…and this is a 
At the youtube page for this video, it's recommended that you buy his DVD. I agree! I want it! But, unfortunately, I only found one Minchin DVD at Amazon, and it won't play in the US. Any suggestions? Anyone? When I see Tim Minchin in London in the fall, do I have to beat him up, steal his computer, bootleg everything he has encoded on it, and get rich selling the stolen data on the internet? No, that wouldn't be nice at all, especially since he'd probably beat me up and then write a satirical song about me that would mean I could never leave my house ever again.
Where's the Minchin HBO special?
Comments
Posted by: SEF
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June 6, 2010 11:43 AM
Get a region-free DVD player (either a stand-alone box or for your computer).
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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June 6, 2010 11:49 AM
Actually, it's not a book people read much, and generally understand much less. It's more like a little god, about which you're told, and you read about what the Bible "means."
It's got to be a good book, because we'd never have the science of ID, with its many contributions to our knowledge, without it.
Glen Davidson
Posted by: peter.jeaiem
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June 6, 2010 11:49 AM
Still this does not beat Lewis Black's rant about the old testament. Youtube: LGrlWOhtj3g
Posted by: cfmilner
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June 6, 2010 11:51 AM
Awesome. He's an Aussie version of Bill Bailey ... with slightly more hair.
~ vicar's daughter ~
Posted by: mistereveready
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June 6, 2010 11:53 AM
also arent' most pc drives not set until they read the first dvd? i wonder if getting a cheap external drive would work. could also try contacting the publisher. i'd recommend a 3rd way but i dont want to get banned, even though it includes purchasing the item.
Posted by: blf
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June 6, 2010 11:53 AM
I loved this bit of the linked-to song:
And I second the suggestion of the computer or a region-free player.
Posted by: ThisIsGrand
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June 6, 2010 11:57 AM
Buy it, play it on your computer. It is what I did.
Oh, and Tim will be in Canada (Montreal and Toronto)next month. It will not be part of his tour but he'll be playing a comedy gala and joining another comedian for a few shows doing duets.
Posted by: SlantedScience
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June 6, 2010 11:57 AM
Many US DVD players can be taught to play any DVD by a simple engineers' "hack". That's not as shady as it sounds; mostly the hacks just involve pressing a sewuence of numbers on your remote.
Here's one useful site for the hacks:
link
Posted by: Shplane, some shit in french
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June 6, 2010 11:58 AM
Heeeee
Minchin is the man.
Posted by: cfmilner
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June 6, 2010 11:59 AM
I don't know whether this helps but in the FAQ of his website he says the following:
~ vicar's daughter ~
Posted by: Aegis Linnear
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June 6, 2010 12:04 PM
#10 is perfectly correct, PZ. VLC is a freeware media player program that works for PC or Mac, which can be used to open DVDs and play them regardless of region - I'm in England and I use it for American discs all the time. Useful gear.
Posted by: Greg F.
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June 6, 2010 12:05 PM
No, that wouldn't be nice at all, especially since he'd probably beat me up and then write a satirical song about me that would mean I could never leave my house ever again.
And that's how Minchin would become atheism and skepticism's Dante Alighieri...
Posted by: squealpiggy
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June 6, 2010 12:08 PM
I fixed my old DVD player in the computer to play region 2 DVDs and used the computer to watch my import stuff. It's as simple as opening My Computer, right click on the DVD drive, select "Properties" and you'll get a menu. Select the "Hardware" tab, click the "Properties" button and then select the tab that says "Region". You can change it to a different country.
You have a limited number of times you can do it though.
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM, CR
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June 6, 2010 12:12 PM
"Rock & Roll Nerd" does exist in all-countries format; I have my copy right here, to check that I was not lying. (you could borrow it...)
Perhaps Podblack would know where to get one; she's always been several steps ahead of the breaking news on the Minchin front.
Posted by: Sunday Afternoon
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June 6, 2010 12:14 PM
AnyDVD HD is your friend - it can remove country codes and you can burn yourself a county-code free copy.
Posted by: toth
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June 6, 2010 12:15 PM
2 things:
1) If you want to support Tim, he has "Ready For This?" on ITunes, along with singles for Drowned and (I think) White Wine In The Sun.
2) I know other people have mentioned the regioning thing already, but I know that when I decrypt a DVD using DVD Decrypter (it's free), it often asks me what region the disc is, and claims that the choice has no impact on the actual optical drive (i.e., it doesn't change the drive's region). So it's a bit of a hassle, but you can rip it and then burn it onto a DVD in the proper region using a DVD burning program.
Oh, and PZ: I hadn't heard anything about Tim until you posted his Pope Song a while back. Since then, I've been listening to almost nothing but him, so thank you so much for introducing me to him.
Posted by: Nemo
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June 6, 2010 12:15 PM
It's already a region 0 disc, so we can ignore that aspect of it. All you need is a PAL-capable player. Most of the DVD players I've owned here in the U.S. have handled PAL. (The exception, sadly, is my latest, a Blu-Ray player.) Cheap-low end players, ironically, are more likely to support it than expensive brand names.
But yeah, I think any computer DVD software would handle it (you don't even need to stick to VLC, since it's region free).
Posted by: godbegone
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June 6, 2010 12:23 PM
As previous posters jave mentioned, VLC is a great solution. If you want to change the format to be able to actually stick the DVD into anything other than a computer or a EU DVD player, You'll have to make a new disk. I'd recommend buying the DVD then using HandBrake, a mac DVD ripping tool (it's free). You can rip the DVD to whatever format you want then use the handy-dandy DVD burner in you computer (assuming you have one) to make a US-compatible disc.
Posted by: Andyo
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June 6, 2010 12:26 PM
AnyDVD (HD) is about 40% of the reason I am a Windows guy. But I think many here including PZ are Mac people. I think VLC is a good and easy-enough alternative. I think it does region unlocking itself.
That said, there are DVD drives (the infamous "matshita" drives that come with Toshiba laptops and possibly others) that are hardware region-locked and no software can get around, and there's even no firmware hack available AFAIK.
BTW, people who suggested a region-free player. The TV also has to be PAL-compatible. If you got a spanking new digital HDTV, you can probably get away with it with a DVD player with HDMI-out, but probably not with analog outs unless the player does the conversion to NTSC itself.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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June 6, 2010 12:28 PM
I bought his DVD as a non-itunes download, and have had great happiness with it.
Cover art would be nice, though. :(
Posted by: Andyo
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June 6, 2010 12:32 PM
By the way, for the real geeks out there. You can fix the 25 fps PAL speedup that they do with most movies and content shot at 24 fps with this little awesome free tool called ReClock (Windows only though).
Posted by: supernorbert
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June 6, 2010 12:43 PM
PZ,
Amazon says, the DVD's Region Code is '0'. That means, no region code is set, and it is intended for World Wide use. So don't worry. Even on your restricted US-player, it should do well.
Posted by: Andyo
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June 6, 2010 12:51 PM
Not if the TV can't accept PAL signals and the DVD player does not do PAL->NTSC conversion.
Posted by: SWH
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June 6, 2010 1:02 PM
Amazon sells multiregion players, just search on "region free DVD player" they have a whole section, you can get one from around $60 - perfectly good for everything except Blu-Ray (as someone noted above).
Mine (a Phillips) is happy to take my British DVDs and will output the signal to a boringly normal American TV - just check the specs online to make sure it can do the conversion. Do have some minor signal degradation on the transfer (as compared to an American bought disk where no conversion is necessary) but it's perfectly easy to watch - I wouldn't recommend it forPlanet Earth where you want the full 1080 experience. (For my son's Top Gear and my QI DVD's though, it's just fine)
Posted by: supernorbert
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June 6, 2010 1:04 PM
@Andyo: You're right that could be an issue.
The only things in the world you really can rely on are avi-files via Rapidshare or Bittorrent :)
Posted by: somewhereingreece
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June 6, 2010 1:14 PM
I managed to get a ticket for TAM. One more reason why i am looking forward to it :-)
All the suggestions I would have made have already been made. It's just another example of how in the name of protecting copyright companies make it harder for legal users around the world to access content from a region different to their own.
I would love it if Tim Minchin wrote a song to that effect, probably titled "DRMs and Region Codes make PZ Myers a pirate". Knowing him, it would be the record companies executives who would be made unable to show their faces in the light of day.
Posted by: Franklin Percival
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June 6, 2010 1:21 PM
Peculiar concepts, no? Like you, your house, etcetera - where do we go from here?
Posted by: Travis
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June 6, 2010 1:25 PM
I find the cheapest DVD players are the best for this sort of thing. Many can be region unlocked so easily. Others will do PAL/NTSC conversions as well. I am not sure they do it the best way, the they are not great DVD players but if it means watching something, or not watching something and it is okay then I think they are a good deal. I have not paid over $20 for a DVD player in years and have been happy enough. Then again, my TV is rubbish so I probably do not notice how bad things really look.
Posted by: SaintStephen
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June 6, 2010 1:45 PM
Brilliant! Thanks Professor Myers, this will make a superb wake-me-up for Mom after she gets back from church...
(Finger poised over the email SEND button...)
Well, on second thought, maybe not. She might misinterpret the whole "drowning cats" thing, "bless" her sheltered heart.
But if Tim Minchin IS given an HBO special, I hope they do an extended segment on his background, and show & tell us where he practiced his craft growing up. There must still be Christians dwelling in that area who display dementia and clear brain damage effects from thousands of hours of listening to Tim's genius; probably shuffling around town muttering things like "...and it was well-received!"
Posted by: Birger Johansson
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June 6, 2010 2:15 PM
Ironically, on the very same day, the Swedish youth board chairman had to chastise christian youth organisations for discriminating against LGBT members. In general, Swedish youth organisations can get government money for providing services and activities for its members but the money comes with obligations to adhere to democratic values.
You can be a bigot at home, but if you run an organization with partial funding from the government you cannot run it according to the "good book's" instruction to stone gay people.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawk8OXe4QLH9T3aEU-3gCukSRBV5NYevTek
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June 6, 2010 2:16 PM
Bought tickets to his show next month. So happy he's coming to my town. Would love to get a chance to meet him up close. Brilliant and imaginative guy. We need more comedians like him. Thanks for posing that video PZ.
Posted by: thornae.myopenid.com
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June 6, 2010 2:20 PM
I suppose it's not beyond the realms of possibility that some kind-hearted, technically competent person (probably with a bit more ready cash than, say, me) could buy the DVDs for PZ, rip them to NTSC, and send burned, US DVD player compatible versions along with the originals...
Posted by: Dr Skeptic
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June 6, 2010 2:34 PM
I'll let the other techie posts deal with the regions. If you want more Minchin DVDs just visit his Australian site. Amazon is not the only road to culture.
http://www.timminchin.com/merchandise/
Australians know where the USA is and have the technology to ship items there. All my Minchin CDs have made the trip.
Posted by: Andyo
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June 6, 2010 2:59 PM
Australia is also a PAL region unfortunately. It's the same problem exactly.
Posted by: bellicose.agnostic
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June 6, 2010 3:01 PM
Download AnyDVD.. it removes the regional protecction from the DVD's making them playable virtually anywhere...
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/2DkvJq0Zs.HfX1slPTahWjpNkP3H#c7fe8
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June 6, 2010 3:19 PM
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your enquiry regarding the Minchkin video.
This video is not available in your region because:
i) Americans are too stupid to appreciate it
ii) For the same reason American material is not available outside the US - namely that we are total douchebags.
Yours truly,
Gre Dee Bstrds,
CEO, Minchkin Video Distribution Rights Holders Inc
Posted by: mike.r.bermudez
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June 6, 2010 4:33 PM
Hey PZ,
If you have the time, Ken Plume did an interview with Tim and asked him about why his material isn't in the US; as well as talking about pirating.
It's a pretty good interview in general.
http://bit.ly/bJGKXX
Posted by: jcmartz.myopenid.com
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June 6, 2010 4:37 PM
Here's how to play DVDs on Windows 98, regardless of the region. I don't if those types at Redmond, WA (that's where Microsoft is headquartered) have changed things, but I'm sure people with sufficient skillz this might serve as pointer how to get around the region encoding.
Posted by: NickDanger
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June 6, 2010 5:41 PM
Most DVD players can be hacked to play any region DVD. Just google your make and model number and check for directions. Mine was easy. The only problem was I had to hack it again to go back to the usual region, but that was a matter of a minute or less.
Posted by: Peter Beattie
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June 6, 2010 5:57 PM
Get a region-free DVD player
+1
Posted by: RealityinSarnia
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June 6, 2010 7:09 PM
Darn work, I am out of town during the Toronto gigs..... Life is not fair!
Posted by: tristanm1
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June 6, 2010 8:53 PM
One way to do it is to buy the DVD, then just rip it and reburn it as a region-free DVD with DVD Shrink. The advantage to this is that if the copy gets scratched to hell, you can just re-rip your original copy.
Posted by: speedweasel
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June 6, 2010 10:28 PM
I like Tim Minchin but I'm sick of him bashing religion. He is starting to sound like a religious extremist himself. The bible may not be perfect but it teaches us to love each other and gives us a moral compass, without which we would all be fornicating in the street.
Tim should work on reconciling people of all faiths (including athiesm) instead of tearing down religion which gives meaning to people's lives.
It easy to make fun on Christianity because the followers of Jesus are so meek but I'll bet he wouldn't dare insult Islam like this.
I will pray for him.
Posted by: Stibbons
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June 7, 2010 4:59 AM
Now look here Speedweasel you...
Ah, hang on. Oh, nice, really had me going there, damn that lack of an "irony" smiley. Naughty person, classic Poe job though.
Seeing Tim Minchin TONIGHT in the Lyceum Theatre in London, just a few mins walk from my place of work, he's part of a comedy night for human rights charity Reprieve. Going to be good. Hope he'll do the "Storm" beat poem.
Posted by: lilith
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June 7, 2010 5:27 AM
Loved it! The part that made me LOL was not any religion bashing (not that I didn't like that) but the sentence "and it was genrally well recieved".
It was just so unexpected...
PS #44 is not for real, is he? Damn Poe low...
Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere
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June 7, 2010 5:33 AM
That was my highlight when I saw him last December.Posted by: nomaduk
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June 7, 2010 6:18 AM
And the bad part about that would be...?
Posted by: ctroein
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June 7, 2010 6:36 AM
You could get run over. Also, it tends to be bloody cold outside much of the year.Posted by: Andyo
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June 7, 2010 8:12 AM
Speedweasel, you forgot to capitalize "bible", and optionally, "faiths" and "followers". Also too little grammatical and spelling mistakes.
Posted by: UXO
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June 7, 2010 9:59 AM
@Andyo: You mean too FEW mistakes. Good job upping the count vicariously though... ;)
Grammar poe-lice signing off!
Posted by: gawdmail
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June 7, 2010 10:32 AM
I bought it a few weeks ago as an MP3 file on Amazon. Don't bother with the physical disk.
Posted by: Andyo
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June 7, 2010 11:20 AM
UXO, funny story... I did realize that right after I posted, was just hoping no one noticed. Since English is not my first language (you're picking on a poor foreigner, you bully!) I went to the Merriam Webster site to double check "capitalize", cause in Spanish "capitalizar" has nothing to do with capital letters.
If you notice, there is a random "Ask the Editor" video at the right of the page. Guess which one was showing that time I looked? This one.
Posted by: of10rot10
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June 7, 2010 11:30 AM
A lot of Universities have either in their English dept, don't ask me why that one, or their communications dept a PALS system hooked up for conversions. Went through this a few years ago, OK several, when a Prof of mine had gotten a piece from Italy and wanted us to see it.
Posted by: dahduh
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June 7, 2010 12:53 PM
It seems the solution is to turn to the classics: "Veni, vidi, copi".
Posted by: dinogami
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June 7, 2010 3:13 PM
As an aside: an animated short film based on Minchin's "Storm" beat poem is in the works. Huzzah! Looks good, too.
Posted by: j-brisby
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June 7, 2010 11:22 PM
Learn to use Bittorrent and download an .avi version. Then send Tim some money if your conscience demands it.
Posted by: j-brisby
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June 7, 2010 11:26 PM
@dinogami Looks terrible. I'm not looking forward to that animated film at all. They made Tim look like an evil junkie. Just horribly unappealing design all-around.
Posted by: qz
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June 8, 2010 1:07 AM
This guy is phenomenal. His statistically accurate love song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8i8cy6beDw and Tony the Fish http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DXl68NF_uI are also excellent. Well, Tony has some obvious misrepresentations, but is hilarious nevertheless.
Posted by: Hypatia
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June 8, 2010 1:31 AM
Speedweasel, you lose the bet. See Tim's "Ten-Foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins". (There are others, but that one's particularly brilliant. You really can't beat a teleological argument that proves God's a bum.)
The majority of Tim's DVDs can be purchased from his website through UK and Australian vendors, but I've spent hours upon hours watching most of the content on youtube. One day I hope to own his complete library, but for now youtube gets me by. (Also waiting ever-so-impatiently for a US gig... )
Posted by: Stibbons
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June 8, 2010 4:10 AM
We didn't get Storm, we did get the "I like Boobies" song, the "Canvas Bag" song and, spectacularly, the Pope song. Tim was headlining the gig but was one of a dozen other comics, including Phil Jupitus, Shappi Khorsandi, Kevin Eldon and more. A good evening.
Posted by: jackrabbit
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June 8, 2010 7:30 PM
I was recently wondering why "Just For Laughs" here in Montreal hasn't booked him. They will next summer if I can help it.
Posted by: jackrabbit
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June 8, 2010 7:37 PM
Ugh. Sorry. He will be in Montreal this summer. I guess I should look before I leap...and buy tickets.
Posted by: justncase80
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June 9, 2010 1:23 AM
I hate to admit it but since I was unable to buy anything of his I resorted to piracy. You can get any of his videos via Bit Torrent pretty readily:
http://isohunt.com/lite/#q=tim+minchin&p=1
I watched the So Live one, it works just fine on any machine. Not a pirate by heart, Tim if you make an NTSC version of your DVD's I'll buy it all I promise.
Posted by: tyronomo
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June 25, 2010 2:05 AM
My wife and I picked up two Michin DVDs when we saw him perform in Brisbane.
It was Super awesome!
ooh, maybe I'll watch one tonite!:D
Posted by: timothy.green.name
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June 25, 2010 4:12 PM
More Minchin Muslim bashing is available in "Peace Anthem for Palestine".
I wouldn't recommend AVI format if others are available. If I remember correctly, it's inferior quality for audio. (I've been reading quite a lot about video formats recently, but the details are escaping me.) MP4 is pretty good, but you may or may not need to download extra codecs to read the files. The new WebM video format is designed to be completely portable. It allows only one video codec (V8) and only one audio codec (Vorbis). That means you either can play WebM or you can't. No guessing. (If you have an up-to-date release of VLC, you can.)
TRiG.
Posted by: furr-a-bruin
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June 30, 2010 5:36 PM
All you need for something like this is the proper DVD player. I recommend Philips brand players (mine is a DVP5990) - most of them are able to be made region-free with a simple sequence on the remote, and they're able to do standards conversion between PAL and NTSC - which is far simpler in the digital domain than in analog. All the player has to do is a simple resize from 720x576 to 720x480, and then telecine 25 frames per second into 30 - things that a fairly inexpensive chipset can handle in real time.
The reason for the fact that some have noted that DVD players from "second tier" or "no-name" manufacturers are more likely to be able to handle PAL/NTSC is that they use a multistandard design so they can sell essentially the same player worldwide; the really big companies (like Sony, for example) can afford to tailor units to specific markets. Philips is something of an exception to this rule.
I'm a fan of a number of TV series from PAL parts of the world that have never been released properly in NTSC, so all of my players have been selected in part for their ability to properly play back a Region 2 or Region 4 PAL DVD on an ordinary NTSC television. Do a little research before you buy and it's nearly a no-brainer. VideoHelp.com has a great database of DVD players that's a great place to start.