Help recording my NTSC tapes to DVD

Consumer Electronics
#1

Hi,

I’m new to these forums and I’m not a massive technical genius but thought I’d ask for some help from people who are.

I have a (crappy but working) Digitrek GKX 9000 DVD Recorder (bought in Australia where in now live) and a Thomson Video Recorder VPH 6557 (bought in the UK). I’m trying to record some American NTSC video tapes but everytime i try all i get is nothing at all recorded or a black and white grainy image.

Is there anyway around this with another device or something? Or is there even maybe a DVD Recorder/Video Combo Device that will allow me to record the NTSC tapes normally to DVD?

#2

Unfortunately, the vast majority of PAL DVD recorders will only record from a PAL video source. As NTSC uses different colour signalling and a higher frame rate, this results in a poor black & white image, often rapidly rolling on equipment incapable of handling NTSC.

I can confirm that most PAL 50xx Lite-On models that do not contain the letters ‘HC’ in the model will record NTSC from its AV input sources, but only as an NTSC DVD. Generally this is not much of an issue as most DVD players are capable of playing NTSC discs. However, I am not sure what other brands are capable of recording from NTSC sourecs.

If your PC has a DVD writer and is reasonably quick, another option would be to get an NTSC compatible video capture card. In fact, a good majority of capture cards sold in countries using the PAL TV system will capture NTSC if US software is installed. Some even give the option of recording in PAL or NTSC. Once you record the content, all you need to do then is to either write it to DVD or re-encode it to PAL and then write it to DVD.