Is PAL 576 Higher Resolution Than NTSC 480?

[wulf109]

Does PAL's 576 height improve resolution? If you play a PAL DVD on DVD player that converts to NTSC do you get the higher resolution? The reason I ask this question is that Farscape TV series is being released in BluRay in november. I read a post on Amazon that says it won't be 1080 because the 35mm masters are lost. The series is being mastered to BR from PAL 576 masters. If true how "good" can they look?

[jagabo]

Yes PAL is higher resolution. But if you use the composite or s-video outputs of a converting player the video is reduced to the same resolution as NTSC (probably poorly). If you use an upscaling output (HDMI, component) it might give better resolution depending on how the player performs the upscaling.

Keep in mind that movies on PAL DVD often have a 4 percent shorter running time because they are sped up from 24 fps to 25 fps.

[intracube]

Does PAL's 576 height improve resolution?

Yes. Although the frame-rate of PAL is lower - 50i vs 59.94i.

If you play a PAL DVD on DVD player that converts to NTSC do you get the higher resolution?

In addition to what jagabo has said; even if you use RGB/component connections, the conversion process itself might reduce the image sharpness further and/or cause other artefacts - dropping lines rather than interpolating when re-sizing the image, for example.

Also the frame-rate conversion will cause movement to appear less smooth.

[jman98]

Disclaimer - Never seen Farscape, so I have no particular insider knowledge here.

Various reports say Farscape was done like the Star Trek series from The Next Generation to Voyager - mostly shot on film but special effects all done on standard definition video. However, various sources say that while the film elements were supposed to be archived, that either they are just in some gigantic pile somewhere or they were thrown out. Most lean towards the latter. I found some probably unrealistic posts that said that you might be surprised at how good the BluRays will look when mastered from PAL SD sources, but I have my doubts. I can tell you that Paramount currently is refusing to release The Next Generation through Voyager on BluRay because they consider the special effects shots to be too low resolution for high def, but there is a test project only for The Next Generation where they are going to redo the special effects in high def on a handful of episodes to see if it's feasible to redo the entire series that way and thus eventually put it out on BluRay, but there are no guarantees. There are no plans at present to redo the special effects on Deep Space Nine or Voyager and although Enterprise was made in HD, I know of no current plans to release it on BluRay. Everyone seems to agree that Farscape will absolutely not have redone special effects.

[jagabo]

jman98 makes a good point. Sometimes the PAL DVDs are made from NTSC sources so they are upscaled and poorly frame rate converted (and vice versa, some NTSC DVDs are made from PAL sources with similar problems). So there's no guarantee PAL releases will be better than the NTSC releases, even though PAL has 20 percent more vertical resolution.

[wulf109]

Over the weekend I looked at a couple Farscape episodes. I used 2 Philips 5990's played on a Toshiba 32 1080P LCD. In A-B'ing the NTSC and PAL versions,the PAL version looked better,sharper and with a smooth film-like appearance compared to the NTSC version. Both the NTSC releases looked a bit grainy compared to the PAL version.

[wulf109]

Farscape is now out on BR and they are a huge dissapointment. They look no better than my PAL DVD's. They are sourced from PAL576 masters and upscaled to 1080P in studio. No were on the packaging is this mentioned. The series was shot in Australia and I would guess was converted to PAL for distribution with the PAL masters being converted to NTSC for U.S. release. Fans of the series will certainly be dissapointed with this set. Blue Ray quality they are not.

[hech54]

Blue Ray quality they are not.

To expect Blue Ray quality from a 90's TV show is ridiculous at best.

[wulf109]

I guess you haven't seen the Star trek TOS series on BR.

[poisondeathray]

WTF how does someone lose film prints ???

If film prints are available there is no technical reason why a BD release won't look like "blu-ray quality"; with the exception of some special effects scenes such as CGI in the 90's were done in SD

[wulf109]

I doubt the 35mm masters are "lost". Seems more likely that ownership is in dispute in Australia where the series was filmed.

[poisondeathray]

You must be a big fan to buy the BD set without seeing the reviews.

[AlanHK]

I guess you haven't seen the Star trek TOS series on BR.

Because that's a 60s show, and was shot on 35 mm film.

Though aside from rescanning the negatives, they did completely new digital effects to replace the originals.

Later series, shot on video, often look like crap.

I must say I'm a fan of the "remastered" TOS. They didn't reframe it to widescreen. They didn't do any "Greedo shot first" retcons. And now you can see every pore in Nimoy's face if you zoom in. Period stylistic oddities, like the soft focus on the actresses, remain.