Playing imported DVD: PS3 OS can't (yet), Linux Can

[Arnaud_M]

I just tried playing one of my DVD from France (a Mylene Farmer concert, if you know her, a beautiful and provocative author/composer/singer/choregraph), and unfortunately the PS3 can not read a PAL DVD, EVEN THOUGH this one is Zone 9, which means "international zone" (no restriction for any country), and thus should be readable. For the record, I also tried it on my 360 and ... it works wonderfully. The 360 transcodes on the fly from standard def PAL to HDTV, while the PS3 can not. Grrrrr. I know this is of a minor importance to most of you (because very few Zone 9 DVD exists anyway), but still ... the PS3 is supposed to be the "multi media" machine right :-) ?

Arnaud

[frosty]

Give Sony a chance, they have a lot of features that have yet to be added. A scaler being one of them. They have said they will include this in a future update as soon as they get their code to run it optimized to the fullest. Converting PAL to NTSC or to HD = scaling. PAL uses a different resolution than NTSC (which is why it won't play the DVD at all) and it's software scaler isn't enabled yet so you can't upscale it to HD yet either.

[VG Aficionado]

"Zone 9"??? Do you mean Region 9? Does that even exist? The international region is no. 8. Still, are you sure you're not playing a region 2 PAL DVD on your US (I assume) PS3? Because there's no wonder why it isn't working. On the other hand, PAL DVD on an European 360 is a given.

[SToRM666]

Maybe this quote from the SCE Asia website could be good news:

Q: Can PLAYSTATION®3 sold in Hong Kong play PAL content?

A: PLAYSTATION®3 sold in Hong Kong can play only NTSC (60i)
content at this moment. This means 50i AVCHD content
(recorded by video camera) and PAL DVD (SD) cannot be played.
These contents are now planned to become playable through
system update, which is planned to be released on 2007 spring.

I don't know what they mean to say here, but it looks like the PS3 could become region-free for DVD's.

(Source: asia.playstation.com/eng_hk/index.php?q=ps3-faq#q21)

[VG Aficionado]

Nice find!

[stanDarsh]

Yeah I have experienced this too. The only way around it is, to recode it using a program such as canopus procoder from PAL to NTSC and then burn it again. At the end of the day it's not really worth it, as I'm sure you have other DVD players in your house.

[Arnaud_M]

"Zone 9"??? Do you mean Region 9? Does that even exist? The international region is no. 8.

It is truely a DVD for the International Region (I thought the region code was 9, my mistake).

Arnaud

[Arnaud_M]

At the end of the day it's not really worth it, as I'm sure you have other DVD players in your house.

Actually, no :-) I am french, living in Canada for 6 years now, so I have a DVD collection from France (and some of them are "international region"), but consoles from North America. The only way I could previously see the international region DVDs were on my PC. 360 (and probably soon the PS3, thanks Frosty for the info, i was not aware that the coming scaler would do that) is for now my only way of seeing french, international region, DVDs on the TV. But i know that there are few hopes for the non-international region ones, at least until some de-zoning tool is available.

Arnaud

[Arnaud_M]

I don't know what they mean to say here, but it looks like the PS3 could become region-free for DVD's.
(Source: asia.playstation.com/eng_hk/index.php?q=ps3-faq#q21)

Not region free, as I read it. You would only be able to play PAL DVD in North America IF the DVD itself is for the "international region". And few ares. But still, this would be very nice.

Arnaud

[Z]

Arny, call tech support and see what they tell you before being too hasty. your PS3 model may not support that DVD region locking. call them and tell us what they say.

cheers.

[digital neXus]

Still I'm waiting for Europe release, but can YDL play DVD movies with unlocked regions and upscale DVD???

[VG Aficionado]

Still I'm waiting for Europe release, but can YDL play DVD movies with unlocked regions and upscale DVD???I don't know about upscaling as it should be a GPU task, even though I've seen people playing HD videos from Linux on their PS3 running on Cell alone, and they worked fine. However, I'm sure there have to be region coding workarounds for DVD playback in Linux, so the answer you're looking for is most likely yes!

[frosty]

Yes, there are ways to get around region coding, as well as to play a PAL DVD with Linux. So, this thread's title isn't exactly correct. I'm going to edit it.