NTSC vs PAL : Which is better?

December 4, 2002, 7:11 AM CST by PirateGuy

I read so many complaints about games for PAL version of consoles (be it PS2/Xbox/GC). What these downsides? Please don't mention about delayed release as that is not a big deal to me. Since I'm in UK its likely the console I get is PAL, though I do hear that I can get my hands on a modded NTSC version. I do know that PAL resolution is a bit higher than NTSC.

December 4, 2002, 8:29 AM CST by khaid to PirateGuy

Also, PAL runs at 50Hz and NTSC at 60Hz.

December 4, 2002, 8:36 AM CST by pvcHH to PirateGuy

PAL not only has superior resolution; but color separation. NTSC is known in the broadcast industry in the states as "Never The Same Color" because of the nature of the signal and the huge number of potential interferences. Thus, PAL is less likely to have red bleeding through your whole screen, and less likely to have white bleed through to the audio spectrum, and less likely to have unaccurate color. The PAL cables and connections are basically superior to S-Video NTSC connections, because they have greater separation and are a less suscebtible signal anyway.

Is that how you spell susceptible?

December 6, 2002, 6:00 AM CST by GrandDizzy

Yeah, PAL is better. PAL has better colours and is higher resolution. It's just a better format (as it was developed many years after NTSC came out and set about correcting the mistakes of NTSC). There are three minor advantages for getting anything in NTSC format:

1. NTSC has a higher framerate (just under 60 frames per second as opposed to PAL's 50 frames per second) so in general, NTSC has slightly slicker animation (although most people would neither see any difference, nor care).

2. If the game you want to play was made in an NTSC country then it will be optimised for NTSC display, and therefore the NTSC version will be better. Ideally, if you're given the option of running the game in NTSC (60Hz) mode then do that. The same is true for videos and movies. It's always better to run things in the format they were originally created for.

3. NTSC runs movies at the correct speed. If you watch a video that has been formatted for PAL (for example, a region 2 DVD video) then it actually runs 4% faster than it should. This is because movies are shot at 24 frames per second and PAL plays them at 25 frames per second, so you get a 4% speed increase. This isn't noticeable of course, it just means that movies finish a few minutes quicker than they should. The way that these 24 frames per second are adapted to play on an NTSC system involves the frames being mixed around a little and the animation quality being sacrificed slightly - but they do run at correct speed on NTSC systems.

December 6, 2002, 6:43 AM CST by OG10 to khaid

what about XBOX? which is PAL60? that takes advantage of both worlds?

December 6, 2002, 7:15 AM CST by PirateGuy

Is that how you spell susceptible?

That is correct spelling, but that is based on UK dictionary. So I do not know if the American spelling is the same. :P

But I have also noticed that PAL television have something called SCART. Is that featured only for PAL television? And does Xbox/PS2 have SCART output? How is SCART compared to S-Video?

So if a 25 FPS PAL movie (let's say its made in UK movie/tv series) convert to NTSC, I would lose 1 frame (Because NTSC plays at 24 FPS), which would result the picture motion being a bit 'jerky'?

December 6, 2002, 2:42 PM CST by GrandDizzy

PAL60 is a new system that uses PAL's superior colour handling, only it has the NTSC resolution and frames per second. So it's PAL only formatted to play NTSC stuff.

SCART is the standard lead in the UK (not sure about other countries). I own a GameCube, which you can use SCART on, but I'm almost certain that you can use it on an Xbox or PS2. You can use SCART with everything here in the UK.

The reason SCART is the standard is because it uses the RGB format. That means that each of the three colour channels (red, green and blue) are kept seperate and therefore the resulting picture is theoretically exactly what your computer/console told it to be. The great thing about SCART is that it transmits these RGB picture channels along with the sound all in one plug, so it's very convenient to plug things in with it.

The only thing that's better than a SCART lead is a digital lead (which I use) and of course with digital there is no degradation of the signal so the picture on the TV is identical to the picture your computer puts out.

Just beware before you buy a SCART lead, there are different types. I've heard that some are much better than others. I've heard that you should get a good quality one and that makes all the difference, and there are other factors about SCARTS that I can't remember. You should ask someone else before you buy one!

> So if a 25 FPS PAL movie (let's say its made in UK movie/tv series) convert to NTSC, I would lose 1 frame (Because NTSC plays at 24 FPS), which would result the picture motion being a bit 'jerky'?

You've gotten a little confused about things here. I'll explain. There are two main ways in which a movie or TV show can be filmed. It is either taped onto video, or filmed onto film. And if it's taped onto video then it can be either PAL or NTSC. So you now have three different formats: PAL, NTSC and film.

PAL is 25 frames per second, NTSC is 30 frames per second, and film is 24 frames per second.

Now ALL cinema movies are shot onto film at 24 fps (frames per second). This is just the way it's always been done. So when you get a movie that's released on video it has to be converted to PAL or NTSC to play on people's TVs.

In NTSC countries, they have to make the 24fps movie run on 30fps TVs so they mess around with the frames slightly (some are shown twice, some aren't) in order to get the movie to play at the correct speed. The side effect is that the animation is slightly unsmooth.

In PAL countries, they have to make the 24fps movie run at 25 fps, but this number is so close they don't bother doing anything and just play one frame of the movie on every frame, which results in the movie being very smooth, but being slightly faster (but it's so slight that you can't see it).

So that's movies sorted. There are also conversions between PAL and NTSC. Like, when they want to take an NTSC TV show and play it in a PAL country, then they have to change from 30fps to 25fps. And the vice versa.
It's all very boring and complicated and I could go on about this all night but I won't.

I'll just try to summarise... All movies are 24fps, and in order to watch them on a standard TV they have to be converted to PAL (25fps) or NTSC (30fps). TV shows however are filmed onto videotape and start off either in PAL format (25fps) or NTSC (30fps). Then you have to convert them over if you're showing a TV show in another country.

It gets confusing when you consider other things such as resolution. And also the fact that many TV shows these days are shot onto film. And with computer retouching getting better and better and TV shows looking more and more professional, it's not always obvious what was shot on film and what wasn't.

On the whole, if you're worried about quality of videos (and you can play DVDs of different regions) then do what I do: If it's a movie then PAL (region 2) is better. It may play slightly faster, but the animation is smooth and the resolution is better. If it's a TV show then it's always better to buy the version where the TV show originates (region 1 for US shows and region 2 for UK shows). Then again, if it's an American show but you know for a fact that the TV show was shot onto film, then there's a chance that the film could have been specially transferred for the PAL videos, meaning that the PAL version will be better, as it hasn't been transferred from NTSC, but straight from the film.

Yeah, this is probably too much information for you. But if you knew how complicated this all REALLY is, and how much I've simplified it for you then maybe this wouldn't seem like too much information.

December 6, 2002, 2:57 PM CST by PirateGuy to GrandDizzy

Good information. So SCART good, but I haven't seen it used on most modern tv sets in my country (which are mostly made in Japan, Sony, Toshiba, Samsung), eventhough we use PAL system (PAL B/G I think, but here in UK its PAL-I). Yes, after the confusion of PAL and NTSC, there's also PAL B/G,I, SECAM and much more.

December 6, 2002, 3:08 PM CST by G3M1N1 to GrandDizzy

Heh! I was going to bash you unmercifully on this statement:

NTSC has a higher framerate (just under 60 frames per second as opposed to PAL's 50 frames per second) so in general, NTSC has slightly slicker animation (although most people would neither see any difference, nor care).

But you made up for it in your latest explanation. I guess you meant interlaced 50 (PAL) and interlaced 60 (NTSC) on the first post, which, would make up 25 and 30 full frames output. That's ok.

Also:

In NTSC countries, they have to make the 24fps movie run on 30fps TVs so they mess around with the frames slightly (some are shown twice, some aren't) in order to get the movie to play at the correct speed. The side effect is that the animation is slightly unsmooth.

In PAL countries, they have to make the 24fps movie run at 25 fps, but this number is so close they don't bother doing anything and just play one frame of the movie on every frame, which results in the movie being very smooth, but being slightly faster (but it's so slight that you can't see it).

This modification is called pull down (2:1, 3:1, etc).
This term has been so mistakenly used and woed on tech forums by newbies when they say that their pscan DVD uses "pull down technology"!

December 6, 2002, 3:18 PM CST by pvcHH to G3M1N1

I think those noobs are talking about the ability of their DVD players to sense the pulldown encoded on the DVD for proper display; on the Denon site it describes one of the features of their DVD players:

Accurate 2:3 pulldown detection and reconstruction, even with inaccurately flagged content

Just defending the use of the term when talking about DVD players. ;)

December 6, 2002, 4:43 PM CST by XboxCubePS2 to PirateGuy

This explains it thoroughly.

http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Articles/PALvsNTSC/PALvsNTSC.asp

December 6, 2002, 4:51 PM CST by G3M1N1 to pvcHH

I knew I had been a little lazy on that reply!

I should had been more specific.

What I meant is that they call it the next big thing, such as progressive scan (they sometimes even confuse each term with another), when pulldown has nothing to do with pscan. :) MY BAD! (am i making any sense? oh...i need my vitamins)

December 6, 2002, 7:46 PM CST by GrandDizzy

As far as I know, DVD players do use "pulldown technology", because they use the exact same techniques to create the NTSC video from the disc as the telecine machines... don't they?

As for frames and fields, PAL does have fifty "frames" per second. It's not incorrect to use the word "frames" instead of "fileds", although it may depend on your background. If you're a games programmer, you take it for granted that you have fifty frames of animation every second to work with. And it's true. You do.

December 6, 2002, 7:48 PM CST by Pichu to PirateGuy

All I know is that both signals have the same video bandwidth in transmission.

-----

Edit: Well, they're not exactly the same in bandwidth. PAL-N/M has the same bandwidth as NTSC-M. Other than that, PAL seems to require higher bandwidths. I just did a web search here:

http://www.alkenmrs.com/video/standards.html

Of course, my search is always more informative than XCP's.

December 6, 2002, 7:56 PM CST by pvcHH to Pichu

STOP IT!

December 6, 2002, 8:00 PM CST by Pichu to pvcHH

Stop what?

December 6, 2002, 8:01 PM CST by Chipaku to Pichu

lolo!

December 6, 2002, 8:39 PM CST by pat777 to Pichu

I think he wants you to stop saying your superior to XCP.