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NTSC for international distribution
I live in Pal land and wonder why studios produce Pal DVDs for sale in Pal regions when NTSC ones are regarded as internationally playable even on Pal players ?
I can understand the reason for Region Coding to control rights, but I don’t understand the reason for using Pal for any DVD distribution that is also being sold as NTSC DVD and as Blu-ray discs.
Is the quality of a Pal DVD compared to NTSC that much better to make it worth producing the extra version?
I am producing and self-distributing a Region ‘0’ title, mostly for a UK market, but I’d to sell overseas (USA as well as Europe) too so NTSC is the obvious choice, yet all the popular DVD titles (films and docs) I buy in UK seem to be Pal DVDs.
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5 Replies
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Tradition, I guess. Not everyone is using HDMI from the dvd player, so some people may be going into a PAL crt TV via a scart socket, so I think it’s a case of maintaining consumer expectations of the tech infrastructure(s) already in place. I may be wrong, but I don’t think all dvd players in use are multi-standard or multi-region.
Personally, I opt for NTSC because I try to avoid the PAL speedup thing on dvds, but there’s not really anything in it. I think it was considered more of a big deal quality-wise in the professional analogue world of yesterday.
There might be something in the small print of trading standards legislation, in that I have never seen an NTSC disc openly on sale in a store in the UK, so if you do go NTSC, some sort of disclaimer “This disc might not be compatible with some…etc” Just my random thoughts. Good luck with your project.
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Good point about the Trading Standards – hadn’t thought of that.
It seems you can author NTSC DVD using 23.98 even though the NTSC DVD spec is for 29.98fps – I can’t get my head around it.
Thanks for the reply.
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Stephen,
the main point to create NTSC DVD for int. dustribution is, that DVD-players in US and Japan (or somewhere else where NTSC is the broadcast-standart) could not playback PAL-DVDs, as these players wont do it.by the way: PAL have a bit better resolution then NTSC: 720×576 vs 720×480. If I would distribute worldwide, I would create both versions, to get the best quality product.
according to the framerates: DVD-spec is PAL (25fps) and NTSC (29.98fps), if you use 23,98fps-material it will be encoded to 29.98NDF (non dropped frame) with added 3:2-pulldown (in fact it´s a pull-up). it´s just a trick to fit the 23.98fps into 29.98fps and keep the duration the same.
so don´t worry about 29.98 – you can also use 23.98fps-material.
danny
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Thanks for the clarification Daniel.
I’ve decided to stick with a Pal DVD release for the moment, as I did with my first film, as it’s largely a UK audience product. Going the NTSC route would save some costs in authoring two formats but I would risk upsetting my existing fan base some of whom might either not be able to play the disc at all or be able to see the quality drop.
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Stephen,
it´s no problem to play NTSC on PAL-players – that´s working fine.It only wont work the other way round: you can´t play PAL in NTSC-players.
danny
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