NTSC or PAL?

[VenusAndMars]

Hello,

when burning a DVD for use in the U.S.A. should I choose NTSC or PAL in AVStoDVD 2.3.4.? I live in Sweden where PAL has always (I think) been the standard but when I last was in the US (early 1980's) NTSC looked horrible.

But technology has likely improved the standard since then and, also, with modern DVD players generally being more 'tolerant' than early ones maybe a player made for the US market can play PAL-coded DVD's?

Thank you.

[hech54]

What is the original video format......PAL or NTSC?

[Baldrick]

edit: Ignore me. I should read the post before answering.....

[jman98]

Make the DVD in NTSC format if it is going to be played in the USA. DVD players able to convert between PAL and NTSC are not common and most North American TVs can't display PAL signals.

[VenusAndMars]

Right, thanks jman98!

[VenusAndMars]

What is the original video format......PAL or NTSC?

The underlying avi's are produced for TV in Sweden where PAL is the TV standard. Does that matter? I never though of that.

[lordsmurf]

Leave it as PAL -- converting to NTSC will significantly lower the quality.

Most all NTSC DVD players play PAL just fine,
as most players are cheaply made in China from worldwide kits.

[dubber9]

I just bought a Toshiba SD5300 DVD player last night (to replace a cheap another that died after 6 years of service), made it region free in 30 secs, and it plays PAL DVDs on NTSC TV after the hack.

[VenusAndMars]

Leave it as PAL -- converting to NTSC will significantly lower the quality.

Most all NTSC DVD players play PAL just fine,
as most players are cheaply made in China from worldwide kits.

I will do just that, oh lord, as AVStoDVD inexplicably reverts to PAL even after setting DVD standard in preferences to NTSC (and proceeds to burn a PAL DVD).

Thx for the input.

[edDV]

Hello,

when burning a DVD for use in the U.S.A. should I choose NTSC or PAL in AVStoDVD 2.3.4.? I live in Sweden where PAL has always (I think) been the standard but when I last was in the US (early 1980's) NTSC looked horrible.

But technology has likely improved the standard since then and, also, with modern DVD players generally being more 'tolerant' than early ones maybe a player made for the US market can play PAL-coded DVD's?

Thank you.

For a typical North American flying into Europe, PAL TV is an unwatchable flickery blur until the eyes adjust over several days. Still the peripheral vision remains flickery over a week or so*. In the analog days, PAL had resolution advantage but also had an odd 50 Hz field rate that needed speed up from film, or artifacted for 60Hz North American or Japanese transfers. So PAL too has problems.

For digital television, the same frame rate issues exist. There remains an SD vertical resolution advantage 720x576 vs 720x480. For HD both use 1280x720p or 1920x1080i/p.


* This was doubted by many Europeans. That is until many made extensive trips to the NTSC land, then went home. My company hired many top European broadcast pros. When they returned home for holiday, they too found 50 Hz PAL unwatchable for several days.

[edDV]

Leave it as PAL -- converting to NTSC will significantly lower the quality.

Most all NTSC DVD players play PAL just fine,
as most players are cheaply made in China from worldwide kits.

I will do just that, oh lord, as AVStoDVD inexplicably reverts to PAL even after setting DVD standard in preferences to NTSC (and proceeds to burn a PAL DVD).

Thx for the input.

Many if not most DVD players are not PAL capable in the USA. I suggest you send a test DVD to the intended viewer first, or suggest they buy a new player that is PAL capable (suggest Philips 5990/92).

Most US SD or HD TV sets are not PAL capable so an acceptable player must convert 720x576i PAL to 720x480i/p, 1280x720p or 1920x1080i/p.

[VenusAndMars]

Thank you edDv. Nobody is saying that PAL is superior to NTSC or vice versa. Personally I suspect that NTSC is the better system, but that is not the point here.

I simply want to create a DVD here in Sweden, with the equipment available to me, that is watchable in the US.

That is the simple premise of my original question and I have no desire to be the cause of an international incident.

I will, just as you suggest, send a test DVD to make sure.

[jagabo]

I will, just as you suggest, send a test DVD to make sure.

Why bother? Just make an NTSC DVD and be done with it. If the PAL source has progressive frames encode at 720x480 25 fps progressive and add pulldown flags with DgPulldown.

[jman98]

Most all NTSC DVD players play PAL just fine,

Come on lordsmurf. "Most"??? You know better than that.
Sony = untrue
Samsung = untrue
That's just for starters. I'd argue that most DVD players currently sold in the USA cannot "play PAL just fine".

Follow this advice at your own risk.

[davexnet]

I think Samsung automatically disables the feature for the US market. I have a US model, about 4 or 5 years old.
Somebody noticed that the UK equivalent model could play Divx and decode NTSC and PAL Vs the US model, basic NTSC
DVD only.

Very shortly after, somebody adapted the UK firmware to work on the US models. I gave it a try and have been enjoying the extra functionality ever since.

[VenusAndMars]

I will, just as you suggest, send a test DVD to make sure.

Why bother? Just make an NTSC DVD and be done with it. If the PAL source has progressive frames encode at 720x480 25 fps progressive and add pulldown flags with DgPulldown.

I would try that only, like I said above, AVStoDVD disregards my setting it to NTSC and makes a PAL DVD no matter.
Of course I'm not married to AVStoDVD but could you suggest an alternative?

[KiwiKid]

In AVStoDVD you have to click "save current preferences as default(bottom left of page)" to change between PAL and NTSC. Just clicking OK is not enough. A little silly but it works.

[VenusAndMars]

In AVStoDVD you have to click "save current preferences as default(bottom left of page)" to change between PAL and NTSC. Just clicking OK is not enough. A little silly but it works.

OK thanks, I'll go back and retry although as I remember it the KMPlayer, when viewing the resulting DVD (after having made sure 'Video standard' had indeed been set to NTSC) I checked 'Media Info' the player reported PAL.

But I'll re-check as I use DVD-RW's and can experiment.

[VenusAndMars]

...which I have done now. The DVD plays okay in both KMPlayer and MPlayerC but I still am none the wiser as to what setting will result in a DVD playable on a US standalone player, the capabilities of which btw I know nothing.

And neither player says anything about how the DVD is coded, although I suppose that would be obvious were it coded NTSC.

Guess I'll have to send test DVD's, as previously suggested to me.

[lordsmurf]

Many if not most DVD players are not PAL capable in the USA. .

Sorry, edDV, but that's not been true in many years.
Due to the influx of cheap Chinese DVDs players, which use worldwide kits -- which is ALMOST ALL MODELS since about 2005 -- PAL and NTSC has not been an issue in places where it once was. The DVD players sold in UK and USA are often exactly the same, differing only in the power cord. Even the PSU's on many of these devices are 110-240V.

Only the odd Japanese-made player, or anything sold/made in Japan, tends to now be NTSC only. But even Japan is being overrun by Chinese crap now -- lots of pre-tsunami articles were on that very topic.

And yes, jman98 -- most. (Samsung and Sony are known problem companies with DVD player quality, and always have been. They support almost nothing beyond locked R1 NTSC DVD-only video. No VCD, no PAL, no MP3, etc etc. Neither of them are very good players either, known to skip on otherwise-fine DVDs. Pretty much any other brand name, however, is fine at PAL -- even former holdouts like JVC or Pioneer, on their latter models.)

[edDV]

VenusandMars needs to know what DVD player(s) the user has. Then set a course. Or send both PAL and converted NTSC discs.

[jagabo]

If you want to be sure your disc plays in the USA, make it NTSC.

[VenusAndMars]

Yeah, well I think I'll have to send test DVD's in any case to be 100% sure.

[lordsmurf]

If you want to be sure your disc plays in the USA, make it NTSC.

Even that's not quite accurate.

Burned DVDs add another layer of problems -- NTSC or PAL.
Same for the compliance of the burned materials.

[jagabo]

And some commercial pressed DVDs don't play in some players. So what. The highest chance he has of his DVD playing in a North American DVD player is to burn an NTSC DVD. Period.

[edDV]

If you want to be sure your disc plays in the USA, make it NTSC.

Even that's not quite accurate.

Burned DVDs add another layer of problems -- NTSC or PAL.
Same for the compliance of the burned materials.

Yes, any "PAL" to "NTSC" conversion will cause frame rate artifacts. Nothing to do with analog PAL or analog NTSC but a frame rate issue. PAL/NTSC actually don't have anything to do with this.

DVD is by nature component Y,Cb,Cr.

[manono]

Yes, any "PAL" to "NTSC" conversion will cause frame rate artifacts. Nothing to do with analog PAL or analog NTSC but a frame rate issue. PAL/NTSC actually don't have anything to do with this.

What the heck is a "frame rate artifact"?

jagabo's suggestion for the easiest conversion possible was to leave it at 25fps and apply a kind of pulldown suitable for 25->29.97fps so it'll be compliant for NTSC after also doing a 720x480 resize. Since the effective framerate remains the same, even if there were such things as "framerate artifacts", I don't see how this method would create them.

[technogeek]

USA uses NTSC (29fps) standard, however if you take PAL DVD to usa it will still play. The TV does not disable that. Check with g-spot or mediainfo application source DVD format. if NTSC keep NTSC, if PAL, then you keep it is as PAL only. simple diff notice the attached files
you will notice Diff between 720x480 wide (converted from DVD) and 352 x 288 PAL video.

on the whole people like NTSC, me too, even when i am in India where PAL is standard.

[edDV]

Yes, any "PAL" to "NTSC" conversion will cause frame rate artifacts. Nothing to do with analog PAL or analog NTSC but a frame rate issue. PAL/NTSC actually don't have anything to do with this.

What the heck is a "frame rate artifact"?

jagabo's suggestion for the easiest conversion possible was to leave it at 25fps and apply a kind of pulldown suitable for 25->29.97fps so it'll be compliant for NTSC after also doing a 720x480 resize. Since the effective framerate remains the same, even if there were such things as "framerate artifacts", I don't see how this method would create them.

The 25->29.97 pulldown technique would introduce some judder but the "framerate artifacts" I was referring to result from use of frame interpolation as done by most edit software and transcoding DVD players.

[manono]

The 25->29.97 pulldown technique would introduce some judder

So does 3:2 pulldown introduce judder. 3:2:3:2:2 pulldown is just a slightly different kind of judder. Neither bothers me in the least.

...but the "framerate artifacts" I was referring to result from use of frame interpolation as done by most edit software and transcoding DVD players.

My own NTSC DVD player doesn't blend fields or frames (if that's what you mean by 'frame interpolation') when playing an NTSC DVD with 3:2:3:2:2 pulldown. I'm not sure I've ever heard of that happening. As far as I know they just do the TFF/RFF repeats as dictated by the pulldown flags. Editing software, maybe, if you don't know what you're doing or use the wrong software. Adobe products are notorious for not handling non-standard pulldown properly, even though it's perfectly 'legal'.