Quote:
Originally Posted by hodgey
When plaing NTSC tapes in PAL VCRs, they usually output a special PAL-60 format signal, rather than NTSC.
It is essentially NTSC but with PAL color encoding, using the PAL color frequency made it easier to adapt TVs/VCRs to output/accept it without too much extra components like an additional oscillator.
What's happening is that the PAL-60 signal from the VCR is being interpreted as a normal PAL signal by the DVD-recorder. The PAL Panasonic DVRs can be switched to NTSC mode, and used with NTSC, however at least the older ones do not support the PAL-60 format most PAL VCRs put out though, so you would only get a black-and white image out. You can change from PAL to NTSC format in the DVR menus somewhere. The only DVRs I know that support PAL-60 are the later Sony/Pioneer models, while they do have a decent line-tbc they're not quite as capable as panasonics.
Some PAL decks can also be set to output in NTSC-4.43 format instead of PAL-60. I'ts possible the Panasonic DVRs support this but I haven't gotten around to testing it yet (though I do remember e.g the AVT-8710 TBC accepting it in NTSC mode). I don't think the Blaupunkt VCR can output NTSC-4.43, but I know Sony is capable of it. There's a switch on the back of the VCR that switches between NTSC-4.43 and PAL60 , so you you give that a try in combination with setting the DVR to NTSC mode.
There are multi-system VCRs that can do both proper NTSC and PAL playback (and often SECAM variants) though almost all of them are variants of a manufacturers hi-fi or 2-head models with extra stuff added for multi-system playback/recording. I think JVC made a handful of multi-system SVHS decks but they're rare and expensive.
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Thankyu for the feedback. That effectively gives me a problem. I need to record NTSC tapes as losslessly as possible, and forced conversion to PAL isn’t going to allow for that. The issue is that while it may be called PAL60, it’s not playing back at 60hz so I can’t rely on that.
Is there an actual American VCR I can use instead that would be recommended? And would that work okay with the Panasonic DMR-EH495? I won’t get shot of the Blaupunkt as the PAL recordings will be better through it, however I can’t deliver the video footage to my American clients in the wrong image size and framerate.