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Question about PAL Speed-Up (1 Viewer)

Will Krupp

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Is there REALLY that much resolution difference in PAL dvd as opposed to NTSC? I've heard that the difference in broadcast quality is VERY noticeable, but that PAL dvd is not appreciably better than its NTSC counterpart.
 

Sam Davatchi

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PAL speedup is very noticeable sometimes. For example with Chandler’s voice in Friends. I was very surprised when I was seeing some of the episodes in PAL again and noticing how Chandler’s voice (more than any other) sounded different than on my R1 DVDs.
 

James Reader

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Well, roughly a non-anamorphic 1.75:1 transfer in PAL has the same resoultion as an anamorphic transfer in NTSC. So I would say it is. I must admit, on my system I cannot tell the difference most of the time on film discs, but the difference in animated films with sharp lines and areas of solid colour is much more noticable.
 

PhilipG

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Yes. PAL is the superior format. But what does it matter anyway? HDTV blows both PAL & NTSC away.
 

andrew markworthy

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On DVDs there is a minute difference, usually in favour of PAL. NTSC tends to look a little more 'washed out' and lacks a certain 'crispness'. But I must stress this is purely relative. Far bigger factors are the quality of the basic transfer, etc.

In terms of broadcast quality, there is a vast difference. I first realised this on a visit to North America - the difference was so big that at first I thought I was in a poor reception area, the TV was badly tuned, etc. A few years ago I saw an exhibition demonstrating the different TV formats side by side. NTSC just sucked when put next to PAL. There was also a prototype HDTV. This was way better than NTSC and whilst better than PAL when placed side by side I don't think from a typical viewing distance this improvement was all that great. [Of course, this was using cathode ray tube screens - quite possibly on LCD or plasma screens the difference would be more apparent].

I think this is why HDTV has been introduced in the USA and there's no real sign of it arriving in the UK yet because the improvement really isn't big enough to persuade Brits to invest in it.
 

Mark_vdH

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It means the pitch (tone) of the soundtrack is adjusted. That way a PAL disc is still sped-up, but at least the voices and music will be at the correct tonal height.

I prefer my PAL discs uncorrected for pitch, but I have to admit I don't notice it....
 

Simon Young

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NTSC broadcast resolution = 720 x 330 (non-square pixels) = 237,600 pixels

NTSC DVD resolution = 720 x 480 (non-square pixels) = 345,600 pixels

PAL resolution = 720 x 576 (non-square pixels) = 414,720 pixels

HDTV 1080i resolution = 1920 x 1080 (square pixels) = 2,073,600

What does this all mean? HDTV 1080i gives you almost 9 times the resolution of broadcast NTSC. It gives you 6 times the resolution of NTSC DVD. And it gives you 5 times the resolution of PAL DVD.

So I would disagree that HDTV doesn't offer much of a step-up for PAL viewers. Sure, for broadcast NTSC it's practically night and day, but for PAL it's much, much better also. I've seen some downloaded 720p images running on a laptop screen, and they put PAL to shame when it comes to fine detail.
 

Will Krupp

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There is no speed change going from PAL to NTSC, only the other way around. This is what prompted me to ask the question in the first place.

But here is something interesting which may go toward answering my original question. There are some television interviews on the dvd of ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, which I believe are from British television at the time of production. Diana Rigg's voice is much deeper and slower than I have ever heard it otherwise (it sounds downright spooky) and I remember thinking it was strange at the time. Now, I think that the tv interviews were shot at video compatible 25 frames per second film for original British broadcast, but that the engineer mastering them for the Region 1 MGM dvd DIDN'T KNOW THAT and they were transferred at 24 fps. If I'm way off base please let me know, but think this might answer my question and explain the strange quality of the interviews at the same time.
 

ChristopherDAC

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I just wanted to mention that saying "PAL" and "NTSC" in this context is incorrect, you are actually complaining about "M" versus "N". Nitpicky I know, but NTSC and PAL are colour encoding formats, which are irrelevant when playing DVD through a component connexion. What you are actually talking about is the scan pattern, designated by ITUR codes [which begin at "A" with the old British 405 line 25 Hz 2:1 interlace system which never had any colour at all, and go on from there]; "M" is 525 scan lines, 30 frames per second, 2:1 interlace, while "N" is 625 scan lines, 25 frames per second, 2:1 interlace.

As can be seen, the number of scan lines per second is about the same, and the bandwidth limits [typically 4MHz for broadcast] are too, so the choice is spatial [static] resolution vs. temporal [dynamic] resolution and freedom from flicker. The way my eyes are, I prefer the latter, specifically from CAV LaserDisc. :D

In any case, there are currently 3 basic colour encoding formats: the original NTSC, the Anglo-German PAL [which was tested by the eponymous National Television Systems Comittee here in the states and rejected for technical reasons arising from the fact that it was 1950 and NTSC colour had to be compatible with NTSC monochrome], and the French SECAM which works badly when it works at all [the French should have stuck with their postwar 819-line monochrome]. All three of these systems have been applied to both M and N scan systems -- in South America and Africa it is not uncommon to run across M-PAL and N-NTSC broadcasts.

Just a threadfart from a tech junkie. :D
 

andrew markworthy

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Simon, three points:

(1) I did stress I'd only seen the demo on a CRT - I did say that an LCD screen might show up the difference more

(2) the HDTV-PAL difference is huge on paper, but you're making the big assumption that human visual perception is step-for-step as sensitive (e.g. a doubling of detail will be seen as twice as detailed by a human observer). The fact is that our eyes aren't as sensitive

(3) close up (and I guess you'd have to be close up to see anything on a laptop screen) the difference will be considerable, but I seriously doubt if you were sitting at a normal viewing distance that the difference would have been as pronounced. It's like the old demonstration that from a couple of yards away a newspaper photo appears pretty much the same as a conventional photo.

Please note I'm not denying that HDTV is more detailed than PAL, just that psychologically under normal viewing conditions, the difference is unlikely to be all that great. Personally I'd love to see HDTV come in (my LCD can cope with it) but I can't see it catching on in the UK because the marginal return is too small. Put another way, against PAL it's a 'well when the old set breaks down I might get one if they come down in price' sort of thing rather than 'oh wow, I'd mud wrestle my grandmother for one of these'.
 

DaViD Boulet

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that's only because most PAL-NTSC conversions are done improperly...they use digital "ghosting" to fake new frames by blurring existing frames from the 50Hz PAL signal into 60Hz...but the speed of the image and sound stay constant over any given moment of time. if you still-step through the NTSC DVD (Pride and Predjudice, Room with a View) you'll see that every other frame or so is actually a digital "blur"...very few of the original discrete frames from the film source got their way to your NTSC DVD. This is BAD, and however good the DVD may look to your eyes, it's inferior in PQ to the PAL DVD and to an NTSC DVD mastered properly with discrete 24 fps film-frame information.

The PROPER way to do a PAL-NTSC conversion, assuming that the source was 24 fps film, would be to break out the original frames, slow the speed down back to 24 fps (from the 25 fps PAL-speed up), and apply 3-2 pulldown. If the PAL disc had not been pitch corrected, this would bring the pitch down back to its original state. If it had been pitch-corrected, then it would need to be pitch-adjusted again to keep the proper frequency response. In either case, properly converting a 24 fps source from PAL back to NTSC would slow the movie down by the same degree that PAL sped it up.

-dave
 

Will Krupp

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But David, he's referring to Red Dwarf, A British television program that would never be "slowed down" for NTSC because it's not any faster in PAL than was intended.
 

Dan Rudolph

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Wouldn't encoding at 30 fps and just using 6-5 pulldown (rather than faking new frames) look better an and not have any speed change?
 

Charlie O.

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For films such as "28 Days Later" which was shot in PAL running at 25fps was shot entirely on DV camera, are the NTSC slightly slower than intended?. I assume this also would effect the how the film sounds.
 

DaViD Boulet

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The are more-than-likely electronically processed with blur/ghost frames inserted to take you from 50 to 60Hz...with no actual speed up or slow down.
 

Vincent_P

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Charlie:

Yes, films that are shot on PAL DV (not only 28 DAYS LATER, but also CHUCK & BUCK and a few others) are transfered "1-to-1" to film, and thus when you see them projected theatrically at 24 FPS, they are slowed down by about 4% from the original 25 FPS PAL. The NTSC video releases of these will have the same slow-down since most standard-definition DV movies are transfered BACK to video from their film outputs as opposed to doing straight digital transfers as a way to give a sort-of "film look" to the final result.

The PAL video versions of these films will run at the same speed they were shot in, but faster than they were projected in theaters.

Vincent
 

DaViD Boulet

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Agreed that when NTSC transfers are done from the film-source, the results are as you describe (and would entail a slow-down for a movie shot 25 fps). However, I've been so surprised to see so MANY DVDs lately in R1 that were electronic conversions from the digital PAL master where the studio did NOT do a film-source transcription for the NTSC market. Oddly, many of these films are even 24 fps in their native form...making it even more frustrating...

-dave
 

Dan Rudolph

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I realized my terminology is wrong in my post above, but I basically mean you could double every fifth frame instead of every fourth.
 

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