Hi.
There's a DVD of Swan Lake on Amazon I want to buy but I'm not sure if it works on UK DVD players, specifically my laptop.
The DVD description says that it is 'All Regions' yet it also says 'Format: NTSC'.
What does the combination of the DVD being All Regions and NTSC mean.
Can someone please calrify what this means?
Here's the link to the DVD on Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kirov-Ballet-Swan-...4478&sr=1-1 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kirov-Ballet-Swan-Lake-NTSC/dp/B000FIHF82/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1262044478&sr=1-1)
UK uses PAL. Some regions such as the US, use NTSC.
If you plan to watch this on a television, then it must be NTSC compatible. If it is PAL-only, then the video will not display correctly. Most modern televisions support both standards. Since the DVD is region-free, it will work on any DVD player.
If you watch this on a PC, it'll display without any problems I think. Wikipedia has more information about DVDs. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_Video)
If you plan to watch this on a television, then it must be NTSC compatible.
That doesn't fit with my experiences. I have a mixture of PAL & NTSC DVDs, & they've all worked fine with a variety of UK & Australian TVs, none NTSC compatible so far as I know. I'm pretty sure it's the DVD player that matters, & that the majority of laptop drives will play either.
Virtually all DVD players sold in Europe can be set to "PAL", causing them to convert NTSC discs to PAL. There'susually a menu:
1. PAL = use PAL for everything
2. NTSC = use NTSC for everything
3. Multi = use whatever format is on the disc (multi = "I have a multi-standard TV, so can display everything correctly")
Note some of the players make an atrocious job of converting - so bad that even the least critical viewer would get a headache from watching.
The vast majority of European TVs sold in the last 20 years will happily display "NTSC" content via RGB SCART (or, these days, HDMI).
Whether they work with real NTSC or PAL60 or whatever via composite is another thing - often not.
Cheers,
David.