HD, NTSC and PAL Question

[Mohamed Nadzrin]

Ok guys, please help me out here, I'm a little bit confused.

At first we have these 2 major standard formats: NTSC and PAL.

Now, when HD comes into the picture, and when we are shopping for a camera or HD player/recorder, should HD stand on its own format

OR do they

categorize into HD NTSC or HD PAL?

I'm thinking that HD is a format in itself. Hence if we buy a HD camera or recorder/player it wont matter because HD is HD and not NTSC or PAL.

Or is there such thing as a PAL or NTSC HD camera/player/recorder?

PLease anyone?

Regards
Nazz

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

I think it still should be NTSC HD and PAL HD... but I actually don't know much about it, so it could be I'm completely wrong... forgive me in that case.

I think others here can tell you the answer for sure. I'm just guessing :-)

[Peter Higginbottom]

Hi
As I have read somewhere that "HD will not be taken up in Pal countries as quick as USA etc, because as Pal is already a lot closer to HD than NTSC is, the quality difference in NTSC is a lot more noticeable."
The transmission equipment in each region will still have to conform so I very much expect there still to be the 2 standards.


Peter(who has known to be very wrong sometimes, ask the wife!)

[Ben Gurvich]

HD's only really difference is l between the frame rates and if the footage is Interlaced or Progressive.

There are many flavors of HD ie 720P 1080P 1080i.

The reason these new HDV cameras have PAL and NTSC playback is because most people don't have HDTV's to play their footage back onto, so they need to downconvert. This is why we will still see an NTSC Fx1 for example and a PAL FX1.

Big guns like the sony f900 for example, can switch to from PAL to NTSC downconversion at the touch of a button.

Another reason for the PAL and NTSC cams is that they can still record in standard DV. And people may still want to use the standard DV recording mode if their computer cannnot handle the fairly hungry HDV codec. Also, they may want to play back their old minidv tapes in the camera.

I personally am always interested to see if people feel HD looks closer to really good PAL or really good NTSC, but its pretty subjective.


Cheers,
Ben

[Graeme Nattress]

PAL and NTSC are meaningless for digital video. For digital video, wether it be SD, DV or HD, just talk about frame rates and resolutions.

HD comes in both "PAL" (25p, 50i) and "NTSC" (23.98p, 30p 60i) frame rates. As you say, a lot of pro cameras will record in all of them.

HD will get adopted in Europe, but they're waiting for the USA to make all the mistakes first.

Graeme