andre the giant

I found a "region free" hack for my DVD player so I thought I would order a
DVD from the UK that isnt available in North America. Well, it does play but
its all black and white. From what research I've done, I think its an issue
with macrovsion, right? My question is, what good is a "region free" player
when macrovision still screws you over? And is ther anything I can do to fix
this, like ripping the DVD, then burning after using some software that can
remove the macrovison? Thanks.

freddie

Macrovision should not cause color issues when viewed on a TV.

Have you checked it on a PC? Try AnyDVD to allow you to play all
regions on a PC.

What is more likely is that the region free player trying to set the
output to PAL. Since NTSC and PAL have different color sub-carrier
frequencies you would not get color on an NTSC TV. Usually you would
also get screen scrolling, but not always.

Many DVD players can output PAL and NTSC video signals (regardless of
the region of the DVD, this is not region freeing though), and there
may be a setting in your DVD players menus such as "video standard"
which will possibly have "NTSC", "PAL", and "Auto" Set this to NTSC if
you have it (My cheap Toshiba does)

andre the giant

I tried on a PC and the menus show up and the sound works, but the screen is blank.

Hmm... I don't believe mine has that. It's a PAL DVD, so why would changing
the video standard to NTSC allow me to see a pal DVD in colour? Are you
saying its the DVD players fault or my TVs fault?

gilgamesh

The problem is probably more related to the fact that the UK uses the
superior PAL tv standard instead of the NTSC system used in the US.
Macrovision would have nothing to do with it.
You will need a PAL compatible DVD player (region free) and TV set.

nigel brooks

If the player is recognizing the disk as being authored in PAL and it is set
to auto for the output - it will output the PAL signal. There should be a
menu option on the player which allows you to set the output manually to
NTSC - that should solve your color-bw problem.

--
Nigel Brooks

andre the giant

My DVD player doesn't have that option. Do you know any that can be turned
region free and can also show PAL in colour? Mine is an RCA DRC220.

freddie

There are 3 issues regarding regions/video standards.

The region code stops the DVD player from playing a disc based on the
content providers desires (ie, wanting to screw everybody, but that is
a different thread!!)

If the content provider only wants the content to be played in the USA
(region 1) then the region code will be set to 1. The disc can be
encoded as PAL, which really means 720x525 pixels at 25 frames per
second, or as NTSC, which is 720x480 pixels at 30 frames per second.
The encoding has no relationship to the region necessarily.

Now... the DVD player is free to generate a CVBS video signal in
whatever standard it wants, but most likely NTSC for region 1 players
etc... But... it doesn't have to, regardless of the region of the
disc, or the encoding of the content.

USUALLY, region 1 discs are played on region 1 DVD players, in the USA
and generate NTSC CVBS video signals. But they don't have to...

Therefore, the three variables, which can be mixed in any way are
1) The region code of the disc
2) The format encoding of the content
3) The output video standard of the DVD player.

When you watch the video content through the CVBS signal, which is
usually the yellow connector on the back of an NTSC DVD player, the
video signal has horizontal timing, vertical timing and color
modulation all encoded onto the single wire. The biggest issue is the
color modulation, which is substantially different for PAL and NTSC.
The horizontal and vertical timings are often close ebough for many
TVs to lock, giving a stable picture, but since the color modulation
schemes are wildly different you get no color.

Now, is it possible for you to look at the component output of your
DVD player? Component does not have any color modulation, so if this
works on your TV, then it is the color sub-carrier that is causing the
problem, and hence likely that your DVD player is auto switching the
OUTPUT video standard. Not, as I said earlier, that this can be
different from the region of the disc, AND the encoding format.

Hope this is a little interesting, if not helpful

Kind regards,
Steve