LED/LCD TVs - Does the whole PAL vs NTSC thing matter anymore?

[zolly]

So some guys were talking about the horrid version of Naruto that plays on SABC and why the image is so terrible and the frame rate is messed up. Someone suggested that it might be an NTSC/PAL thing which I thought didn't make a difference, but it seems like I might be mistaken about that.

About.com has this article (which is the only one I could find) which says it does matter.

http://hometheater.about.com/od/televisionbasics/qt/ntscpalframes.htm

So the question I am posing to everyone who works with these things here: does PAL/NTSC matter these days?

I seriously thought it didn't.

 

[bruce_the_loon]

While LCD/LED televisions happily take different frame rates on HDMI and VGA ports, the tuner system still has to match the PAL standard in South Africa as that is what is being broadcast. The TV might upscale the resolution, but it is bound to the 50 fields (25 frames) per second rate of PAL for analog broadcast signals.

A lot of modern VCRs, DVD and BD players can handle both formats in the chassis, either adjusting the frame rates it sends over HDMI, or converting to PAL for composite/tuned signals. In the latter case, the method of conversion can cause problems if done badly. The biggest issue is adjusting the frame rate, you have to dump 5 frames per second for each frame. If you do it logically, then you dump every 6th frame or merge it with the next one. If you do it badly, you dump the last 5 frames of each second and get really jumpy images.

Now the SABC has to convert the video source to match the PAL standard from whatever standard their source provides. Japan used NTSC until 2011, so Naruto would likely arrive as 29.95 frames per second NTSC and the SABC has to convert it to PAL either by re-rendering it with a video conversion package, or use the same techniques as discussed in paragraph 2. With SABC, it wouldn't surprise me if it was done with a cheap DVD player dropping the last 5 frames.

 

[zolly]

While LCD/LED televisions happily take different frame rates on HDMI and VGA ports, the tuner system still has to match the PAL standard in South Africa as that is what is being broadcast. The TV might upscale the resolution, but it is bound to the 50 fields (25 frames) per second rate of PAL for analog broadcast signals.

A lot of modern VCRs, DVD and BD players can handle both formats in the chassis, either adjusting the frame rates it sends over HDMI, or converting to PAL for composite/tuned signals. In the latter case, the method of conversion can cause problems if done badly. The biggest issue is adjusting the frame rate, you have to dump 5 frames per second for each frame. If you do it logically, then you dump every 6th frame or merge it with the next one. If you do it badly, you dump the last 5 frames of each second and get really jumpy images.

Now the SABC has to convert the video source to match the PAL standard from whatever standard their source provides. Japan used NTSC until 2011, so Naruto would likely arrive as 29.95 frames per second NTSC and the SABC has to convert it to PAL either by re-rendering it with a video conversion package, or use the same techniques as discussed in paragraph 2. With SABC, it wouldn't surprise me if it was done with a cheap DVD player dropping the last 5 frames.

Yeah. I figured there's some kind of conversion process going on. It's probably made worse by the fact that these episodes are getting the hell edited out of them so that they are kid friendly...

 

[grok]

A lot of modern VCRs, DVD and BD players can handle both formats in the chassis,

True, but even my oooooold 70cm CRT could handle both formats. Thx for the explanation tho, interesting stuff.

 

[Pho3nix]

So some guys were talking about the horrid version of Naruto that plays on SABC and why the image is so terrible and the frame rate is messed up. Someone suggested that it might be an NTSC/PAL thing which I thought didn't make a difference, but it seems like I might be mistaken about that.

About.com has this article (which is the only one I could find) which says it does matter.

http://hometheater.about.com/od/televisionbasics/qt/ntscpalframes.htm

So the question I am posing to everyone who works with these things here: does PAL/NTSC matter these days?

I seriously thought it didn't.

The show in itself is being upscaled I believe. Will have to confirm but in all honesty Naruto wasn't the greatest quality :\

 

[zolly]

The show in itself is being upscaled I believe. Will have to confirm but in all honesty Naruto wasn't the greatest quality :\

Well I've watched the original show on my PC and it didn't look anything like the few minutes I watched around Christmas time. The image looked like it wasn't interlacing together properly and the frame rate looked like it was completely messed up.