Please Educate me... (NTSC/PAL video cards)...

[Mr.Roboto]

All right perhaps this seems to be an obvious question but here it goes...

When a video card is designated as NTSC or PAL, does this simply refer to the output or does it also refer to the input? (ie. Encoding vs. Decoding...)

Function wise, would an NTSC video card be able to capture PAL images? I'm guessing no but just want to confirm. If it was only the output section of the card that referred to NTSC/PAL, then it could possibly allow for capturing in both?

Let me know. Hopefully this question has not been asked before.

[Gazorgan]

A video card ( plugged into your AGP slot ) output is non NTSC/PAL specific. If it has Video out or TV out, then it can be NTSC/PAL specific for that output, but not to computer monitor. Most of the chips used to generate the TV/Video signal do NTSC/PAL/SECAM with only the software making a difference. This is a cost saving measure, that way you don't need 3 different chips and have 3 different products. Since there are dozens of differnt 'PAL' formats, you can see how this would work.

So, some video cards can output to NTSC/PAL depending on the drivers installed. There are also some cards that only do one or the other. This is especially true of TV tuners. Specifically, the US has a 6 Mhz spacing. Europe has an 8 Mhz spacing. There are technical considerations in the cheap tunners that will cause problems. My $29 US capture card will tune any channel, any format. Picture isn't as sharp (due to broad instead of narrow filters) as compared to a dedicated NTSC reciever.