NTSC, PAL, SECAM questions about DVD authoring

[shira]

I am authoring a DVD that I will want to distribute not only in the U.S. but also in countries where PAL is the dominant format.

I've been told that in many of the PAL-based countries, the set-top DVD players will actually play an NTSC DVD and output the signal as PAL to the television. In other words, I've been given advice that I don't need to author and master two versions of my DVD, one for NTSC and one for PAL, that I should be able to do just NTSC and should be able to expect people everywhere to be able to play it.

Does that match with what others have seen? Or should I still produce two different formats?

And where does SECAM fit into the DVD world? I've noticed that Adobe Encore supports only NTSC and PAL - does that mean that in historically-SECAM countries like France people's DVD players read only NTSC and/or PAL and convert to SECAM for the tv's benefit?

[dphirschler]

If your people will be playing this DVD on their PC, then it doesn't matter whatsoever... unless you region code it (why would you?). But my experience is that Europeans can play NTSC DVDs as well as PAL DVDs. It is pretty common.


Darryl

[Bjs]

Partially true ... for au it's not quite correct .

Pal and ntsc play's in all my unit's ... only ntsc look's like crap ...

Tv's play any given frame rate , considering console's can be 50 and 60fps ... I think the sony ps2 say's use 50 if you dont know which type ... as for pc out to tv ... can be any frame rate .

It is only the dvd playback unit you need worry about ... but here in au , not all dvd player's being sold are capable of playing ntsc source ... cheap and dodgy unit's ... my hyundia , xms , centrex unit's do all .

No , they dont convert the signal (ntsc to pal) , just straight output to tv .

------------------------------------------------------

Safe side :

Would be to produce a pal only , an ntsc only ... and secam only

If you know the client is in a pal country , then send them pal only .
Same for other format's .

My way is to use double sided disc's ... pal on one (center ring is green) , ntsc on other (center ring is red) , just so client's know which is which .
Secam is special order's only ... as it is rare I get a call for it .

[solarfox]

Going from PAL to SECAM is fairly trivial, actually. Both systems use 625 scan lines @ 50 fields/sec, with a horizontal frequency of 15.625 kHz and a vertical frequency of 50Hz, so the only major difference to overcome is the way the color information is encoded within the signal -- and that encoding is done by the DVD player's electronics, anyway, as part of the conversion from digital MPEG data to an analog TV signal. So DVD players sold in France have no trouble with PAL DVD's -- in fact, there isn't any such thing as a SECAM DVD; the market is so limited no manufacturer (not even the French) wanted to invest in it.

As far as NTSC discs working on PAL equipment -- a lot of people I know overseas say they have no problems with this. However, it seems to be at least partly due to the fact that a lot more of the equipment sold in Europe, Australia, etc. has "multi-standard" capability by default, whereas much of the equipment sold here in the States does not. (Or at least the manufacturers don't call much attention to it over here. As an example, it turns out that my Apex DVD player and Toshiba TV set will show PAL discs just fine -- but whether this is due to the DVD player outputting it as NTSC, or the TV set accepting PAL, I have no idea, since nowhere is this capability mentioned in the manuals of either device. )

For maximum compatibility, I would err on the side of caution and produce both NTSC and PAL versions, if you can.

[jman98]

Solarfox - if you bought your TV in the USA, then your Apex is converting PAL to NTSC. It is almost impossible to buy multistandard TVs in the US. It can be done, but you have to buy them in specialty shops. I have read that many US high def TVs are capable of displaying a true PAL signal although they don't advertise it, so it is also possible that your TV is displaying PAL if your TV is high def. Nice answer on SECAM too by the way.

You are right that many TV players in Europe and Australia have multistandard capability by default. My ex-girlfriend lived in Ukraine and her TV was a multistandard TV. I can assure you that she knew absolutely nothing about PAL/NTSC and just bought a TV she liked. By the way, Ukraine is often listed on TV standards web pages as being SECAM, but in fact I think the whole country now uses PAL. I have the impression that some of the former SECAM countries like Ukraine have converted to PAL because it's easier to deal with.

Now for some humor...
What some jokesters claim the format acronyms REALLY mean
NTSC - Never Twice the Same Color
SECAM - System Essentially Contrary to the American Mindset
SECAM - SEcond Color Always Magenta
I read one once for PAL, but I forgot what it was.

[shira]

Thanks all, for your responses!

Dphirschler, the market for my DVD is more likely to use set-top boxes and televisions than they are to use computers to display the video. So I do need to think about the issue.

Bjs, I have at least 2 DVD players that I KNOW convert from PAL to NTSC before they feed the signal to my television. I have a television that I KNOW will not play PAL because it refused to when I tried to play a PAL DVD using an old settop machine. When I replaced the old settop machine with a newer one, the newer one was able to play the PAL DVD just fine on the same television. This makes me certain the newer settop DVD player converts the PAL signal to NTSC before transmitting the signal to the tv. I also have a portable DVD player that I tested on that NTSC-only television with the PAL DVD, and again the television was able to display the signal coming out of the DVD player.

I'm not surprised that the consensus seems to be that I should produce both NTSC and PAL versions. Now if only Adobe Encore made that easy to do. Sigh, with Encore you have to convert all your clips to the other standard and re-author the DVD from scratch. Most annoying.

[solarfox]

jman98 -- I kind of suspected it was more likely that the DVD player was doing the conversion, really; I just hadn't been particularly motivated to confirm the hypothesis one way or the other, so I was hedging my bets just in case.

shira -- It depends on how large you think your likely PAL-format market is going to be, and how tech-savvy they are. If this is a (relatively) special-interest video with a limited market of less than 100 copies, you might find it more economical to just caution potential overseas buyers that the disc is in NTSC format and that they need to make sure their equipment is able to play NTSC DVDs before purchasing. If you think you might sell several hundred or more to PAL-land, then I'd say it's worthwhile to go the dual-authoring route.

[anaboland]

PAL-phase-alternating line
or
PAL-Perfection At Last

No such thing as SECAM dvd format that why dvd authouring packages only give PAL and NTSC options, Most countries that used SECAM ie france now either use PAL and SECAM or soley PAL..

Most(not all)region2 european dvd players support NTSC and PAL becuase japan is region2 and uses the NTSC format, while mainland western europe and the UK are region2 using the PAL format.

so it stands to reason that region2 players should support both formats.

as for Austrlia which is region4 PAL and the other PAL regions i guess its a case of hit or miss.

most modern tv set in europe and Uk support NTSC,PAL,psedo_PAL inputs with no problem,
and region2 players can normally be setup to output a NTSC dvd as PAL or Psedo_PAL or NTSC, and also set to output a PAL dvd as NTSC, or just output in the original format.

As a rule if your tv accepts NTSC input it best to play an NTSC dvd without conversion.

If your tv don't accept NTSC input, but you have a psedo_PAL(PAL60) setting on your dvd player use this for smoothest playback.

IF your tv don't accecpt NTSC input and there is no psedo-pal option the your only choice is normal NTSC to PAL conversion.

as you can see saying that NTSC is supported by all PAL players is a bit hit or miss, it depends on several factors.

The only way to be sure somebody in a PAL region can 100% play your disc is to author it in PAL.

As far as the UK and other region2 countries are concerned i don't think you would have too many come backs, as most people here known what their players can play, and if you state it's NTSC people will know before they purchase it.

lets face most of the bootleg dvds floating around are NTSC.

Saying that i have an old Philips dvdr890 settop recorder that won't convert at all it only outputs the original format, although its not a problem with a modern tv it would be with an old tv.

BUT i've always found the early settop recorders a bit limited.

[TripleTransAm]

Interesting thread...

My wife has burned a few compilation DVDs to send to her sister in Sweden... we are located in Canada. The DVDs were burned on a Pioneer DVR-520H set top box. While her sister's DVD player is region-free, attempting to play our DVDs results in black/white output (which strikes me as a classic case of NTSC output being read by a PAL player, based on what I saw way back when on VCRs).

So would this mean my sister-in-law's player is not capable of reading NTSC? Or is it more a case of her player detecting an NTSC source and outputting NTSC to her TV by default?

Either way, it's looking like I'll need to generate PAL DVDs on my PC for my sister-in-law...

[jman98]

TripleTransAm - This is a classic example of a PAL/NTSC mismatch. The easiest solution is to have your sister-in-law go into her DVD player set up menu and force the TV output to PAL. Many DVD players default to something like "auto" which means whatever signal goes in, they send the same one out. I am guessing, but probably the DVD player is sending out an NTSC signal and her TV can't properly display it. Having the DVD player set to output only PAL video should fix things.

[TripleTransAm]

Thought so...
If memory serves, it's something along the lines of APEX or something of that style of unit. I'll pass on the suggestion for her to look for a way to force video system output. Thanks for the suggestion.

[LloydAZ]

Now for some humor...
What some jokesters claim the format acronyms REALLY mean
NTSC - Never Twice the Same Color
SECAM - System Essentially Contrary to the American Mindset
SECAM - SEcond Color Always Magenta
I read one once for PAL, but I forgot what it was.

The one I heard for PAL was - Perfection At Last

[guns1inger]

@BJs - it depends on the player. All my Pioneer players have had the ability to output either PAL, PAL60 or native NTSC. Native NTSC, when played on a multi-format TV, looks the same as NTSC would anywhere else in the world (not a great recommendation, I must add). My LG player, on the otherhand, converts to PAL on the fly and isn't as good with the output.

That said, the basic premise is true, the majority of PAL players will playback NTSC material. In fact if buying a new player today, you would have to go out of your way to buy a PAL player that didn't also play back NTSC material.

(Note : I don't consider console games such as the PS2 or XBox DVD players, they are games machines with some playback capabilities thrown in)

[dvd3500]

Since Japan, an NTSC country is in the Region 2 region most Region 2 DVD players can player both NTSC and PAL.
Depending on the player and TV this can look more or less good.
I live in Europe and my DVD player and TV can be switched to NTSC so I see it the way an American would.
My mother-in-law's DVD player does NTSC but her TV doesn't so NTSC looks jerky on her TV.