Since the DVD format is digital and NTSC & PAL are analog formats, why then are there NTSC & PAL DVD discs? Since the digital info is stored on the disc and converted to an analog signal by the DVD player, why aren’t there just NTSC & PAL DVD players?
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My conjecture would be that the PAL/NTSC thing also acts as a territorial lockout (ie British discs won’t work in American DVD players, etc.) to keep distribution markets separate. Surely it wouldn’t be hard to make a DVD player that could play all DVD discs though (all the conversion wouldn’t even be seen by consumers).
As an import gamer of sorts, I’m reminded of using my U.S. Super Nintendo (NTSC) to play a Japanese game (with an appropriate converter to bypass territorial lockouts), and having the whole thing passed onto a PAL TV. It looked like a computer science project in my room!
Lots of good info on DVDs in the What do I look for in a DVD player? thread.
There are players that will play any kind of DVD, and in fact one particular model is described in the OP of that thread.
As for this OP, my WAG is that since DVDs are just digital recordings of analog video (oversimplification, but it works here), you’d get different digital recordings of PAL vs. NTSC. I.e. if you did a digital comparison of the DVDs they would not be identical.
If they were to come up with some uber-standard signal that the DVDs recorded, and then stepped it down to either NTSC or PAL, that would be what you would like. Then, you’d also want to have a way to view the higher-quality signal (HDTV?)
My understanding is that in fact PALS is a different resolution altogether, not simply a different way of encoding an analog signal. The sync rate is different and I believe PALS has more pixels.
going digital does not mean you escape the resolution and gamma differences of NTSC and PAL.
at work, i primarily shoot on DVCAM, which is a digital format. it is still NTSC.
digital does not change anything except the way the information is carried.
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For the same reason that PCs don’t automatically read Mac disks: even though it’s all just ones and zeros, they’re in different formats.
NTSC and PAL are just inherently different. I don’t know the exact standards, but let’s play a game: suppose NTSC is 525 lines of information per frame. Suppose PAL is 600. When an NTSC player sees that PAL info, what does it do?
Throws up its hands in disgust and shows you nothing, that’s what it does. So stick to whatever system’s in your area, unless you have some highly compelling reason to bridge the gap.