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PAL, NTSC, SECAM formats in France

Samouman Posted messages 418 Status Member -  
ziggourat Posted messages 24624 Registration date   Status Contributor Last intervention   -
Hello,
I would like to buy a DVD that exists in PAL and NTSC, but I'm not sure if the format is compatible with my DVD player (actually, I mainly want to be able to play it on my ACER laptop DVD player), and I saw that apparently in France, we use the SECAM format?

Thank you for your responses!

3 answers

  1.
    ziggourat Posted messages 24624 Registration date   Status Contributor Last intervention   5 342
     
    Hello,

    Do not confuse the commercial zones of DVDs with those of analog television broadcasting.

    See the maps for:
    a) Standard analog television (with digital, this no longer makes sense): https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:PAL-NTSC-SECAM.svg
    This applied to old televisions (the bulky cathode-ray TVs) but does not concern LCD screens anymore.
    b) Commercial zones of DVDs: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD#Protections_commerciales_par_zones
    So for France, it's zone 2 in PAL but even if the DVD is in NTSC, it should work, I think.
    For example, Japan was broadcasting in NTSC but its DVD zone is 2 like in France, which broadcast in SECAM (a French specificity, basically...), and Europe in general which transmitted in PAL.

    According to what I found and just for information, it gives in equivalence of PAL/NTSC formats (these are the two that exist for DVD-Video)
    - zone 1: USA and Canada (NTSC)
    - zone 2: Europe (PAL), Japan (NTSC), South Africa, Middle East
    - zone 3: South-East Asia (primarily NTSC)
    - zone 4: Central and South America (NTSC), Australia (PAL), New Zealand (PAL)
    - zone 5: Former Soviet Union, India, Pakistan, Africa (primarily NTSC)
    - zone 6: China (primarily NTSC)
    The differences between PAL and NTSC DVDs are technical. To simplify, for PAL, a resolution of 720x576 (sometimes 704x576) and a frame rate of 25 per second, and for NTSC a resolution of 720x480 (sometimes 704x480) with a frame rate of 23.96 or 29.97, often simplified to 24 or 30 frames per second. The video codec used for both is MPEG-2.
    See the table at the beginning of the page: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/fr/menc-feat-vcd-dvd.html

    So check the zone of your DVD player/burner on your computer if you want (right-click on the drive --> Properties --> Hardware and find your drive --> Properties --> DVD Region), that's the long path, there are surely other shorter methods before making your purchase. Normally it should be Zone 2.
    Indeed, on a computer DVD player, unless exceptions, you can only change regions a maximum of 5 times, then it will be locked to the last one!!
    Then check when possible the zone of the DVDs you plan to buy and get those labeled all zones (all-zones), that’s 0 or 8 if I remember correctly or those from zone 2. This information is typically found on the DVD cover.

    But don’t worry, as long as you buy a DVD in a store in France, it will definitely be in zone 2. However, be a bit more careful online.

    Best regards
    PS: my message is a bit long because I started with the idea that you lived in Algeria which made things a little more complicated... and I don’t know why... :/
    -- 
    Long live Bobo! ~ Little fish will grow big ~
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