DVD for US delivery - could it be PAL ?
 

Our situation: We have a video shot and edited in PAL, with 8 audio tracks: English, German, French, Spanish, Portugese, Russian, Mandarin, Danish,, - to be viewed in these countries.

Question: Should we have the video converted to NTSC for use in "NTSC-countries" or will they be able to play a PAL DVD just out of the box?

My DVD-player here plays NTSC DVD's without any problems, even if it is bought to be used in PAL ..

Does it matter to make a NTSC-version or not?

I think you will have some problems with PAL DVD's in the US. My DVD player is about 5 years old and will not play PAL. Since I work for an opera company, we often receive PAL DVD's from companies in Europe and our staff members tell me they can't play them. I don't know about newer players, perhaps they are multi-standard? I just bought a portable DVD player two weeks ago and it will play PAL and NTSC for example.

But I think there are still a lot of players out there which won't accept PAL in the US, and probably even more TV sets which can't display it either. I have a 3 year old Panasonic plasma TV and it can't take PAL inputs. Same thing with a 4 year old Samsung LCD TV/monitor.

When we receive PAL DVD's at work the solution is generally to just watch them on a computer because they will work with both formats. If you want to reach the largest audience in the US, unfortunately I believe you'll need an NTSC DVD.

Boyd,

Thank you very much. I think we will go for a NTSC DVD as well as PAL.

Bjorn

That's a good call, Bjørn. Just about no one in the USA can play a PAL DVD on their television. On a computer, it's a non-issue, of course. Unlike European units, most DVD players sold in North America will not play any system besides NTSC.

There is also a French and Russian version included. These countries use SECAM, right?
Or does the SECAM system still exist?