Problem with French DVd

[KaiserD2]

I have made two attempts to copy a French DVD and encountered the same rather bizarre problem.

The first time I used a Verbatim multilayer disk in order to copy the whole movie (just the movie) at full quality. The second time I used a regular disk and accepted a loss of 5%. Both times, I checked "Western Europe" for the encoding.

The same thing happened both times. When you use an original, commercial French DVD in Windows Media Player, you get a prompt telling you that this is a foreign DVD that will have to be played with different decoding. I dd NOT get that prompt with the disks I made and they play beautifully on the computer. But two DVD players--one older, one blue-ray--refuse to play them. The blue ray player says, "The Disk will not play--check the TV system."

Any suggestions? To repeat, I checked Western Europe for the encoding.

[AGJ]

Where are you located as these disc might be PAL format and you might be in NTSC format which would be why they not play for you on TV but will on computer

[tli]

... use an original, commercial French DVD in Windows Media Player, you get a prompt telling you that this is a foreign DVD that will have to be played with different decoding. I dd NOT get that prompt with the disks I made and they play beautifully on the computer.

Your OEM DVD is region coded for France, while your DVDFab backup discs are probably region-free, and your ODD is set for a region other than for France.

But two DVD players--one older, one blue-ray--refuse to play them. The blue ray player says, "The Disk will not play--check the TV system." ...

France uses the SECAM format which your DVD players probably do not support. If the original DVD plays in those two players, then the backup discs might have been generated using either the NTSC or PAL format. I don't know the inner workings of DVDFab so I don't know how DVDFab would handle this format.

[KaiserD2]

Clarifications

I am in the US, using NTSC DVD players and TVs.

I appreciate the comments but it wasn't clear that the posters understood the issue exactly.

DVD FAB is apparently supposed to convert DVDs from any region to an all-region disk that should play on an NTSC DVD player. But it did NOT convert this disk, which is SECAM (from France), to a disk that my players would play. What is odd is that my Windows system seems to recognize the converted disk as a normal NTSC disk, but my DVD players reject it.

DVD FAB prompts you for the region of the disk you are copying. But it doesn't have a separate SECAM prompt--it just says, "Western Europe." I don't think SECAM is used in any other part of the world. So the question is, does something have to be added to DVD Fab, or what?

[tli]

Understood Perfectly...

You're mistaken and confusing two separate issues. For clarification:

[tli]

For More Clarifications...

[GregiBoy]

TLI is correct.

Fab will make the disk region free but will not convert one video standard to another.

[KaiserD2]

TLI is correct.

Fab will make the disk region free but will not convert one video standard to another.

So you're saying "region free" doesn't mean "will play on any DVD player?"

[GregiBoy]

That is correct.

Disks are encoded with different regions for all parts of the world so that a DVD from the US (Region 1) is not supposed to play in a set top player in Australia (Region 4).

DVD Fab removes this protection and for example here in Australia where we usually have multi system setups, nearly every NTSC disk will play, but I've never tried a SECAM one from Froggy Land.

Unfortunately, it looks like your setups are NTSC only. That is why the disk will play on your PC which doesn't care wheras it will not play on your set-top box.

You are apparently confused with the terminology.

DVD Fab WILL NOT translate PAL/SECAM/NTSC.