I just had a DVD made of old cine films, I want to send a copy to my brother in England, so it appears that making it region free will not make it play on his DVD player in England? I have some DVDs from England that I can watch on my portable DVD player, which is region free and on one of my DVD players hooked up to my TV, which I can make region free by going into the menu and pressing 3 buttons on the remote. However I copied a British DVD last night but it would not play on my DVD player. What am I missing here, a PAL region 2 DVD will play on a region free DVD player here, but a region free DVD will not play on a region 1 DVD player. I assume it has something to do with PAL / NTSC, but I am not sure, can you help me either understand the problems and or help me make a copy of a DVD so I can send it to my brother so he can watch it, and help me make a copy of a PAL region 2 DVD which will play on any DVD player here in the US? Thanks

I found your second post of this subject (this one) a little confusing based on what you asked before in this thread, the answer for which still stands. PAL and NTSC are broadcast video standards that differ in the frame rate, number of lines and the way color information is encoded. Removing the region coding on a disc gives no assurance (as you have found) that the disc will be watchable on a TV built for a different video standard without circuitry in the player or TV (or software in a PC) that allows for the difference. The easiest way to be able to exchange discs across the pond is for both of you to have DVD players that are region free and have PAL/NTSC converters built in. They are not expensive ($50-200US) and work well. I have heard that some of the multi-standard players use the region code to determine what video playback standard to use, so a region free disc might have unpredictable results. You can tell DVDFab to leave the region coding alone in Common Settings-->Protection.
/EDIT/ I have a friend in Wales that records TV shows that he sends to his son here in the US. I will ask him to PM you and tell you how they do it.

Thanks for the reply and I would love to know how your friends in Wales do this. My main question was how come I can play a British (Region 2) on my US DVD player by changing the DVD player to region free, however a copy of the same DVD wilh the region removed will not play on the same DVD player? Just seems odd to me. At this point I think I am resigned to the fact that I cannot make a copy of a british dvd and be able to watch the copy on a US dvd player without a lot of trouble trying to convert it. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

It seems odd to me too! Your player must have a PAL/NTSC converter. Even though you have hacked the region restrictions of the player, it can still read the region code on the DVD and activate the PAL decoder. This code is not there to be read from the copy unless you UNcheck the region removal boxes in Common Settings-->Protection. Try that if you haven't, might work. I'll tell Clive to drop you a note, so check for Personal Message alerts in your email. They will pop up automatically when you check into the forum.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, I will give you suggestion a try, kinda makes sense.

You're very welcome. My explanation of the player behaviour is conjecture based on second hand information but may not be too far off the mark. Please post back with the outcome.

h9wilson:

It seems to me that there is something wrong with that copy. The copy is region free, the system stays the same (PAL, I assume). No reason for incompatibility with same DVD player unless the copy is not good.

I have PAL and NTSC DVDs all region 2 at home. They are OK with my DVD player (PHILIPS DVP-5960). Sometimes I borrow DVDs PAL or NTSC and make copies, and the copies play fine in my DVD player.

The DVP5960 is a multistandard (PAL+NTSC) player. Wish I had one! Do you make the copies region free?