New Shakti DVD

[Joe G]

Remember Shakti - The Way of Beauty (DVD).Limited Edition. Releasing 3/13/2006

This has been a long wait for John McLaughlin , Zakir Hussain and Shakti fans. Available only as a European Release, the DVD features a 70 minute documentary on the band starting from the early seventies. Also live performances featuring 2004 Paris Concert as well as other concerts from Mumbai and around the world. This is a PAL Region 2 DVD.

Just saw this on the Abstract Logix website. Excuse my ingorance, but what is a PAL Region 2 DVD?

[Jim Alfredson]

It means it won't play on your DVD player.

PAL is the European standard for TV. The North American standard is NTSC. The two are not compatable, meaning you can't play a PAL dvd or vhs in your machine and vice versa. There are ways to convert the two, but you have to take it to a videographer.

I don't think the guy I sometimes work for in Ann Arbor has a PAL DVD player, but I could ask.

[Noj]

[Joe G]

I figured as much.

[Jim Alfredson]

A little googling found that Region 2 is Europe, including France, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Arabia, Japan and South Africa.

The funny thing is, Japan is NTSC, whereas the rest are PAL.

Basically, the difference between NTSC and PAL is output resolution and frames per second. PAL does 25 frames per second and has a higher vertical resolution image (not sure how much), whereas NTSC is 30 frames per second (about... actually something like 29.95) with a slightly lower resolution.

[skeith]

Joe G

You may want to consider a multi-region DVD player which will play any DVD from anywhere. They can be had for around $100.

[7/4]

My recently departed DVD-RW could play all regions. RIP

The next one should too.

[Aggie87]

I think most dvd players in computers are capable of reading all regions/formats. Someone smarter than me would know better though...

And I've heard there are ways to modify your normal dvd player to make it capable of playing back all formats as well. Some searching around online may help with this.

[CJ Shearn]

I hacked my cheap $150 (I love it) Coby DVD player to play Japanese Pat Metheny DVD's by using the remote. It now plays all regions.

[Claude]

You have to solve both the signal and region incompatibilities, which are not related.

There's currently a discussion on the subject on the Steve Hoffman board: http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=73744

[Joe G]

Maybe I'll just wait for the book.