Disc problem regarding dvd set

[MagnificentMarcus]

I received a set DVDs. I have something happening really strange. The last three discs-5,6,7 won't play in my DVD player. It keeps saying, " playback prohibited by area limitations."

Does anyone else have this problem with this set? I guess it must be in PAL or something. I tried burning it on to another disc but still the same thing.

Any ideas on what is going on??

[markatisu]

Can you play it on the PC?

to my knowledge everything homemade is Region 0 (meaning it does not have one).

So my guess would be PAL but I am pretty sure you own a multiregion player

[MagnificentMarcus]

I just checked it with AnyDVD. It is PAL, but is region free. I guess the person I got it from was mistaken.

[MagnificentMarcus]

It is burned to region 0, the problem is that it is PAL, while the other four discs are NTSC. It just makes it a hassle having a set with different TV formats.

I'm curious as to what was used (software) to make the menus?

[manthing]

mm,

i either find a jpg / bmp from the web or capture the picture from the cartoon when playing back in powerdvd.

then photoshop to cut / enhance the static picture.

for animated backgrounds, firstly i use mpeg editor to slice bits out of the cartoon.

once i have my mpeg slice, i use dvd lab pro to create the menu. animated background & static pictures & any tune are then rendered together in dvd lab pro.

voila menu done.

this whole thing is a real pain.
can take hours.

in another thread i mentioned i had a 4 min animated menu which dvd lab took about an hour to render. but it also took me another hour just to find those bits and pieces i wanted.

even the static pictures can be a pain. often i have to use photoshop to cut around the characters. believe me using the "polygonal lasso" cut tool is not fun (the "magic wand tool" is not always helpful).

it's not all pain though. sometimes i like the final results an that gives me some personal satisfaction. and yes i don't have a life!

[manthing]

mm, if you have the tools and the time you can do a pal to ntsc conversion quite easily.

something like tmpgenc mpeg editor to cut the episodes.

something like tmpgenc xpress to convert pal to ntsc. this will take hours per episode so you should kickstart it in a batch job overnight.

then with your ntsc episodes, create the menu and cut / burn.

video & audio synchronization should not be an issue. at least i haven't found any issues with cartoons.