NTSC vs. PAL

RiderX · Post by **RiderX** » Thu May 06, 2004 5:03 am

NTSC? PAL? what is this? what are we tlaking about?

Jnzk · Post by **Jnzk** » Thu May 06, 2004 6:48 am

RiderX wrote:NTSC? PAL? what is this? what are we tlaking about?

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/ ... deo1.htm#1

Read and learn.

Declan_Vee · Post by **Declan_Vee** » Thu May 06, 2004 7:23 am

Well this is interesting... I've known that import games have been cheeper for a while. Guess I never really thought about DVDs. Maybe the US dollar will have another low soon.

sysKin · Post by **sysKin** » Thu May 06, 2004 7:59 am

Ok guys, if you don't mind, I'll explain some stuff - maybe it will be help with the discussion (caose most of you are having a discussion except for one person, whatever).

PAL and NTSC are colour-coding standards for video signal - broadcasted, saved on VHS, whatever.

At first, there was no television, there were power lines with AC voltage in it. Some countries chose their voltage frequency to 60Hz (like USA), others (like Europe or Soviet block) - 50Hz.

Next thing that was invented (lol) was a black-and-white television. When it was standarized, it was obvious (for engineers) that contries with 60Hz power lines have to have 30fps television, countries with 50Hz in their outlets have to have 25fps television. It was just a matter of interference, simple as that.

Then, colour television became possible. USA standarized their colour coding first - and called in NTSC. It was crude and kinda worked, but the quality of the picture was crappy at best.

Engineers in Europe didn't just adapt NTSC to 50fps television, but decided to improve it first. Two teams came up with solutions - French guys made a reasonably simple but very effective modification to NTSC (SECAM). German people invented an even better modification, which was very difficult and expensive to implement, but gave the best picture quality - PAL.

For reasonably obvious reasons, countries with 50Hz in their outlets chose either PAL or SECAM, while countries with 60Hz chose NTSC. Chosing anything else would involve inventing yet another standard, who wanted that.

SO, let me summarize: NTSC has 30fps not because that is better, but because you had 60Hz in power outlets out there. When it's transmitted over air or composite video cords, it has much worse quality than PAL.

PAL is not 25fps because that is better, but because most countries have 50Hz power lines. Gives much better quality when aired.

Everyone would have chosen 24fps for TV if they only could. Whoever invented power lines must have not been to cinema, or maybe just wasn't thinking one generation ahead.

With current digital signals, all the differences between PAL and NTSC are gone, what remains is vertical resolution and number of frames per second. All the historical reasons above don't apply.

Radek

mckeed · Post by **mckeed** » Thu May 06, 2004 8:05 am

Wow.....thats some real good backstory syskin. I never knew that. You are just a fountain of knowledge aren't you.

AbsoluteDestiny · Post by **AbsoluteDestiny** » Thu May 06, 2004 8:47 am

syskin: Nice

Now tell them the horror story of how fractional framerates came about in NTSC. That's a grim tale if ever there was one

DJ_Izumi · Post by **DJ_Izumi** » Thu May 06, 2004 12:47 pm

It should also be mentioned that a large ammount of DVD players can play both PAL and NTSC some do better jobs at the task then others however.

I sorta wonder why no one hasn't attempted to generate a DVD that's 24 frames progressive with a pulldown but in PAL resolution.

DJ_Izumi · Post by **DJ_Izumi** » Thu May 06, 2004 12:51 pm

Actually, I'm gonna try that and test it on my DVD-RW drive, I'll encode a Haibane Renmei episode to 352 x 288, check the anamorphic flag, burn and see what happens!

Kalium · Post by **Kalium** » Thu May 06, 2004 1:58 pm

So basically, the frame rate differences exist for hysterical reasons. Thanks, sysKin. (Leave it to a hacker to be fount of otherwise useless historical knowledge)

sysKin · Post by **sysKin** » Fri May 07, 2004 12:20 am

Kalium wrote:So basically, the frame rate differences exist for hysterical reasons. Thanks, sysKin. (Leave it to a hacker to be fount of otherwise useless historical knowledge)

Well, synchronizing TV refresh rate to AC mains power is still a valid point - no longer critical, but if you ever tried copying audio from tape, you might notice that doing so on batteries still gives better results.
In other words, it is still easier to build "good" power supply for TV and have a good picture, rather than building a "great" power supply, add several kilograms of EM shielding, and still worry about ugly interference.

Computer monitors are heavly shielded not only to let you put speakers next to them, but also to display "weird" refresh rates with 50/60Hz interference all around. In theory, you might want to aim for 100fps or 120fps refresh rate of your monitor, just to match.

Radek