Viewing quality between PAL & NTSC ??

[VEBouto]

I live here in Australia and we use the PAL system, but i order alot of NTSC music DVD's from the USA cos it works out cheaper. But lately i have been reading in forums that people think that the PAL system DVD's are clearer, sharper and a better quality made picture than the NTSC ones. Now i really can't tell if there is any kind of obvious difference, cos i have many of both formats....so why do people say this.
Is it based purely on the seperate specifications of both formats? ie.25 frames per sec' as compared with 29..etc
Your thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks.

[Nilfennasion]

Most of the time, when people say PAL is better than NTSC or vice versa, they are full of crap. The question is a little more complex than that. It involves asking questions first.

The most important question is "what format was the source material shot in?". If the source material was originally NTSC video, then the best format to watch the material in is NTSC, period. Conversion only introduces artefacts, and does not make the picture any clearer (usually the opposite, in fact). This, incidentally, is why people who claim DVDs upsampled to 720P or 1080P look alright should not be trusted with a garden hose. Upsampling anything only makes the artefacts look bigger.

If the source material was originally film, on the other hand, then you have a couple of questions to ask yourself. Namely, do you prefer smooth motion or correct audio pitch? Some PAL DVDs have had their audio pitch-corrected, but much like standards conversion, this causes more artefacts than it eliminates.

Most music videos are shot the cheapest way possible. If the music video was shot in an American location, then it will natively be NTSC. Hence, there will be no benefit to getting the music video in PAL. If the music video was shot in a European location and the people making the disc decided to keep it in PAL for mastering, then PAL is the best choice. On the other hand, standards conversions are usually done pretty well these days, and the only reason one will be significantly better than the other is if the transfer process has gone horribly wrong with one of them.

Considering how much price-gouging we have to endure in Australia, I think your instinct of going with where the price is cheapest is the right one. Having looked at the price differences between Australia and America for other such things as Blu-Ray players, I would import everything I buy if I could.

[guns1inger]

PAL resolution is 720 x 576, whereas NTSC is 720 x 480. This immediately increases visual quality, all other factors being equal. I also find that we seem to get 16:9 versions of discs that are released as 4:3 letterboxed in the US , which also increases quality a lot (this is not as common now as it once was). Finally, many people play back NTSC material using the default settings on their DVD player. These settings are usually to convert NTSC to PAL, which will also produce a lower quality result.

How much difference this all makes also depends on just how good your viewing equipment is. I know mine is substantially better than most of my family's and friend's kit, so I do see the difference. Most of them would not.

[Nilfennasion]

This immediately increases visual quality, all other factors being equal.

True, but not all factors are equal. Music videos are not like films, where the transfer is being downconverted from a 1080P source (at least not usually). Music videos, especially American-made ones, are usually 720 x 480. Changing them to 720 x 576 (and 25 FPS) only introduces more interlacing artefacts (the one thing I hate enough about SD-DVD to upgrade to Blu-Ray) and adds more dots where none existed before.

There is one thing a staff member at what used to be Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment said to me in casual conversation some time ago that I always remember when people ask about PAL versus NTSC. You can convert a high-resolution source downwards a couple of times, but you can never convert a low-resolution source upwards. Hence my disdain for upsampling crap and so on.

[edDV]

The answer clearly is "it depends"

One must know the history of production to make the judgement. There are many issues that impact the "better" argument.

PAL is an analog not digital standard and as such has the advantage of 576 active lines vs. 486 for analog NTSC. Square pixel sampling results in 768x576 frames for PAL and 648x486 for NTSC but those resolutions were historically expensive so both often were often reduced to 640x480 for computers.

PAL is defined as 25 frames per second interlace (50 fields per second). NTSC is defined as 29.97 frames per second interlace (59.94 fields per second) so has more motion samples. NTSC played on PAL DVD players is converted to PAL 60 which is a vertically scaled pseudo PAL.

Film is shot 24 fps so presents problems for both PAL and NTSC. The PAL DVD solution is to speed up video to 25fps and process audio to avoid high pitch. The NTSC solution is to slightly slow playback to 23.976 fps and repeat certain fields (aka "telecine") to match 29.97 fps. Since the speed change is so slight, no audio processing is required. Alternately an NTSC DVD can be authored progressive at 23.976 fps (usually done for movies) with output frame rate depending on player settings. For interlace NTSC playback, the player adds telecine field repeats to 29.97 fps. For progressive playback full frames are repeated in a 3:2 pattern to 59.94 frames per second.

NTSC presented to a PAL DVD player requires vertical interpolation but PAL 60 processing is supported in most players and modern PAL TV sets so NTSC playback is a bit vertically soft but overall OK.

From the perspective of a NTSC viewer, NTSC always looks better. PAL must be V scaled and frame rate converted 25 fps to 29.97 fps resulting in severe filtering (blurring + jittered motion). Those of us that viewed early standard converted PAL BBC series (or early Australian productions like "A Town Like Alice") know the pain of standards conversion. For this reason, most world TV series are shot on 24P film and separately processed for PAL or NTSC release.

To complicate matters, most movies or TV series made since Y2k or before were mastered in high definition 1920x1080 and archived 1440x1080i HDCAM. These masters can be converted to either PAL or NTSC with reasonably high quality (I'll spare the details).

So, in conclusion ... "it depends".

[DRP]

If you have a PAL DVD watch it as PAL. If you have a NTSC DVD, watch it as NTSC. That said, the PAL version one will always be the superior quality one because the format is inherently superior. Is it worth the extra cost to buy the PAL version one locally that's had it's price inflated artificially with Australian import duties to get that better quality? IMO no. Keep buying the NTSC discs out of America instead given the current very favourable (to us) exchange rate.

[edDV]

Pure digital produced PAL DVD gets you 720x576 played as 768x576 4:3 or 1024x576 16:9 frames. NTSC will be 720x480 played as 640x480 4:3 or 854x480 16:9 frames. Point to PAL.

Pure digital produced NTSC DVD gets you motion resolution to 59.94 fields per second vs 50 fields per second for PAL. NTSC will have less flicker and be smoother for sports. DVD bitrate is the same for both. Point to NTSC.

For HD the 1280x720p or 1920x1080i resolutions are the same for both. Frame rate issues are the same as standard def.

[manono]

That said, the PAL version one will always be the superior quality because the format is inherently superior.

Spoken like a true PAL fanboy, and utter nonsense. always is pretty all-inclusive, allowing for no exceptions. If it's movies you're talking about, then the source is 24fps, and how the conversion to PAL is done has a lot to do with whether or not the PAL DVD is better or not. And this doesn't even take into account the many people that are deeply annoyed by either the 4% PAL speedup or the higher pitched PAL audio, or both.

I guess you haven't ever seen the PAL DVDs converted from NTSC by field blending, or by adding a frame every second to go from 24 to 25fps. The frame addition is usually done in the form of a field every half-second, but the effect is to add in a slight stutter to the playback, something that annoys some PAL people about the 3:2 pulldown of NTSC movie DVDs. And if for playback on a progressive display, this kind of an interlaced DVD can present problems for certain DVD players (just as PAL DVDs with phase-shifted fields can also present problems for some players that will just deinterlace them).

Yes, in theory PAL DVDs have a higher resolution, but whether or those extra rows of pixels translate into a clearer and sharper picture, and whether or not that higher resolution is enough to make the PAL DVD the superior one, depends on the master used, how the conversion is made, whether or not the brightness or contrast have been tampered with, which version is cropped more, how are the subtitles, if one is 4:3 and the other 16:9, and other factors. I can point to dozens of DVDs where an NTSC version is the better one (or best out of several choices). All I need is one example to disprove your contention, and here are four:

The new Chinatown (NTSC) (still 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen) looks cleaner, brighter, sharper, and more detailed than previous DVD releases. Colors are quite lush, and there is a little bit more of the image on the sides depending on the shots.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews20/chinatown_dvd_review.htm

The Region 1 MGM DVD is much sharper than the Region 2 PAL.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/dvdcompare/theapartment.htm

The Region 1 sharpness exceeds the Region 2 so significantly that it is the only real mitigating factor in the comparison.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare4/badlands.htm

As expected the Criterion (NTSC) image is better - greater detail (Marker approved) and even shows a shade more information in the frame.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews21/La_Jetee_Sans_Soleil_DVD_review.htm

[DRP]

NTSC will have less flicker and be smoother for sports.

Not that you'll ever be able to notice it though because the human eye & brain are incapable of seeing any improvement in fluidity of motion above 24fps anyway. This is exactly why NTSC is wasteful. The only reason it is 30fps is because the power supply in the US where it was invented is 60Hz and it was the power supply frequency that determined the early television standard. It had nothing to do with wanting to optimize fluidity of motion. 30fps was chosen purely because 60 interlaced frames exactly equated to the 60Hz power supply frequency which made timing nice and easy.

In essence, NTSC was developed to make use of existing infrastructure and power supplies at the expense of optimal image quality. That's not a criticism of it at all. It's just a fact. It's the price you pay for being an early adopter or in this case, early inventor of any new technology. Then, after you're commited to that standard you've created and sold countless equipment to cater for it, someone else comes along and improves on what the original inventor made by including fewer compromises and optimizing the quality further than was possible originally. This is what PAL/SECAM did to NTSC. The only reason NTSC hasn't been discarded to the scrap heap is because there's far too much invested in it by the residents of the USA. A change now, would require 300+ million people to go out and buy all new audio/visual equipment for all their houses, and that probably wouldn't go down very well with the electorate. In the meantime of course, the NTSC fanboys will continue to try and convince themselves that NTSC really isn't all that bad afterall and in fact could even be better than PAL. They have to convince themselves of this because they have no easy alternative if they live in an NTSC market like the USA.

[DRP]

That said, the PAL version one will always be the superior quality because the format is inherently superior.

Spoken like a true PAL fanboy, and utter nonsense. always is pretty all-inclusive, allowing for no exceptions. If it's movies you're talking about

It's not. Go back and read the OP's post again. She/He's talking about music DVDs. So that right there throws the rest of your argument into complete disarray. Try and stay on topic next time and answer only the question being asked rather than making up your own.

[VEBouto]

Thanks for the thoughts guys.....this is very involved indeed.
I have a function setting control in my DVD player settings that says Pal, NTSC or Auto.
So should i click Auto or NTSC when i play the NTSC disc's?

[DRP]

Set the DVD player to AUTO and leave it. If your TV has an AUTO setting as well then you're done and never have to adjust those settings ever again.

[guns1inger]

I run all of mine Auto so that is plays whatever the native format is.

[manono]

Go back and read the OP's post again. She/He's talking about music DVDs. So that right there throws the rest of your argument into complete disarray. Try and stay on topic next time and answer only the question being asked rather than making up your own.

Nice try. What's the title of this thread again? While the OP specifically mentioned music video DVDs, he quickly made the question a general one asking for comparisons between the 2 formats. Nowhere in your first post is there any indication at all that you're making your claims about music DVDs only. No, it was a blanket statement claiming that PAL DVDs are always superior.

But, if you now want to change the focus to insist on keeping it specifically music video related, then what I said applies even more. If the OP is ordering from the US, then these are more likely to be US groups he's interested in, with the videos created originally for NTSC. PAL DVD versions of American music videos are much more likely to be inferior to the NTSC ones than is true for movies. Why? Because the companies involved aren't of the same quality as the Hollywood movie studios, much less money is involved in the mastering for PAL and the conversion by the DVD production companies involved, and you're much less likely to get a good PAL conversion from it, not when it costs $20,000 and up to create a good PAL master, and not when the sales won't come anywhere near what they might be for a popular movie on PAL DVD. You're much more likely to get a blended and interlaced pile of garbage. Or if the NTSC music video was shot on video originally (as opposed to being shot on film, which is done most of the time, I believe), then there's no such thing, really, as a decent PAL version of it. I think SatStorm is the resident expert on music videos. Ask him sometime about the kind of garbage conversions being done for PAL broadcast.

[VEBouto]

O.K...this is my final question on the subject.
If i buy a NTSC Music DVD that was originally shot and produced in the USA or Japan for that matter. Then because NTSC is the standard format for these countries and it was filmed for NTSC, it will be the best option, right?
Cos if it is converted to PAL for the rest of the world then it isn't going to be any better, picture wise, than the original NTSC...?
So basically..whatever the original recording format is, whether NTSC or PAL (before it is converted to the other) will be the best option.
So on the other hand if a Video was shot in the UK using PAL as the original standard then that would be better than a NTSC conversion for the US and Japanese markets

But now i'm am thinking to myself...if it is shot in HD ultra high bitrate film, which most probably are then the conversion to PAL would probably be better than NTSC.
Hope this doesn't sound confusing.
Thanks for everyone's input.

[edDV]

O.K...this is my final question on the subject.
If i buy a NTSC Music DVD that was originally shot and produced in the USA or Japan for that matter. Then because NTSC is the standard format for these countries and it was filmed for NTSC, it will be the best option, right?
Cos if it is converted to PAL for the rest of the world then it isn't going to be any better, picture wise, than the original NTSC...?
So basically..whatever the original recording format is, whether NTSC or PAL (before it is converted to the other) will be the best option.
So on the other hand if a Video was shot in the UK using PAL as the original standard then that would be better than a NTSC conversion for the US and Japanese markets

But now i'm am thinking to myself...if it is shot in HD ultra high bitrate film, which most probably are then the conversion to PAL would probably be better than NTSC.
Hope this doesn't sound confusing.
Thanks for everyone's input.

Do you have the title? We could research the history.

Most mainstream music videos are shot on film (or 24p video) so they can be easily released as NTSC or PAL. If NTSC it would be either a 720x480 progressive DVD or an interlace telecined 720x480i 29.976 fps DVD.

Playback quality will depend more on your PAL DVD player and how it handles progressive or telecined NTSC input. Handled correctly the only difference would be a slightly reduced vertical resolution.

[manono]

Most mainstream music videos are shot on film (or 24p video) so they can be easily released as NTSC or PAL.

I don't know if I'm disagreeing with you here or not. They'll prepare a master for either NTSC or for PAL, but not for both. They'll use the same master for both formats. Therefore, it's my contention, and I was implying it in my previous post, that you want the DVD in the format of the country from which the video originated. So, I'm agreeing with VEBouto in saying that if the group is from the US or Japan, the chances are much better that the music video in NTSC is the better one. If the group is from Europe, Australia, China, or some other PAL area, the chances are better for the PAL DVD to be the superior one.

But now i'm am thinking to myself...if it is shot in HD ultra high bitrate film, which most probably are then the conversion to PAL would probably be better than NTSC.

It doesn't much matter how it was shot. What matters is how the conversion from film was done. If done poorly, it'll look bad. When you say HD ultra high bitrate film, I'm assuming you mean shot using digital cameras. What they produce still isn't the quality of old-fashioned film, although it's getting there.

[edDV]

Unlike TV series (most shot 24p), music videos are done many ways. If this is a major record label with world distribution, they would probably shoot 24p and separately create NTSC and PAL masters. Low budget independent production will be done in the local format and then converted to world formats. This was common for all videos in the early days (1970-80's) until the music video world market matured.

Film production is usually more expensive than video. Cheap 24p and high def video cameras are making 24p workflow possible for the little guy as well. AVID, Premiere Pro and Vegas all support 24p work flows in recent versions.

[Nilfennasion]

Music videos shot on film?

People can't tell the difference in quality between SD-DVD and HD? 24P versus 50Hz or 60Hz? Loss of judder or speedup? That's indiscernable?

Seriously, people who know what I am about will know whom I am addressing, but some people really need to do a fact-check before they repeat their assumptions indiscriminately where newbies will read them and become confused by their contradiction of the facts.

[edDV]

Music videos shot on film?

People can't tell the difference in quality between SD-DVD and HD? 24P versus 50Hz or 60Hz? Loss of judder or speedup? That's indiscernable?

Seriously, people who know what I am about will know whom I am addressing, but some people really need to do a fact-check before they repeat their assumptions indiscriminately where newbies will read them and become confused by their contradiction of the facts.

Are we talking about music videos other than MTV, CMT, VH1? Concerts? Gargage bands?

Short MTV type record company sponsored videos are largely shot on film or 24p video. Concerts are mostly shot on video as are bootlegs and independent videos.

Which facts are we discussing?

[Nilfennasion]

Pardon the outburst, it has been a lengthy and tedious day.

Seriously, I have yet to hear of a music video shot on film that features anyone other than Michael Jackson. There's just no point in it. Not in the 1980s when getting a music video released in theatres was impossible unless you were Michael Jackson, and certainly not now when you can shoot it cheaper on digital video, anyway.

[lordsmurf]

This, incidentally, is why people who claim DVDs upsampled to 720P or 1080P look alright should not be trusted with a garden hose. Upsampling anything only makes the artefacts look bigger.

It sounds to me like you need a better television. I've got a brand new Sony and the upsampling is really good. Upscaled DVDs on this set look better than HD feeds on cheaper crappy sets.

[Nilfennasion]

I apologise for not being legally blind, but what can I do?

[edDV]

NTSC will have less flicker and be smoother for sports.

Not that you'll ever be able to notice it though because the human eye & brain are incapable of seeing any improvement in fluidity of motion above 24fps anyway. This is exactly why NTSC is wasteful.

That is not generally considered true. 24 fps was chosen by the film studios in the early 1930s as the minimum frame rate that could be tolerated by the human eye on a large screen. There was a need to standardize a frame rate to make synchronized sound work. 24 fps was chosen to minimize film stock costs not as an ideal motion sample. To make 24 fps work, a special projector gate was needed to repeat frames 2x (48 fps) or 3x (72fps) to make flicker tolerable. Straight 24 fps is too flickered to watch.

24p is a very coarse motion sample requiring special camera technique to minimise stuttered motion during pans or zooms. Anyone who is familiar with video games knows how jerky 24 fps can be with fast action motion or even slow object movement. Fast motion ideally calls for frame rates above 70 to 120 fps to please the eye.

The only reason it [NTSC] is 30fps is because the power supply in the US where it was invented is 60Hz and it was the power supply frequency that determined the early television standard. It had nothing to do with wanting to optimize fluidity of motion. 30fps was chosen purely because 60 interlaced frames exactly equated to the 60Hz power supply frequency which made timing nice and easy.

In essence, NTSC was developed to make use of existing infrastructure and power supplies at the expense of optimal image quality. That's not a criticism of it at all. It's just a fact. It's the price you pay for being an early adopter or in this case, early inventor of any new technology. Then, after you're committed to that standard you've created and sold countless equipment to cater for it, someone else comes along and improves on what the original inventor made by including fewer compromises and optimizing the quality further than was possible originally. This is what PAL/SECAM did to NTSC. The only reason NTSC hasn't been discarded to the scrap heap is because there's far too much invested in it by the residents of the USA. A change now, would require 300+ million people to go out and buy all new audio/visual equipment for all their houses, and that probably wouldn't go down very well with the electorate. In the meantime of course, the NTSC fanboys will continue to try and convince themselves that NTSC really isn't all that bad afterall and in fact could even be better than PAL. They have to convince themselves of this because they have no easy alternative if they live in an NTSC market like the USA.

Mostly true but 50Hz power countries also chose 25fps for exactly the same reason and 25 fps is too low to avoid serious flicker for television. This is why interlace was necessary to get field update to 50Hz but 50Hz is on the edge of human tolerance for flicker. It is possible for the brain to adjust over time but for us 60Hz adapted folk, PAL video is difficult to watch for a few days until the brain adapts. The solution to the PAL flicker problem is to field/frame repeat to 100Hz scan. So in general 50Hz is inferior to 60Hz for flicker and motion. Likewise 480i/1080i 29.97 fps is inferior to 480p/720p 59.94 fps for sports and other fast moving video.

The advantages analog PAL introduced over NTSC mainly related to color phase stability. Most nations choosing PAL also tended to be more politically centralized so were able to define a non-compatible standard obsoleting all existing TV sets. More bandwidth per channel was assigned to improve broadcast colour picture quality.

ITU-Rec 601 derived digital television is component and has no PAL or NTSC differences. The only remaining differences relate to frame rate and vertical scan lines. The decision was made in 1985 to keep interlace, legacy frame rates and standardize sample rate to 13.5MHz. The standard definition result is YCbCr with Y defined as 720x480 29.97 fps for "NTSC" and 720x576 25 fps for "PAL".*

High definition television standardizes frame sizes to 1280x720 or 1920x1080 leaving only frame rate differences between "NTSC" and "PAL". This decision was made to maintain interoperability with standard definition. An ideal universal frame rate would be more like 72 fps progressive (an even multiple of 24fps film) but that will have to wait for the next world standard.


* broadcast television uses 704x480 or 704x576 but 8 pixels are added to each side for recording and networking.

[manono]

NTSC will have less flicker and be smoother for sports.

Not that you'll ever be able to notice it though because the human eye & brain are incapable of seeing any improvement in fluidity of motion above 24fps anyway. This is exactly why NTSC is wasteful.

That is not generally considered true.

Hehe, I almost went to work on that one myself, but had bigger fish to fry at that time.