NTSC vs PAL
 

Hi guys,
All my titles are PAL 25fps supposedly progressive.
I'd like to buy an old music that I can only buy in NTSC.
I live in PAL land.
Can I play an NTSC title on a PAL tv and PAL standalone?
Or do I need to rip it and convert both audio and video to 25fps deinterlacing it?
Sorry for the noob question but I really don't know anything else besides PAL because it's very easy.
Thanks in advance.

Hello,

Your tv and your dvd player must be pal/ntsc, aren't they ?
I live in Pal land too (europe) and I've already played some ntsc stuff on very old tv.
In the worst cas, the movement is a little jerky. :?
I advise you to buy your old music video (it's a dvd, by the way ?), to check it on your dvd player, and if you don't like it, then you do the conversion. :wink:

Looking at the standalone DVD player and TVset setup I can't find PAL/NTSC option.
I bought a Sony 16:9 32" a couple of months ago cause my Samsung burnt.
The DVD player is 3 years old and it's AG brand.
I forgot to mention that the music was actually a music DVD, a veeery old one in 4:3 fullscreen with AC3 2.0.
It's an unofficial GN'R gig that took place back in Argentina in '91.
It's not that cheap even though it's old because it's a very rare DVD.
But thanks anyway.
Cheers

Almost all TV set sold in Europe the last ten years support NTSC by SCART plug. And all are abble to play PAL 60.
All SPA sold in Europe can play NTSC and output them as PAL 60. Some can convert to NTSC and these are the one that have the "PAL/NTSC" option in the setting.

The only problem : is your DVD Zone 1 or not ? Is your player multizone or not ?

Then you mean that my only problem *should* be standalone multizone player, right?
That's something that I will investigate.
BTW if my SAP is multizone I should not experience jerky playback or interlaced issues even because TVsets do work in interlaced mode, right?
But if TV sets work in interlaced mode, why do we see guides explaining that we need to de-interlace our movies?
Sorry about that but it's just to make sure I understand this properly :).

Yes it is . I would be astonished if things are different in portugal than in France (do remember that we are not even in PAL land, but SECAM ;))

You will only see a little "tranform" due to the fact the electronic is meant to display 576 lines and not 480. Sometimes this "transform" is done by addign a border, sometimes you have a little distort in the A/R. It depends on the electronic of the TV.

It's an mpeg matter ;). Encoding in interlaced mode directly needs 20% more bits (so to fit that on a DRD-R, you have to lower the quality).

Edit : why don't you simply author and burn a small NTSC DVD using the samples some did some times ago to verify the different resolution existing ?
(sorry pal, I do not remember the guy's name or where his thread is).

I do have some NTSC samples.
Quoting Andrej's site.
How do I know which one I have?
23.976 or 29.976?
Wait :idea:, that's only if I want to reencode it, right?
If I buy it and trhow it at the SAP and it plays, then I don't need to know if it's 23.976 or if it's 29.976, right? :P
If that's the case I'll burn a couple of NTSC samples that are laying around on my HDD.
Now, where are they? :lol:

Yes. And as told in the text you quoted, DVD2AVI (and now DGIndex is abble to tell you that).

No you don't.

Note: Actually, all DVD are 29.970 (this is the only thing allowed by the DVD standard !) but some are trully interlaced 29.970 while the majority are 23.976 pulled down to 29.970 during playback.

@Dialhot

Shibblet was the guy who did the samples for testing TV boxes out regard on overscan's border. There are samples for PAL and NTSC. Here is the link for the thread.

Cheers,

Great :).
Thank you Danpos. And thanks again to Shibblet :o

Thank you both for your help.
Those are the NTSC samples that I have on my PC.
Unfortunately, my player is not multizone :(.
So, this means that I have to buy it, reencode it and only then watch it, right?
Can you point me to a nice thread where I can find about this?
Cheers

Is this a DVD-5 or DVD-9 ? If this is a DVD-5 you have the solution to simply ripp it with DVDDecrypter and burn it again on a DVD-R. This operation removes the zone (to be verified if you use the ISO mode).
You can look forward to use DVDShrink also if the DVD is not too much above 4.37GB.

Basically, all ripping/transcoding tools remove the zone.

That's just great, Phil :).
And I had never thought about it because all my titles are PAL.
You have just convinced me that I should buy the music DVD ASAP :P.
Thanks for all the tips.
Cheers

You're welcome :)

Note: I just verified that DVDDecrypter removes the zone in every mode if correctly configured (the setting is called "remove IFO RC protection" - "RC" stands for region code).

Well, right now I'm not quite sure if the problem is zone related or not.
Are Shibblet's samples zone restricted?
Because if they're not then this is definitly not a zone problem.
On the other hand I took the samples to another SAP that I have on my son's bedroom and they play flawlessly.
So I guess I need to buy a new DVD player to the living room and I shouldn't run into any problems :P.
Any brand or model that you would advise?
During the morning I talked with a local reseller of Pioneer SAPs and he told me that some SAPs are good for DVD but not as good for AudioCD.
Is that true?
I'd want to buy something that doesn't have to be DIVX compliant but that would be as good for DVD (and KVCD/KDVD) video decoding as well as for audio decoding (both AC3 and AudioCD).
CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW compliancy would also come handy.
You see, I'd be willing to trash both my CD player and DVD player for a brand new *good* DVD player that could do both things :).
Any advise will be pretty welcome.
Cheers

No; Zone is a DVD authoring matter.

If you mean that you can't play the samples on a self-authored DVD, then your system does not support NTSC.

I don't know any model sold in France that can't play NTSC !
Be carrefull that the problem can be with the TV set, not the SAP.

For sure. That's a matter of electronics. The same way some speaker are good for music and other for movies.

There is no possibility to put AudioCD (that is PCM, so directly decoded/played by the SAP) on the same level than AC3 (digitally encoded in the MPEG stream, so decoded/played by the amp !). Do not mistaken AudioCD and AudioDVD !

You're right, what was I thinking here :?
For sure my system is *not* NTSC compliant...
TV set NTSC issue is impossible. I just tried connecting my son's DVD player to the living room's TV set and it plays shibblet's samples.
Definitly a SAP issue.
Lost you there, buddy.
I am talking about AudioCD (I have a lot of them) and Movie DVD.
That's basically what I buy the most, music (plain music :arrow: no videos) and movies (no music :arrow: just speech).
I also have a couple of concerts DVDs and I'm planning on buying more but they will never be as much as movies or plain music.
So let's see if I get it straight.
You mean that a good DVD player is one that correctly shows video because the sound is treated inside the amp?
In that case I just need to worry about how good it decodes PCM sound, right?
But doesn't AudioCD go through my amp to my speakers?
Suddenly I'm a bit lost again...
Help!! :lol:

Okay, so we forget the DVD-Audio that contain a multi-channel AC3 music only programm.

Basically, if we consider only the audio part, you have several situations :
1/ PCM audio and analog only amp
-> The SAP does all the work to convert the PCM to analog signals, sends it to the amp, and this one just amplifies the signal and delivers it to the speakers.

2/ PCM audio and digital-in amp (example : a Home-Theater amp using a digital link - either optical or not).
-> The SAP only sends the PCM bitstream to the amp, and this one does all the work : convert, amplify, send to the speakers

3/ AC3 audio without an AC3 amp
-> The SAP demuxes the AC3 bitsream, decode it, downmix it to a stereo signal and then we return to the situation #1

4/ AC3 audio and an AC3 amp
-> The SAP only sends the AC3 bitstream to the amp, and this one does all the work : convert, amplify, send to the speakers.

In situation #1, the audio quality of both the amp and the SAP are important.
In situation #2 and #4, only the quality of amp matters.
In situation #3, as #1 but the quality of the downmix of the SAP is also important.

So choose your SAP according to the situation you are :)

Note: you can change AC3 with DTS in all the sentences.

Feel free to split and move this part of the thread to a better place ;).
I own a Yamaha RX-V550 digital amp and a Yamaha 6.1 NS-P236 speakers/woofer combo.
My CD player is a veeery old Pioneer unit which I can no longer find the model number due to so many scratches on the front panel.
It is so old that every once in a while it starts looping 5 or 10 seconds in some musics.
Then I have to fast-forward it and it will resume normal playing.
This is obviously a unit needing replacement.
My DVD player is a veeery cheap AG brand bought under 70€ somewhere near 2001/2002.
It doesn't play KVCD or SVCD and it's starting to get into my nerves due to a baaaad remote control unit.
On some occasions it has refused to play some DVD-R and some DVD+R medias and now I found it doesn't play NTSC...
Obviously this one also needs replacement.
If I could find a DVD player that would satisfy my needs for AudioCDs and for movie DVDs I'd kill two rabbits with a single stroke :).
Reading your last post I'd say that I fill in on case 2 and 4 only since my amp is digital connected digitally through coax to the DVD player, right?
So you mean that I shouldn't care about how good the DVD player is in order to get good audio quality?
Meaning that any DVD player that can decode PCM and send it to the amp will do as long as the amp is properly configured and that the speakers can handle it?
That means that I can go out and buy whatever DVD player I want as long as it can play KVCD/KDVD and as long as it can read CD/DVD/CD-R/CD-RW/DVD-R/DVD+R/DVD-RW/DVD+RW media, right?
Any extra advise regardless of the above?
Meaning, if it were you on my shoes what SAP would you buy?
Thanks a lot, Phil.
Cheers