVD (Region 2 e.g.) most probably will not playback properly on many NTSC (Region 1 e.g.) standalone DVD players - and vice-versa. This is due to different framerates and (regarding the television's output) different video frequencies (50Hz vs. 60Hz).

On the other hand, there are some standalone players that ARE capable of properly handling BOTH formats.

[Dagon]

Ok, I knew that the frame rates between pal and ntsc were different. But at the same time I thought the region was related to the format. So I figured that if a DVD was region free it would play in both pal and ntsc, or region 1 would just be ntsc etc. etc.

Would you by any chance know of an article somewere I could read related to this? Unfortunantly my time is extremely limited on the internet (as in I don't have access other than work) so it's difficult to find good accurate information.

Thanks again for the information

[setarip]

"Thanks again for the information"

My pleasure ;>}

[ashy]

Region encoding and TV system format are 2 different things and not necessarily related.

Region encoding is just a way hollywood ensures that DVD's intended for one country can't be played in another country.

However most DVD players will play either an NTSC or PAL DVD, the only problem being whether or not you have a multiformat TV to handle the DVD player output.

For example if you live in an NTSC country then your TV will also have to be able to handle PAL if you wish to play PAL disks on your DVD player or the picture will not be displayed properly.

Same goes for NTSC disks in a PAL country.

Some DVD players will convert from NTSC to PAL or PAL to NTSC, but most don't do this very well leading to jerky playback because of the frame rate difference.

Unless you actually set your authoring program to create a region encoded DVD it will be region free.

[bobbagoose]

Originally posted by ashy
Some DVD players will convert from NTSC to PAL or PAL to NTSC, but most don't do this very well leading to jerky playback because of the frame rate difference.

Do it in NTSC!

The best plan, and one in which most region free dvd's adopt is to author the DVD in NTSC format. The reason for this is because PAL TVs have better compatability for a 60hz signal than NTSC's do for a 50hz signal. This is due to a 60hz PAL format being developed in the 80's and most modern PAL TVs and DVD players do support this format. Whereas fewer NTSC TVs and DVD players support 50hz PAL signal.

*Also if the PAL tv does not support NTSC, the picture will most probably be in black and white rather than completely scrambled when the NTSC signal is passed to it.

This is as far as I know, and I don';t think that even Architect will help in this case.