What the fuck is a PAL DVD?
 

Ok, I am totally confused. I sell my dvds all over the world (no region code) with many customers in Europe, where they play fine. All this time I thought mpeg was mpeg, and the only difference on an European DVD player was whether the TV signal coming out the dvd player was NTSC or PAL?

Now, I start getting into higher end editing stuff, and you can make a PAL DVD. What the fuck is that? I start searching around on Google, and sure enough, there is such a thing.

So how come all this time all my customers in UK, Denmark,etc. have no problem with my good old American NTSC DVD's??? I have never had a single one that was unable to play them...

Are all Eurpoean players capable of playing both PAL and NTSC dvds???? If so, why would anyone sell a PAL DVD???

because PAL is better quality and sounds friendlier.

Region 2 Europe - PAL
Region 1 is North America - NTSC

The PAL format has higher resolution and better color than the NTSC format. That's all i remember from 3 years of running a consumer electronics store.

I also do and sell only exclusive PAL DVD's.
All my clients prefer this format.

Apparently - all DVD players in PAL countries can play PAL & NTSC encoded discs.

http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#1.19

Also apparently - some companies have DVDs that take advantage of the slightly better resolution of PAL.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/su...no-links.html/

So lazy cost effiecient companies - not concerned with regions - will make only 1 version - the NTSC - as it will play on all DVDs and they can just package it differently.

Some comanies that care more about quality (or are trying to perhaps get the videophile market) in PAL countries will make both versions.

So it is sort of like Super VHS - except not as big of a difference. Most SuperVHS players will play regular VHS, so most will only make the regular version.

You can play NTSC fine on PAL devices.

You can't play PAL on NTSC (north america and Japan) because the refresh rate is 50 hertz, as opposed to 60 hertz for NTSC devices.

PAL has a little better resolution, but poor refresh rate.

NTSC is the best :)

Ok thanks everybody. That clears up the whole mystery. I figured the European players must be dual, but I wasn't sure!

Not all PAL machines can play NTSC (most can, and most have done so for a long time)

Not all TVs are able to view the picture outputted by these machines... You need a NTSC compatible monitor... this is the big downfall for trying to sell NTSC DVDs into PAL areas... I got a couple of PAL TVs, both fairly recent, and neither will display a NTSC image

Ok - I admit to not being well traveled, but am curious about the 50 vs 60 hz.

I have heard some people are ultra sensitive to the 60 hz and even certain light bulbs appear to flicker just a little too slow to them.

Do people that go from the US to a 50 Hz country notice this?

Also I notice they actually speed the movies up 4% to play NTSC on pal. Watch movies faster!

yes you can notice the difference between 50hz and 60hz but u soon adjust to it

and yep the certainly speed the films up on a pal video... that why the running times listed in imdb etc are usually different for what we see in PAL

As I am doing some dv-video content cutting at the moment I can tell you some differences besides color.


Pal = 25 Frames per second - 720 x 576 resolution

Ntsc = 29.71 frames per second - 720 x 480 resolution


This is important for cutting and converting.

Are you sure it's not 29.97?

I learned something new today, thanks.

BTW, GFY is NTSC, but works with foreign browers too.