Do US domestic DVD Players have multi region playback?

I have to fly over to Houston shortly for a business meeting at which I
also need to show some material produced on PAL video. I'm thinking to
take a PAL PD170 as a player and I also have PAL DVD's. How reasonable
will it be to find a domestic DVD player over there which can play PAL
disks at full quality and a PAL capable TV/monitor?

I'm sure I could find professional equipment rental facilities but if
ordinary domestic kit can do it it will save me hassle and expense. In
Europe multi region TV's and DVD players are pretty common. Otherwise I
can get my local colleague (a college professor who knows little about
these things) to hire some professional equipment from somewhere in the
Houston area. We only need it for a few hours on a Friday, dunno which
one yet, next month.

Cheers

 

Buy Yourself

a UK apex dvd player for $50 and cya

 

I have a Daewoo region free dvd player that plays anything and can be
set from ntsc to pal at the push of a button.
Mod# DVG-500N Cost me about 70 bucks on ebay.

 

If your DVD has much importance, I would certainly take along something
(player AND screen) to show it with. Chances of finding PAL-capable
equipment in any particular place (especially in a corporate setting)
will likely vary between slim and none. Unless these people regularly
deal with playing back PAL DVDs for some reason (you didn't mention
what kind of business it is.)

Note that your average NTSC TV/Monitor will *NOT* handle PAL
either, so just taking along a player seems insufficient to me.

Do you have a laptop PC with DVD drive? Can you play it on that?
It may be the most portable and universal way of playing back a
PAL DVD in NTSC-land since the computer video is standard and
will fit US monitors and projectors.

If you have that much lead time, what about just making an NTSC
DVD for use in the territories? Likely much easier to handle than
trying to find PAL equipment.

 

Thanks for the tips Richard. Looks like the meeting is going to be in
Dallas and not Houston. I'm negotiating a distribution deal for the US
DVD version of a film we produced earlier. We've already created the
DVD version in terms of menus, extras and chapter points but before we
re-master for the pressed distribution version (as opposed to an
unmarketable burned version) we need to be agreed about the design as
well as the rights. Our burned DVD has been produced within a G5 FCP
system. We have tried the NTSC conversion facility provided within FCP
but sadly the conversion quality is just no where near good enough. I
guess there's a reason why we still have to convert our PAL master tapes
to NTSC Digi Beta via a $180,000 Snell & Wilcox Alchemist! (Facilities
house of course, not our machine) We'll then have a completely new NTSC
DVD master created from that. An expensive and demanding palaver, hence
we don't have a suitable NTSC DVD to demonstrate yet.

Fortunately my Texas associate has managed to locate a bunch of PAL
equipment for our meeting so it looks like we'll be OK. He did complain
that it took him a long time find it though.

Cheers