What are the Problems Playing PAL VCD in North America?

I bought a TaiJi exercise VCD in Taiwan Jan, 2004, and have had no
problems playing it in various DVD players in Taiwan, USA, and Canada;
and now on my computer.

Just now, as I was playing it with Tmgpc/Nero etc of the contents of
this VCD, I found it is actually a PAL version (size 352x288; Frame
rate: 25 HZ etc). Without experiencing any problems for playing it
during the last 16 months, I am wondering what's the fuss about the
difference between NTSC and PAL.

Currently, I was planning to rip the contents out to MPG file then to
re-organize the flow and/or adding Chapters before burning into a
VCD/DVD.

Actually, last Friday, without knowing the difference, I burnt a VCD
(Pal) that was played in my home DVD player (Panasonic) with no
apparent problems.

With the PAL format has no apparent effects on the VCD production, (or
I am just lucky in getting DVD players that are tolerant of both
formats?); I am wondering do I have to convert from PAL to NTSC for the
DVD production?

Comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

Some recent players will convert PAL DVDs to NTSC output - even if the
documentation doesn't mention it. I have a Pioneer DV-363 that does a
pretty good job of this, but the motion isn't entirely smooth due to
the different framerates involved.

I have an older player (Pioneer DVL-919) which will *not* convert
ordinary PAL DVDs to NTSC. It plays them, but it apparently puts out
a PAL signal which is not viewable on an NTSC TV. Oddly enough, I
have found that I *can* play PAL video in VCD format on it just fine
(whether the video is on a DVD or a VCD, I think). I don't fully
understand why, but I think it may have something to do with the fact
that VCD video is not interlaced.

Anyway, you may find that if you play a normal PAL DVD (with
interlaced MPEG2 video), your results will not be the same as they
have been with the VCDs. Region coding can also become a problem if
you try to play a PAL DVD that has regional coding.

 

Just now, as I was loading those PAL mpg files for trial by Nero
Express 6. I got a msg:

"The Video file ..........mpg is not video CD compliant. The
video will be re-encoded to Video CD format before burning."

Just wondering whether Nero6 would be trying to convert those PAL
videos into NTSC compliant ones? Or it means something else?

 

If Nero is set to make an NTSC VCD, then I expect it would want to
convert them to NTSC format (I doubt it would do a very good job of
that). You could try setting it to make a PAL VCD to see if it still
gives you that message.