Like the title suggests, is it possible to make an NTSC LD player region free?

There are no "regions" on LD. Maybe you want to make an LD-DVD combination player "region free" on the DVD side? Any NTSC LD player can play any NTSC LD. Doesn't matter where it was released, or when. Now, if what you're really asking is, is it possible to modify an NTSC LD player to also play back PAL LDs, the answer is "probably not". Some NTSC players will play back PAL LDs at 30 fps with no sound, but the sync, color, sound carrier, & other characteristics are different enough that if you want a dual-standard player you should just buy one.

Yes I wanted to be able to playback PAL LDs on a NTSC LD player (no DVD).

wasnt there one made that could do both?

PAL/NTSC combo laserdisc players are common in Europe as the target audience may wish to buy discs from either Europe or US/Japan.
Certainly most of my players can play either type of laserdisc. I would always try to buy such a player as there are many interesting PAL only music LDs to collect as well as tapping into the vast US/Japanese NTSC catalogue.

The same applies for VHS recorders or multi-region DVD players etc.

Just watch for one of the European models as most of them playback PAL or NTSC. Remember with LD a NTSC disc has FM encoded NTSC video on it. A PAL LD has FM encoded PAL video on it. There are no regions with LD. The LD player manufacturer has to have electronics in the players to detect the two completely different signals. This was normally installed in the European players.

DVD is a component format made to only have to convert to RGB and display on a screen which means the same everywhere, hince DVD guru's established Region codes to make the DVD only playable in certain areas.

Best european PAL/NTSC players to look for would be the Pioneer CLD D925 or if you are looking for a combination of Laserdisc and DVD you could look for the Pioneer DVL 919E. Both of these players are showing on eBay UK at the moment. Laserdisc seems to be on an increase so watch the prices as they are creeping up for the players. Maybe look for a boxed version as this will help protect when shipping. Quiz international posting also if you are outside of the UK as this to could be quite high.


The Pioneer CLD D925 was the top of the range for laserdisc and cd playback. The DVL919E was the player for DVD and laserdisc with DTS output for both formats.

These players are also 220v-240v so a step up covertor would more than likely be required if used outside of europe.

Cheers

Paul

Well I don't want to go the extent of buying another player. I just see some PAL LD's that sometimes seem better than the NTSC counterparts, like they are letterboxed and ours aren't.

The CLD-D515 model is the one I have, and it's fine. Pioneer made several PAL/NTSC models as did Sony. The laserdiscUK site is a good source for looking that up.

I did learn recently that Pioneer used a switched-mode power supply system that would accept 110-120 or 220-240, using a device that acts as a doubler on 110-120 circuits and straight through on 220-240 circuits. So you'd only need a plug adapter in that case. The back panel of these players will state "50-60 cycles", or "internal voltage sensor" or words to that effect.

Don't know if the Sony models also did this, but since switch-mode power supplies are the better type, they likely did as well.

I second the support of the DVL-919E. It has played every disc that I have fed it (not MUSE obviously). One thing you must have is a multi-standard TV. While it will auto-switch between NTSC and PAL, it won't play PAL on an NTSC television.

Think something like this might get around that problem?

S-Video Y/C To Composite RCA + RCA To SV Encoder w/PAL & NTSC conversion

-or-

Universal NTSC PAL SECAM TV Video System Converter

In my opinion the best PAL/NTSC player is the Philips LDP600. It is built like an industrial player from Pioneer and has never let me down and I have had it for almost 20 years now. I have had 2 CLD925 and 2 DVL919E and they are just not build like the Philips.
I now use the Philips for PAL discs and an industrial player from Pioneer for NTSC. The industrial players will last several lifetimes lol.
I bought 42 players for 60 EUR a few years back from the Dutch military. I dont need to worry about playing my NTSC collection
The Philips is my last working PAL player...

Back to the subject, I believe it was possible to make the PAL only Pioneer CLD 1500 play NTSC discs when modified. I remember a shop in Belgium which modified Nintendo game consoles to play NTSC games was able to do the modification...

When it comes to cartridge consoles it was usually a hardware problem that stopped you playing games from other regions; ie the cartridges would be a different shape. Some later SNES games contained a lockout chip that would check the voltage to determine the region. Both were easily bypassable but neither of the fixes really apply to laserdisc.

http://www.laserdiscarchive.co.uk/laserdisc_archive/pioneer/pioneer_cld-1400/pioneer_cld-1400.htm

I never tried it myself, but this is a link where they explain the mod on the PAL only 1400 model.

That modification has to do with so-called pseudo-PAL, ie, NTSC with 4.43 MHz subcarrier, which is generated by some "multi-standard" players, because cheap PAL TVs could handle the change in scanning frequencies with a little fiddling with the controls.

Actually my player (currently on the blink) actually does output PAL, but at 525 lines and 60 Hz. Those old TV sets wouldn't have been able to decode NTSC-4.43. I think I have at least one set which tries to decode NTSC as SECAM.

My Denon AVR-3080 receiver converts PAL and 50Hz component or HDMi inputs to 60Hz signals via the HDMi output and to NTSC via the S-Video and composite outputs. It's not mentioned in the manual so I was surprised to find it did that when I hooked up my PAL DVD player and played one of the Bionic Woman PAL DVD's.

My laptop's DVD player has a mode that changes PAL films sped up back down to 24 fps and corrects the pitch in the audio. I wish all DVD players that played PAL did that because the PAL speed up of films drives me crazy.

Well my TV-set actually has a far superiour PAL-decoder than my AV-receiver. It's worth to check, it's amazing how well modern decoders work.

At least my Pioneer CLD-D515 goes an extra mile to support both PAL and NTSC. There are quite some differences like different frequencies of the sound carriers.

As for slowing down PAL DVDs, that's fairly simple to do. Just get a cheap DVD-Player and replace the crystal. It'll usually only have one, getting sync to the whole system on a chip. Of course you'll have to use the RGB or Component outputs then.

The pitch of the audio wouldn't change though, would it? That's what drives me crazy about 625-line, 50Hz (I wrote 625-line, 50 Hz since DVD's are not technically PAL or NTSC) is the pitch change from the 4% speed increase to 25 Fps. When HD-DVD's were being made I loved buying the U.K. releases of The Fog and the '76 King Kong because they were not speeded up - If I'm remembering right, I don't think the HD-DVD format even had a 50Hz mode for film. And luckily, those HD-DVD's haven't rotted - only my HD's made by Technicolor have rotted, or in the case of Rumor Has It, completely came apart into two seperate pieces.

My Sanyo PLV-Z3 720P projector had a good PAL decoder, as does my Sanyo PLV-Z1 projector which is quarter HD @ 540P, but I'm using a Toshiba LCD display now and amazingly, it doesn't support any PAL or SECAM decoding or any 50 Hz HD mode. Both my Sanyo projectors support 1035i, which is the old analog HD/Hi-Vision standard as well as 720, 1080, 625 and 525 line in 50 and 60Hz.

The PAL market was so badly served by Pioneer and Philips with their LaserDisc players... Especially players like the Pioneer one that didn't do FX even for CAV Standard Play discs. And the LaserDisc format itself really didn't have the bandwidth to hold the PAL signal and audio without interference between the two. I never understood the "HQ" switch some PAL Pioneer players had that rolled off the frequency response.