Taking Macbook to US

[wattsj]

We're going on holiday to the US (from the UK) in a few weeks time and wondered if it's possible for me to connect my Macbook to a US TV via some sort of cable?

Reason is I plan to RIP some of my kids favourite DVD's to NTSC and then play them from the Macbook on the TV in the villa.

What sort of cable would I need for this?

 

[Sky Blue]

Depends what kind of TV it is. Why would you need to rip the DVDs if you're playing them on your MacBook?

 

[wattsj]

Because the DVD's will be in PAL and the TV will be NTSC.

So I guess I have to re-encode them?

 

[davwin]

I hae done this previously on my MacBook between the US and UK but, only using the VGA adapter. The VGA adapter bypasses any NTSC/PAL issues with the display but is of course far more rare to find on Hotel TV's unfortunately I would guess that using the S-Vid adapter and playing back an MP4 vid file would work as most displays now accept both PAL and NTSC on their composite and Y/C inputs but, I think Sky is right: there's no telling one way or the other without knowing the model of display and which adapter you will be using.

With any luck the hotel display will be an HDTV and the content can be encoded at 480p (@720x480) - then you should be fine HDTV resolutions at 480p and higher have no difference between regions or scan rates.

Hope it works out...

 

[waiwai]

Because the DVD's will be in PAL and the TV will be NTSC.

So I guess I have to re-encode them?

you could simply convert them... i havent found a program in os x that does it... but if u have bootcamp... try using WinAvi. Works like a charm... converts every format (dvd/avi/mpg/mp4/mkv/and much much more). A regular dvd on the aluminum macbook takes about 20-25 minutes to convert. beats having to pay for cables and such...

 

[wattsj]

Surely converting is the same as re-encoding as it still has to read the disk\file and change the format from PAL to NTSC?

I will still need 'a cable' though to connect the Macbook to the US TV!

 

[Consultant]

Because the DVD's will be in PAL and the TV will be NTSC.

So I guess I have to re-encode them?

No need to convert to NTSC when playing from computer.

Plenty of apps to convert to burn to DVD on osx.

 

[Sky Blue]

Surely converting is the same as re-encoding as it still has to read the disk\file and change the format from PAL to NTSC?

I will still need 'a cable' though to connect the Macbook to the US TV!

I have an English iBook I play on a TV in the US, no conversion needed.

 

[wattsj]

I have an English iBook I play on a TV in the US, no conversion needed.

What cable do you use?

 

[Consultant]

Safe bet
- RCA (but low image quality), works on most TVs
- DVI cable with DVI to HDMI adapter

 

[domcole]

Like someone said above, if your playing it from your MacBook you won't need to convert it.

 

[wattsj]

So I can put my PAL DVD into my Macbook and connect that to the US TV via RCA or HDMI and it will play OK?

Even if the US TV doesn't support PAL?

 

[logana]

So I can put my PAL DVD into my Macbook and connect that to the US TV via RCA or HDMI and it will play OK?

Even if the US TV doesn't support PAL?

Yes - the MacBook does not care whether the disc is PAL or NTSC and will happily output to PAL or NTSC TV's....

RCA composite will work but picture quality is not good, SVHS is better if the TV supports it. HDMI will be the best........