Playing back NTSC DVDs on UK laptop...?

slicendice

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Hi
Sorry if this is an obvious question, but I was just wondering if an NTSC formatted DVD (region free) would play back on a UK laptop (Dell Inspiron 1525)? Is the PAL/NTSC thing even an issue when watching DVDs on computer?

Thanks very much
 
It can vary between computers. With mine it will play both but you can only change the regon 4 times before it "locks" on a region. I'm sure there is some kind of software to stop it locking on a region but I haven't used it. Hopefully someone else can point you in the right direction.
 
Thanks for the reply!

So is the ability to play NTSC DVDs linked directly to the region?? I always thought they were two seperate issues?
 
Most laptops have a screen refresh rate of 60Hz - the same as NTSC, so technically, playing region-free PAL or NTSC discs shouldn't be a problem at all.

If region-coding does become an issue, one way around it is to use something like AnyDVD which forces multiregion playback:
http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html

It doesn't work for all drives (I think Panasonic/Matsushita cause problems) but it's a reasonably neat solution.
 
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Thanks for the info....

I've been doing some poking around online and it seems very much as you say, that the PAL/NTSC situation isn't too much of an issue on laptops
 

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