Am still a newbie when it comes to DVD's so I look to the wisdom of others :-)

I'm using a Sony RDR-GX7 standalone DVD recorder to make some copies of DV footage. I don't need anything fancy, just want to distribute a few copies that will be universally playable but better quality than VHS. I have burned some test copies and they play fine on US DVD players. But I need to send a couple of these to Italy, and am not clear on whether they will be compatible. I'm using DVD-R at the highest quality setting (which Sony calls HQ) for 60 minutes per disk.

I know there are different regional versions of commercial DVD's, but does this also apply to the consumer variety made in a DVD recorder? Will my NTSC video play properly in a European PAL DVD player? It is anamorphic 16:9 (480p) if that makes a difference. (I already RTFM but this isn't covered anywhere ;-)

Any insights will be greatly appreciated!

Region protection is one thing TV standard is something else.

For example both USA and Japan use NTSC but comersially made DVDs are region coded region 1 and 2 respectively. If not region protected you should be able to see without problem in both contries.

Now Europe is region 2 - same as Japan. The industry decided that it's OK to leave this distant regions in same group. The limiter for them here is the different TV format PAL vs. NTSC.

I know few models of DVD players which can play back both PAL & NTSC but this is very rare case. Your friends in Italy should check if they are lucky to support NTSC paly back. The other way is to use NTSC=>PAL convertor.

One more thing. In US most TV sets support only NTSC while in Europe most of the new sets ar Multysystem which means that if they are fed by NTSC signal they will play back in color.
The only problem is the Playback device as the frequency is different for NTSC and PAL.

Best way is if you reencode your data into PAL MPEG2 for the DVD-R in first place.

Almost all European DVD players will play NTSC DVD's without any problems.

The problem is the other way. Most NTSC DVD players will not play PAL.

Trond is correct. Most European DVD players will be able to
convert NTSC **IN** the player to PAL. ALSO, a lot of TV's
here in Europe support NTSC signals and thus the DVD players
are setup for auto output.

Ofcourse, checking with the people where the discs are going
to is a must. Otherwise you could perhaps do the conversion
yourself (or let a company do it for you) and have two versions
of the DVD: an NTSC *and* PAL version.

Regions are Hollywoods way to restrict sales of DVD's to inside
that country/region. In Europe a lot of player are region free
(or have been made this through a remote control hack, firmware
update or extra chip installed).

Actually it is a standard that ALL dvd players have ntsc playback in one form or another.

Since around 5-10% of dvd's released anywhere in PAL land are actually NTSC.

There is not 1 dvd player on the market here in PAL land that can't play back ntsc, it has been that way since the very first players.

Now if you live in NTSC land it is a different story they are 99.9% ntsc only.

Zac

They can all PLAY it back indeed (but you MUST have a TV that
can display NTSC then!!). What I was talking about was that
a lot of player can also CONVERT the NTSC signal to PAL inside
the player.

so, what about the regions? Does a home authored DVD-R have a region code on it?

No, a home authored DVD has NOT region code.
That is only for DVD movies from the (Hollywood) studios.

The reason for the region coding is that they can release a DVD at different times in different parts of the world.

Thank you!

Thanks for the clarification and sorry if I missleaded somebody.

Well I haven't been in Europe in the last 4 years and haven't played with DVDs there.

As I mentioned in Japan everything is strictly NTSC - you have to go to worlwide models shop to find Multisystem TV for example (well over-priced).

Few years ago in such shops also DVD players were advertised to be NTSC/PAL but the next year they were only labeled PAL (as sold in Japan for abroad). At the question to shop keeper if it'll paly NTSC too they say yes but no garantee.

Now days I can find in normal shop JVC DVD player which says in it's specification that support PAL.

Europe is much more International I guess!