I just got a gift of a video cassette from my sister in Australia, and unfortunately she didn’t realise that the broadcast standard in America (NTSC) is different from the PAL system used in Australia. Consequently, i can’t play the tape.
Now, when i lived in Australia, many VCR manufacturers used as a selling point the fact that their machines could play NTSC tapes. But here in the US, when i do a Google search for “pal vcr,” the only players i can find are well over $1000, with some up in the $3-5000 range.
I was wondering if it is possible to buy a relatively cheap VCR in the United States that will play PAL as well as NTSC media.
There are multisystem VCRs that can play a tape recorded in one format and output the video signal in another. Many video shops can also dub copies from one format to another for you.
It seems that there are reasonably-priced machines out there, but i’m not sure it’s worth getting one just for a couple of tapes. It’s probably easier to get them converted to NTSC. Now that my sister etc. know that the US is on a different system, they won’t send PAL tapes any more.
Find out what kind of equipment the conversion shop uses - running your PAL tape through a SAMSUNG “convering” VCR will not produce as good an image as running it through a pro-grade PAL duplicatior, connected to a real (trilab or better) comverter, to a NTSC Duplicator deck. If this is anything resembling an important tape, take the time to to it right (I hired a “Professional Video Transfer Shop” to transfer a PAL "Song of the South: to NTSC - I then bought about $800 of equipment and made a much better transfer). Converters fun from about $100 to $54,000 - there is a difference.
Well, it looks like getting a conversion service, like those recommended by elfkin, isn’t going to work.
You see, the tape isn’t some home movie–it’s a store-purchased, copyrighted video, and the conversion services all say that they cannot transfer copyrighted material. And, even though this transfer would be nothing more than a “format shift” to allow me to see the video, i’m willing to bet that no commercial enterprise will be willing to do it.
Anyway, it’s not earth-shatteringly important. I’ll just send it back to Australia and let someone there have it.