Movie Videos Pal

When shopping for DVDs from around the world, you'll likely come across two terms that you may not be familiar with: NTSC and PAL. These are two of the most common video formats in use today. NSTC is generally used in North America, while PAL is the predominant video format in many parts of Europe.

Unfortunately, if you live in North America, you likely don't have the ability to play PAL movies. This is not only because of conflicting formats, but because of DVD region codes as well. Many DVD releases are coded so they cannot be watched outside of their region. Region 2 for example, is for Europe, Japan, the Middle East, Egypt, South Africa, and Greenland, and these releases cannot be played on many North American DVD players.

Fortunately, there are economical ways around the NSTC/PAL problem, and region coding as well. For example, someone who grew up in the UK, but who now lives in the US may want to watch TV shows or movies on DVD from back home. He can achieve this affordably simply by purchasing a special DVD player. These special DVD players can bypass region coding and convert the movie videos PAL format into NTSC, so viewers in North America can watch these foreign releases on their TVs just as they would any other DVD.

In the past, watching PAL VHS videos in North America meant spending a lot of money on a service with PAL to NTSC converters to change the PAL videos into NTSC. The DVD format has completely eliminated this obstacle, thankfully, and gaining the ability to play all DVD formats and regions is now a one-time investment of a couple hundred dollars on a new player. With a region free PAL-to-NTSC player, North American viewers can enjoy DVD movies and television shows from around the world that they may not have a chance to watch otherwise.