DVDs: NTSC and PAL

Recon

Does it make a difference? Is the region setting the only thing that matters with DVDs?

aidan_walsh

If you're viewing them on a PC, I believe the differences can be sorted by software.

If you're viewing them on a DVD player connected to a television, however, you will need to have a compatible player and television. Anything you get here will be PAL, and while a player bought here may also be NTSC compatible, you'll most likely need to pick up a convertor for the television.

Ruu_Old

PAL discs have higher resolution than NTSC I believe but there are other factors involved too. Playing then on a computer should be okay but on a telly, I am not so sure.

Redisle

http://www.techspot.com/vb/all/windows/t-1179-What-is-the-difference-between-PAL-and-NTSC.html

zilog_jones

PAL DVD video is at a resolution of 720x576 running at 25 frames per second (progressive) or 50 fields per second (interlaced - typically most video shot with a typical video camera).

NTSC DVD video is 720x480 running at 23.976 fps for telecine (film converted to video), 29.97 fps progressive (not particularly common outside TV CGI) or 59.94 fields per second (interlaced, usually just called "60Hz" or "60i"). NTSC video can change between these 3 at any time.

It's probably not a problem watching DVDs on your PC, but to play them on a TV there's 3 situations you could be in:
- You have an old/crap TV which won't do 60Hz video (any NTSC video ends up as 60Hz in analogue form) at all - you'll just get a scrambled mess
- Your TV can't handle the NTSC colour system so you get a black & white picture - you can solve this by using a RGB SCART lead (and making sure your DVD player is outputting RGB video).
- Your TV can support NTSC fine (however a proper SCART lead or component/HDMI cables if available will still improve the picture significantly)

If you're editing video or encoding a DVD, you *have* to know what type of video you're dealing with (PAL or NTSC), otherwise you could end up with a hideous mess.

Sad Professor

Most PAL tvs do support NTSC AFAIK. However not always properly. I have a Philips 26" lcd that I bought during the summer and its NTSC playback is terrible. Its a common problem as most manufacturers don't bother calibrating correctly for it, figuring most people won't use it.

NTSC isn't a problem on a computer.

zilog_jones

Sad Professor wrote:

Most PAL tvs do support NTSC AFAIK.

Depends what you consider as "most". Most on sale today? Probably. But up until the early 2000s the majority of TV sets were designed very specifically for particular regions, e.g. my TV (Panasonic bought about 5 years ago) only works with PAL I (so it'd only work here, in the UK, South Africa and a couple of other countries), no other PAL, no NTSC, no nothing. Does 60Hz fine though.

I have a Philips 26" lcd that I bought during the summer and its NTSC playback is terrible.

Maybe it's just because NTSC is shyte?
NTSC colour isn't as good as PAL, i.e. (well, in analogue land) it has a smaller bandwidth and is a lot more susceptible to interference.

Sad Professor

zilog_jones wrote:

Maybe it's just because NTSC is shyte?
NTSC colour isn't as good as PAL, i.e. (well, in analogue land) it has a smaller bandwidth and is a lot more susceptible to interference.

I have loads of R1 dvds so I'm well used to NTSC's lower resolution and colour (not to mention that annoying f**king 3:2 judder). My old dirt cheap Beko played NTSC just fine but the Philips can't seem to do it without a ridiculous amount of overscan. I suspect it just wasn't set up properly at the factory. Thankfully however the tv handles 60hz via hdmi just fine.

rogue-entity

DVDs themselves contain neither PAL nor NTSC video. The video on a DVD is digital, just like Sky. If you set your DVD player to PAL, then when playing a DVD, it will just generate a PAL-60 signal (basically NTSC but with PAL for the colour). Most TVs can handle this just fine.

I have a few R1 DVDs, and my 20 year old Sanyo TV works just fine with the PAL-60 signal that my DVD player (and DVD Recorder) produce.

DublinEvents

Does HD content suffer from this PAL/NTSC mess too? Or did they finally agree on a common standard?

Sad Professor

DublinEvents wrote:

Does HD content suffer from this PAL/NTSC mess too? Or did they finally agree on a common standard?

Yes and no. Tecnically yes, PAL and NTSC will be a thing of the past as all HD content will have a resolution of 720p, 1080i, etc.

However the ghosts of PAL and NTSC will remain as there will still be different frame rates (50hz and 60hz). So dvds movies bought here will still have 4% speedup and american dvds will still have 3:2 pulldown judder. All hd ready tvs must support both 50hz and 60hz so we'll be able to play both.

Ghost Train

Never had a problem playing r1 dvds even with old tvs and cheap dvd players. Dont most dvd players just have a button you hit to switch between ntsc and pal. I can understand why you might get some stutter issues with the 3:2 pull down, but never really noticed this myself. pal is better system of course

Sad Professor

eolhc wrote:

Never had a problem playing r1 dvds even with old tvs and cheap dvd players. Dont most dvd players just have a button you hit to switch between ntsc and pal. I can understand why you might get some stutter issues with the 3:2 pull down, but never really noticed this myself. pal is better system of course

Pure PAL is better, yes. But 24fps movies which are converted to PAL have 4% speedup which if the pitch isn't corrected can be very noticeable on the soundtrack. Most people don't notice but some find it unacceptable. Neither is better than the other IMO, they both have their pros and cons. Speedup vs judder, it depends what your used to really.

zilog_jones

rogue-entity wrote:

DVDs themselves contain neither PAL nor NTSC video. The video on a DVD is digital, just like Sky. If you set your DVD player to PAL, then when playing a DVD, it will just generate a PAL-60 signal (basically NTSC but with PAL for the colour). Most TVs can handle this just fine.

Forgot to mention the PAL-60 thing. However it's not always an option - the PS2 won't do it, and a lot of DVD players do a really awful NTSC->PAL framerate conversion if set to PAL (or in the case of my JVC player, you have no control over this and either have to watch crap conversions or just play NTSC discs elsewhere :mad: ). And as I said RGB SCART connections will avoid the PAL/NTSC colour issue, not to mention look a lot better anyway.

...the Philips can't seem to do it without a ridiculous amount of overscan.

If you look hard enough on the interweb you might be able to find how to get to the service menu on your TV - however there could be the chance it only has the one set of settings for both PAL and NTSC (very likely with CRTs - dunno with LCDs).

All hd ready tvs must support both 50hz and 60hz so we'll be able to play both.

Well yes, "HD Ready" by the EBU's definition (who set the standards for the "HD Ready" logo), since in Europe we generally use DVB for digital TV. However, in the US they use ATSC, which IIRC does not generally use 25p/50i/50p framerates, so it's quite likely their TVs won't handle them.

50Hz HD video is generally used in post-PAL locations because (I think) we still use 50Hz for mains, which means some types of lights will flicker at 50Hz, and you'd get crazy pulsing if you looked at them with a camera running at 60Hz. Well, I think it's more of an issue with CMOS cameras... maybe... It's also an kind of an issue watching TVs that flicker, e.g. CRTs and maybe plasmas.

Sad Professor

zilog_jones wrote:

If you look hard enough on the interweb you might be able to find how to get to the service menu on your TV - however there could be the chance it only has the one set of settings for both PAL and NTSC (very likely with CRTs - dunno with LCDs).

Yeah I tried this, got into the service menu but there was no option for overscan at all so they must calibrate it via computer or something. I called Philips about it as well but the second I mentioned overscan they got very nervous and told me they couldn't help.

Doesn't matter now anyway as I have a hdmi dvd player and ntsc/60hz is fine in hd mode.