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Who says your videos won't be able to make the trip to the Land of NTSC?
Go to www.ebay.com, and look for "World Wide Video", "Samsung", "Multi-format", "Multi Format". You'll find VCRs that can play PAL, NTSC and even SECAM format videos, and they'll cost much less than if you went to a store...if you could even find them in a store.
I have one by Samsung, and it plays my vast collection of PAL videos and my even vaster collection of NTSC ones magnificently! It has a built-in converter, to automatically convert the output for both PAL and NTSC format TVs (Make sure your machine will do this too), so you'd never know they've been converted. And it'll record in the various formats too, so you can make tapes to send back home, or start a little video-conversion business on the side.
As for bringing DVDs with you, you'll need a "Multi Region" DVD player for that.
This is because the entertainment industry (read: big Hollywood conglomerates) threw a hissy fit at the idea that people could buy a DVD in a "cheap" market (like China), then play it in an "expensive" market (like North America). So they insisted on "Region Coding", which means that if you bought a DVD in a "PAL" region, you won't be able to play it on an "NTSC" region DVD player!
Fortunately, you can find these lovely machines on eBay too, often for less than $100 US. As with the Multi-format VCRS, you need to ensure the machine will automatically convert the output signal to both PAL and NTSC type TVs. I've just gotten a Daewoo 5800, and it works beautifully.
If you have a lot of PAL format videos and DVDs, and you live in the Land of NTSC (or vice-versa), these machines are absolute must-haves! |
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