My 360 just played a PAL-encoded DVD

Zero Cool · Post by **Zero Cool** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 4:52 pm

Some time ago, I DL'ed an ISO of a European copy of the Italian horror film Bay of Blood off of The Pirate Bay. I only did this cuz the American releases are for the most part cut and I wanted the uncut version. And this one has Italian audio and English subs, so it was perfect.

And when it was done, I examined one of the VOBs and it said that the framerate was 25fps, the standard of PAL. So I burned it anyway. And then I popped it into my Xbox 360 and... IT FREAKING PLAYED IT!!! I couldn't get it to play in another DVD player, but the 360 played it flawlessly.

Is it possible that, even though it can't play DVDs that are anything but Region 1 or 0, it can STILL play PAL on an American NTSC system? Or was it something else?

Further tests are needed.

nightwheel · Post by **nightwheel** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 6:22 pm

That shouldn't be happning. Test it again but using a non copyed pal game

Zero Cool · Post by **Zero Cool** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 6:49 pm

nightwheel wrote:That shouldn't be happning. Test it again but using a non copyed pal game

Actually, on CinemaGeddon's message boards, someone said:

SadoVomit from CG wrote:Xbox has conversion built in, and are region free (play all region dvds). Most new dvd players also convert PAL to NTSC these days, as well as a "hidden" menu to make it region free.
Are you positive your Xbox won't play other region dvds? I've seen it done.

Or is this person talking about the Xbox 1?

And it wasn't a game, it was a movie. And since it was copied, it was region free. Maybe SadoVomit was right and it DOES have built-in conversion.

Post by **bicostp** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 6:50 pm

As long as the region matches the player, it should decode the video no matter what framerate it's running at. (Remember, DVDs are basically glorified MPEG-2 streams.)

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:32 pm

bicostp is right. The only reason your DVD player didn't play it is that the drive doesn't like burns on the type of media you used.

I've played imported European discs on a fair number of players (after region modding) with no troubles. I've also set my player to output PAL with an NTSC disc, and it outputed with no troubles (though I could only view it in color on a TV card for a PC).

Zero Cool · Post by **Zero Cool** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 9:25 pm

tom61 wrote:bicostp is right. The only reason your DVD player didn't play it is that the drive doesn't like burns on the type of media you used.

I've played imported European discs on a fair number of players (after region modding) with no troubles. I've also set my player to output PAL with an NTSC disc, and it outputed with no troubles (though I could only view it in color on a TV card for a PC).

Actually, every other disc burned with the brand of DVD-Rs I use have worked.