8mm Forum: PAl and NTSC

This is topic PAl and NTSC in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by James Smith (Member # 6425) on April 16, 2018, 04:00 AM:

Brian's description of the two formats is correct. My system plays both formats fine, but I've discovered that when I project the images onto a large screen (without any Blu-ray upscaling), the PAL is always superior. In fact, I consider PAL to be an excellent 'middle-ground' between NTSC and Blu-Ray. And let's not forget that there are lots of movies that have been released overseas on PAL and not released here on NTSC. (Black Bart, Tap Roots, Dunkirk, Eve of St. Mark, I was Monty's Double, etc.)

Posted by Joe Taffis (Member # 4) on April 16, 2018, 08:14 AM:

I bought a Sony BDP S5200 all region player years ago. They're not very expensive...

Posted by Maurizio Di Cintio (Member # 144) on April 16, 2018, 04:55 PM:

I do not understand: what does PAL have to do with being midway between DVD and Bluray? DVD and BD are media, PAL is a TV standard: there both PAL DVDs and PAL BDs, as well as NTSC DVDs and NTSC BDs.
Anyway PAL is indeed superior to NTSC; it's got a lower frame rate but more lines of resolution.

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on April 17, 2018, 02:22 AM:

Just to confuse matters the first BBC test colour transmissions in the 1950's were in 405 line/50 Field/sec NTSC.

Posted by Robert Crewdson (Member # 3790) on April 17, 2018, 05:45 AM:

Why did they do a colour test transmission?; I don't remember reading about colour TVs in the UK until 1964.

Posted by Rob Young. (Member # 131) on April 17, 2018, 06:23 AM:

With DVD material, NTSC line resolution is 525, PAL is 576, so arguable a slightly better image, all other factors being equal.

Blu-ray doesn't use NTSC or PAL and are generally mastered at 1080p 24Hz for movies (although there are obviously exceptions). Some are regionally coded but only to prevent playback in unauthorised distribution territories, and nothing at all to do with format, which remains the same.

Even when using an upscaling DVD player, or a Blu-ray player to upscale DVD to 1080i or 1080p, the more resolution there to begin with the better, so I think what James means is that a PAL DVD is better than an NTSC equivalent, although I'd say that neither even approaches Blu-ray quality as other factors, such as compression, limit DVD image quality.

The best upscaling DVD machine I own is a Toshiba XDE which does a good job of upscaling without too many nasty artifacts. Certainly, of all the NTSC DVD import discs I have, PAL discs do look better.

But Blu-ray is a different league altogether.

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on April 17, 2018, 09:13 AM:

The test transmissions were before the move to 625 lines was confirmed. Only a few off-screen shots survive of these test transmissions. I remember seeing a competition for a colour set that had the phrase "Can be converted to 625 lines if necessary" in the advert.

The BBC Handbook for 1963, published in 1962 stated that 625 line PAL colour test transmissions were being made from the Crystal Palace transmitter from a studio in Lime Grove.

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