pal or ntsc?

[htiekw]

what is the difference between pal and ntsc?
which one should i use?

[fudgey65]

I live in England and use PAL, my mom lives in USA and uses NTSC, it all depends on where you live.

Hope this helps.
fudgey

[vitualis]

These are television standards. If you live in Nth America or Japan, then you should use NTSC. If you live in most other places, you should use PAL.

Regards.

[lbrothe]

I live in England and convert everything to NTSC!

[TeeeRex]

Ibrothe - at the risk of starting an NTSC vs PAL war - why do you convert them ?

This is a genuine question actually - as PAL has a higher screen resolution but lower fps does this mean that a NTSC encode uses a lower bit rate or does the extra fps make up the difference (ie there is no difference in final bitrate?)

I could try it tonight but if anybody has the answer to hand ....

?

TeeeRex

[lbrothe]

Sorry, not convert, just encode every thing as NTSC and get great quality.

I am a newbie and just happened to use the NTSC template in TMPG and stuck with it!

[kingkill]

dont you get jerky playback???

[bugster]

If you are encoding mpegs from downloaded AVI's, use the format that matches the framerate of the AVI. If this won't play on your home DVD player/TV, then is the time to learn all about the wonderful world of format conversion!

[agent_mulder81]

I prefer NTSC.... cuz whenever I go visit england I notice when I watch tv, that the picture has a very slight flicker to it... which I believe is cuz PAL's fps is only 25 as appossed to 29.9

(PS this is my first post! hi everyone!)

[lbrothe]

KingKill,

No, have had no problems, so far

[vitualis]

You will not notice any significant difference between 30 fps and 25 fps. If you saw flickering it is because there was something wrong with the TV / it was improperly tuned / etc.

Remember, film is only at 24 fps.

PAL does have a higher resolution than NTSC and I think you can tell the difference if you have a higher quality source (e.g., DVD).

As for the bitrate issue, the higher bitrate in NTSC covers up exactly (well almost -- it is 29.97 fps rather than 30) for the higher frame size in PAL. That is, the "bitrate per frame area" is the same.

Whether NTSC or PAL looks better for VCDs is not clear and in any case, if it were encoded properly, they would look very similar.

You should definitely not be using NTSC for everything. You should match your encoding to your source. If your source is in NTSC framerates (i.e., 29.97 fps), then you should probably encode to NTSC. If the source framerate is at 25 fps, then you should probably encode to PAL settings. Framerate conversions (unless done in a complex manner) will lead to visible regular skipping. How much this annoys you will depend on your eyes.

Regards.

[lbrothe]

What do you use to check the frame rate?

if it's and avi/divx i can use Virtual Dub but what about normal mpegs?

[agent_mulder81]

You will not notice any significant difference between 30 fps and 25 fps. If you saw flickering it is because there was something wrong with the TV / it was improperly tuned / etc.

Remember, film is only at 24 fps.

it wasn't just any one TV in particular, it was any tv I watched in England I noticed the flicker (mostly apparent when the image is brighter white colours)

and with film, i notice the flicker aswell, like when i'm in a movie theatre

I mean it's not anything dramatic, just very sublte (ie I dont really notice it just watching, only when I am thinking about it)

[vitualis]

You must have spiderman reflexes then...

Regards.

[TeeeRex]

Virtualis - cheers for the reply - fully understood and what I assumed. I'll stick with PAL encodes as all my sources are PAL.

Thanks again,

TeeeRex.

[banjazzer]

What do you use to check the frame rate?

if it's and avi/divx i can use Virtual Dub but what about normal mpegs?

The program called Mpeg Properties. 8)

[Anonymous65]

I have lived half my life in Europe, and half in the US.
It's amazing how big difference there is between 25 and 30 frames video. When I go to Europe, the flickering is really annoying and it's very hard to get used to it. Also, the video is much sharper, it's like cutting my eyes watching it.
Watching NTSC there is no flickering what so ever, the image looks like a poster on the wall. However, the video is softer.
But believe me, the flickering on PAL TVs is annoying when you're used to NTSC!

[TeeeRex]

Arn't we all missing the point here on 'flickering'. My understanding is that this is the refresh on the TV itself - regardless of fps. UK TV's normally refresh at 50Hz (ie 50 times per second) - newer TV's refresh at 100Hz and are more 'stable' (personally can't see any difference..).

So is the term 'flickering' misleading (or do US TV's refresh at a higher rate than 50Hz) - in which case I see what everyone is saying ...

?

TeeeRex

[agent_mulder81]

I have lived half my life in Europe, and half in the US.
It's amazing how big difference there is between 25 and 30 frames video. When I go to Europe, the flickering is really annoying and it's very hard to get used to it. Also, the video is much sharper, it's like cutting my eyes watching it.
Watching NTSC there is no flickering what so ever, the image looks like a poster on the wall. However, the video is softer.
But believe me, the flickering on PAL TVs is annoying when you're used to NTSC!

yes, exactly!