i have a DVD that I bought in Barcelona that is definitely encoded in PAL -- and even though it is a "Region 0" DVD, it won't play on my DVD player (a Sony DVP-S500, which was one step down from Sony's top-of-the-line when I bought it). i may have been generalizing too much when I said that the data on the disc was in PAL...it's possible that the data (for a movie, for instance) could be in a neutral format, and the output ciruitry on the DVD player coverts the signal to PAL-*, NTSC, whatever. the disk I have may have failed to play for other reasons...I wish I knew why my DVD player refuses to even recognize it.
chances are, he has a TV that supports PAL input...
the PAL issue is more important than the regional encoding issue, since even with a region-less (or region-settable) DVD player, the digitized data on the disk is PAL format video, not NTSC, so he'd have to watch the DVDs he already has on his old TV.
I have seen PAL-to-NTSC signal converters for sale, but they are not cheap (on the order of $400, iirc).
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i have a DVD that I bought in Barcelona that is definitely encoded in PAL -- and even though it is a "Region 0" DVD, it won't play on my DVD player (a Sony DVP-S500, which was one step down from Sony's top-of-the-line when I bought it). i may have been generalizing too much when I said that the data on the disc was in PAL...it's possible that the data (for a movie, for instance) could be in a neutral format, and the output ciruitry on the DVD player coverts the signal to PAL-*, NTSC, whatever. the disk I have may have failed to play for other reasons...I wish I knew why my DVD player refuses to even recognize it.
chances are, he has a TV that supports PAL input...
the PAL issue is more important than the regional encoding issue, since even with a region-less (or region-settable) DVD player, the digitized data on the disk is PAL format video, not NTSC, so he'd have to watch the DVDs he already has on his old TV.
I have seen PAL-to-NTSC signal converters for sale, but they are not cheap (on the order of $400, iirc).