Riddle Me This...

Dear readers, what exactly is the purpose of a dvd player that converts NTSC to PAL but is not an "All Region" player? What the hell purpose does that serve?

The Cap'n has been moving players around for this soming weekend, and an oft-forgotten freebie from the parents is temporarily "Player Numero Uno" in my room. While I'm watching an episode of Californication, I notice the "NTSC/PAL" button on the remote.

"Sweet," I think, "this means that this sucker is All Region and I can finally play the MST3K: The Movie and Angel-A discs that are collecting dust."

Wrong-o-rama. No sooner than I've put in the MST3K disc do I get the "WRONG REGION" display on the player. This makes no sense to me.

Here's a little primer for those of you who don't read the archived Blogoriums from elsewhere or aren't up to speed on dvd players: in the age of Digital Versatility Discs, manufacturers fealt the need to a) protect discs from being copied and b) wanted to make the most money possible, so they created "Region Coding".

For the purpose of this discussion, all you really need to know about the various regions (there are 4) is that North America is Region 1 and Europe is Region 2. If a disc is encoded for Region 2, it won't play in almost every player in the United States*, and vice versa for Region 1 discs in Europe.

Additionally, Europe has a different format of televisions which are encoded in a PAL format. For example, British television and films are shot and displayed at 26 frames per second, as opposed to the US, where it's 24 frames. In order to make the differential, improperly encoded discs will a) sound and look just a smidge sped up, or b) the running times will be different. A good example of this is Criterion's Berlin Alexanderplatz, which has a running time slightly longer than its German equivalent, reflective of the PAL to NTSC transfer.

Why my mind is boggled here is that there's no reason for a Region 1 encoded disc to be PAL. It doesn't make sense. Even Region 0 discs would likely not be formatted in PAL, so there's no reason for a US made player to have a NTSC to PAL converter button if it's not an "All Region" player. It's a totally worthless feature if the player isn't capable of reading discs from other regions.

So if there are any tech-heads out there: am I missing something here? Is there a switch on the player I need to flip in order to adjust this, or does the NTSC / PAL button serve no purpose in this instance?

I'd love to know, as the German MST3K: The Movie disc actually has extra features, unlike its American counterpart, including a retrospective documentary on the film and potentially the deleted scenes we're not going to see on this side of the pond. If this can't be adjusted, can someone point me in the direction of a reliable "Region Free" player with similar NTSC / PAL conversion capabilities for a reasonable price? I already have three dvd players (five, if you count the PS3 and my PC), so I'm not interested in paying an arm and a leg for yet another player.



* Region 0, or Region "Free" discs sidestep this entirely and will play in everything, for those curious. Blu Ray players totally sidestep the NTSC / PAL issue because it's no longer necessary to encode one or the other, which is why European BD's will play in American players.