NTSC versus PAL

j20056j20056
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
I want to use a Mac to burn DVDs that would work in either Europe or the US. I've already established that iDVD/iMovie does not put any geographic zone encoding (US is zone1, Europe is 2). But now I am worried about NTSC (the US TV format) versus PAL (the European TV format). Does a DVD follow the TV format of a given country? In other words, does a DVD in the US follow NTSC, rendering it unusable in Europe, or there is no such thing?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    murbotmurbot Posts: 5,262member
    Moving to General Discussion... this isn't a current hardware issue.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    cyberuincyberuin Posts: 19member
    [quote]Originally posted by j20056:

    <strong>I want to use a Mac to burn DVDs that would work in either Europe or the US. I've already established that iDVD/iMovie does not put any geographic zone encoding (US is zone1, Europe is 2). But now I am worried about NTSC (the US TV format) versus PAL (the European TV format). Does a DVD follow the TV format of a given country? In other words, does a DVD in the US follow NTSC, rendering it unusable in Europe, or there is no such thing?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    NTSC plays a lot slower than pal, it doesnt matter so much about the region encoding but if you encode it for pal it aint going to work on ntsc unless it is played back on a computer.

    If you are giving it to a friend with a settop box and that settop box can play avi and general mpeg than best encoding in that to bypass the ntsc-pal issue
  • Reply 3 of 6
    mimacmimac Posts: 872member
    NTSC (National Television Standards Committee) is a format used on DVDs and Video cassettes in the Americas, Japan, Canada and 30 other countries.



    PAL (Phase Alternating Line) is used widely in Europe, Africa, Australia, Middle East and China to name a few.



    NTSC - 30 frames per second/575 scan lines/DV picture measures 720x480 pixels from your DV camcorder (translated to 640x480 pixels on your mac).

    PAL - 25 frames per second (frame rate closer to that of Hollywood films ie, 24 fps)

    625 scan lines/DV picture measures 720x576 pixels.



    Basically, use either one or the other for the corresponding country (you may have to convert your movie into a Quicktime DV stream, then save it and import the resulting DV stream file into a new iMovie project so as to convert between the 2 standards.
  • Reply 4 of 6
    j20056j20056 Posts: 11member
    MiMac, you make it sound like I will be able to generate either format with a US machine, did I understand you correctly?

    Essentially, I live in the US, and I want to be able to create DVDs that can be read from set top boxes either in the US or in Europe...
  • Reply 5 of 6
    scott2scott2 Posts: 39member
    I live in Europe and have made DVDs in NTSC that play fine in the States on my parents Amex 1201 DVD player. I imagine that the converse is also possible.



    Importing your film to iMovie from your video camera will be in NTSC. When you export it to a Quicktime format you need to choose the expert category and select the PAL format.



    After you open iDVD, you need to set your preferences to PAL. Now open a new iDVD document, which will be in the PAL format. You can double check the format in the file settings menu.



    Going from PAL to NTSC, the only problem is a 25 frames / second rate rather than the standard 30. Going from NTSC to PAL you will not have this problem.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    scott2scott2 Posts: 39member
    Forgot to mention in my last post: the vast majority of DVD players and TVs in Europe play NTSC without problem.



    On the contrary, a number of DVD players do not read DVD-R, but this situation exists in all countries.
Sign In or Register to comment.