PAL vs. NTSC in the marketplace

[peerpee]

That's why I never understood why some European companies used badly transferred NTSC to PAL discs. Why go that extra step to mess up the image?

Because they have no idea what they're doing and how what they're doing is affecting the image detrimentally. There is prevalent mindset that UK DVDs have to be PAL. 99% of authoring houses just automatically make PAL DVDs in Europe. The menu templates are all set up for PAL, everything's geared for PAL. So if they receive a native NTSC Digibeta master, which may have made a nice NTSC DVD, they'd do a cross-conversion (usually by dubbing from one tape (NTSC) to another (PAL) which ingrains all the interlacing in that new master now at source), and end up with a terrible disc. I've seen PAL Digi made by badly cross-converting an NTSC Digi broadcast on UK PAL TV!

Really, really glad to see the back of PAL / NTSC.

[EddieLarkin]

Unfortunately it still rears its ugly head now and again. I recently bought The Uninvited from Exposure Cinema; they boast about it being from a progressive source but sure enough it's sped up for 50hz playback. This 2012 release is its first official DVD debut in the world, as far as I'm aware. The picture's fine but presumably they could have saved themselves the trouble of converting to PAL and screwing with the runtime and pitch of the film, and just keep it NTSC. I usually solely buy region 1 DVDs these days to wittle down the 50hz content in my collection, but there was no choice with this one.

The funny thing is, when I first started collecting DVDs about 10 years ago I had a 19 inch CRT set, which had been handed down to me from my parents. They must have had it since the late 90s at least. I imported my first region 1 disc (a Criterion, none the less), and sure enough it played absolutely fine on the set. It was able to switch over to NTSC/60hz no problem, the damn thing would be 15 years old now! The idea that anyone today is buying UK DVDs to play on a set that is still limited to 50hz playback is surely complete rubbish, yet we're still seeing it happen.

[Zot!]

Unfortunately we're not exempt from conversion in NTSC land either. Plenty of European films on NTSC dvd exhibit horrible combing/interlacing/ghosting mess as they've been sourced from PAL. Even worse multisystem TVs are almost unheard of. This might just be my favorite thing about blu-ray, as I tend to watch a lot of films from the old world. Unfortunately there are still 50hz blu-rays being produced! TV shows, Lars von Trier movies, and some discs that originate from broadcast masters. However, this is useful for adding some additional variable framerates (for purposes of screening silents like the DFI Dreyers). Although a player like an Oppo will convert framerates, anybody have any technical details regarding what kind of problems might be introduced by this process? I get an unstable image that bounces up and down slightly, and would like my next display to support 50hz natively as well (although this limits my choices considerably).

[David M.]

Because they have no idea what they're doing and how what they're doing is affecting the image detrimentally.

^This

The biggest irony is that doing the conversion properly (adjusting the speed) is easier (if you know what you're doing) than doing field blended standards conversions.

I've had conversations before with people who reply to this with, "But our post facility is using [expensive standards converter] which is known as the best in the industry!"

To which I reply, "Yes, it's a very good machine, but it's not the right tool for this job because all you need to do is adjust the frame rate and how pulldown is applied". There's a misunderstanding of how to handle film vs video, and I guess to a certain extent, facilities trying to sell machines they've invested heavily in, even in cases where it's not appropriate.

[tenia]

Sometimes, people rely on tools that are said to be wonderful to do complicated jobs for the said-people, when they could just do by themselves a very simple thing to solve the problem.

It is not only in video industry but everywhere. One think because you have the best tool in the world, you can use it for everything you need to do. It can but it shouldn't.

[Zot!]

Who is making these decisions?!
So the dude editing this had to make a 25fps native version and a 24fps version to conform for projection. The way he's describing it, for the 24fps version he's actually manually removing individual frames, specifically chosen to hide the jumps in an effort to conform the video to the audio and keep some kind of sync. I appreciate his efforts, but why doesn't somebody consider this during pre-production?

[David M.]

50hz video should have been left to die along with standard definition. A total pain for worldwide compatibility and display tech.