Xbox Region problems

[aceizace]

I recently got some dvds as a gift for my birthday. They are of a series that isn't shown in the uk, and therfore come from the us - however, they are not in region 1 - ntsc coding. On the back it has the picture of the world and ALL written over it, and on the site it says it is no region. Under the world symbol it does say ntsc. 4 of 5 of the disks do not work in my Xbox which plays pal disks, and the 5th freezes. I tried one on my brother's ps2 and it worked, but in black and white. My questions are 1. Will a region x or other region 'crack' make these cds playable, and will i need (as advertised for ntsc dvds) 'a tv compatible with ntsc' to play it? And (slightly less importantly) 2. Does the ps2 have a less strict region lock on it, why did it work in black and white on the ps2 (should be colour) but not at all on my Xbox. Thanks for reading! Look forward to your reply. - Andrew

[gerry]

where these dvd's brand new or had someone copied them for you?.

[cupra]

The xbox is very fickle when it comes to playing non-native region dvd's - the only way to change this is to get the box chipped (bit of a grey area legally - indeed in the US someone has just been prosecuted for this!). There is an Xbox newsgroup (uk.games.video.xbox) where someone may know more (acess via newsreader or google groups).

[jenstar]

I don't think they can prosecute you for "chipping" a machine over here - the US has rather bizarre laws concerning these things - but it will invalidate your warranty. As for the colour/b&w issue, it sounds more like a NTSC/PAL conversion problem rather than anything to do with DVD region-settings. The same thing often happens when watching an NTSC videotape on a dual-standard VCR.