Printable View
A friend in Europe sent me a VHS tape and when I tried to play it, it would not. So next time I talked to him I asked him why, he said he'd heard that there are different formats for Europe and US. Is this true and if so how can I watch this video? Thanks
That is true, i'm not exactly sure with VHS tapes, i know how with a DVD, never tried a VHS from abroad, but with DVD Europe's region is 2, and US is 1...probably the same....I'll move the thread to Multimedia where it should get more attention than the lounge.:)
Liam
Europe can be expected to have one of a few variants of PAL or SECAM, you could search out a multi-standard VCR, or a recording professional could probably dub the tape across to an NTSC copy if there is no copyright issue.
The European vhs format is 'PAL'. The US,Canada(and a few others) is 'NTSC'.
PAL(vhs) can be converted to NTSC(vhs),but you either have to have it done professionally,which is quite expensive at around usd$50.00 per 2 hour tape. Or you can do it with software on your PC and,of course,a VCR connected to it and capture software and/or PCI card. Some examples of what you'd need are here ...
Here in australia most TVs and VCRs support NTSC playback on PAL equipment (albeit somewhat poorer quality), it is often touted as a selling point.
Is that not the case in US ?
Maybe it's too hard to convert PAL to NTSC