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PAL and NTSC. What's the deal with HD? (1 Viewer)

Darren Pillans

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Forgive me if this has been discussed in another thread, but I was unable to find a definitive answer.

We all know that SD DVD comes in NTSC and PAL.

NTSC presenting lower resolution and from my experience, less accurate color reproduction. Skin tones seem too pink or orange and "pasty" looking. To my eyes, PAL appears more vivid and organic; more real. The speed-up is irrelevant to me.

Hence, most of my DVDs are PAL, where possible.

With HD DVD and Blu-ray, if everything is 1080P does that mean there is now one unified color system?

Will a Blu-ray disc of any given title be exactly the same from the UK and the US?

What's the deal now?

Thanks in advance.
 

Jason Seaver

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HD is HD is HD. Heck, word is that some of the HD-DVDs showing up in the UK and Australia are simply repackaged US versions, with FBI warnings and Region 1 SD sides.
 

Greg.K

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Hmm. Out of curiousity, if you play a HD disc on a PAL TV how is it handled? Does it speed up playback or are the frames interpolated somehow?
 

rutger_s

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HD is 1080x1920 video at 24 frames per second. Unless the disc is working with a PAL master to begin with, there is no PAL speed up.

Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire is a new 1080x1920 HD transfer at 24f so the UK HD DVD works fine without PAL speed up on NTSC equipment.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day is a 1080x1920 HD transfer at 24f from the 25f PAL master so there is a negilible amount of speed up. Studio Canal is moving foward to create new transfers at 1080x1920 24f HD.

HD sets are capable of at least 720p video without regard for PAL or NTSC.
 

Cees Alons

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The PAL TV you're playing a HD DVD on will be one accepting high-def picture resolutions. Also, all (well almost all) TV sets in Europe already accepted 60 fps images (and even NTSC).

Previously, I could play NTSC tapes (needed a player that could play them, most standard tape decks did, since 1992 or so), US (Region 1) DVDs and the like on my standard TV too. So there's no speed-up or colour-system issue.

The new TV sets accept 60 fps as well as 720 and/or 1080i or -p, so no problem there as well.


Cees
 

Marko Berg

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Others have provided the technical details, but just to clarify, no there is no speed-up. PAL is a signal system that simply presents what is being fed to it. PAL is capable of running at 60Hz and as Cees has pointed out, even older analogue TVs sold in PAL markets are multi-standard--they can display NTSC natively.
 

Rob_Walton

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The more interesting question is what will happen with European shows videoed at 1080p25. Will they be encoded at their original frame-rate? And if so are US HDTVs capable of playing back content at 25/50/100Hz?
 
M

Member 323668


In order to get the "HD-ready" certification, all European TV sets/monitors MUST accept at least the following signals: (EICTA specs)

480i
480p
576i
576p
720p
1080i 50
1080i 60

In addition to this the display device has to be 16:9 and must have a native resolution of at least 1024x768.


"Full HD" specs add the 1080p 50 and 1080p 60 inputs and should have a native resolution of 1920x1080.
 

Duncan Harvey

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Hold on that can't be correct. There is no way that the HD-DVD of T2 is "a HD transfer at 24f from the 25f PAL master". What would be the point, you'd be making a 1080 transfer of a 576 source. Surely the 1080 master has been a new telecine of the film. I think the confusion stems from previous mix ups that Canal have made where they seem to have slowed down a 25fps soundtrack to go with the 24fps HD master.

It's also misleading to speak about PAL HD sets. They are simply HD sets that can also display SD resolutions. They are usually 60hz panels and hence its possibly more accurate to say that they are 60hz panels that can be tweaked to display 50hz material, ie 576 line PAL.
 

MarekM

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I think he was talking about HD master with 25frames, that's why he used word PAL, so I am sure T2 HD DVD is not from 576 PAL source.

Marek
 

ChrisWiggles

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Which version of T2 is this? Not only is this illogical, I am not aware of this being the case at all. If it comes from a 25fps master with speedup it doesn't matter, it ends up at 24fps it's the exact same thing without the speedup.
 

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