I have a widescreen SD TV that is HD compatible, and it can play either NTSC and PAL, but down here in Australia that’s not uncommon for regular TVs anyway, because PAL can easily accommodate for NTSC, unlike the opposite.
If the differences between NTSC and PAL are just the number of lines used, because HD uses more lines by definition (1080i, I think it’s called) does this mean that HDTVs the world over will be able to play either format? Or rather, are the formats rendered obsolete in relation to HD? And will that mean any HD DVDs can be played in any HD capable TV anywhere?
There are two major transmission systems for digital television, DVB-T (Europe) and ATSC (USA). These replace the analog systems PAL, SECAM and NTSC. ATSC and DVB-T are not compatible, they use different modulation techniques, different audio coding and have little in common other than the use of MPEG2 for video coding.
While DVB-T and ATSC receivers are different, it should be possible to design a monitor that would work with both standards, and with any HD DVD player.
I’ve never heard this before. I suppose it’s slightly easier because NTSC has fewer lines (so you can just put black bars at the top and bottom), but since there are other technical differences between NTSC and PAL, any NTSC set that has the circuitry to decode PAL should be able to handle a few more lines on the screen. NTSC and PAL screens have the same aspect ratio, and presumably the same phosphor density.
There’s another important difference between NTSC and PAL: the frame rate.
An NTSC signal is made up of 30 full frames per second[sup]*[/sup] (60 fields per second), but PAL is only 25 frames (50 fields) per second. Movies that are shot on film at 24 fps and released on DVD are converted to the correct frame rate for NTSC (either before production or, more commonly, by the player), but for PAL, I believe they’re just played back 4% faster than normal.
Not exactly… it’s actually 30/1.001, or approximately 29.97 frames per second.
No, AFAIK, you will still buy video in NTSC, PAL, etc. I believe he was referring to the transmission systems only. Someone correct me if I’m talking out my ass.