Cheat PAL format in USA for more res?

D

DocUman

New member
I work for Mtv and have noticed that we are shooting in HD sometimes even though the final product will be regular broadcast. The reason given was that even with the loss in bump down there is still a major gain in res over regular beta, and it's true it looks a lot better, so.....

If pal has more lines of res, should I buy a pal dvx version and just bump down all the time? I mean everything has to be digatized and exported anyway.

Jim
 
Re: Cheat PAL format in USA for more res?

[quote author=DocUman link=board=Events;num=1076261198;start=0#0 date=02/08/04 at 09:26:38]
If pal has more lines of res, should I buy a pal dvx version and just bump down all the time?
[/quote]

Definitely not.

PAL is incompatible with NTSC, so you'd have to convert absolutely everything you shot. And PAL-converted-to-NTSC doesn't look as good (on NTSC) as NTSC-sourced material. PAL color sampling is different, at 4:2:0 vs. NTSC's 4:1:0, so when you convert you'll lose color information. And while PAL does have 20% more pixels on the vertical direction, you'll lose those when you down-res to NTSC. And if you shoot in interlaced you'll be facing temporal motion artifacts, and if you shoot in progressive you'll be facing audio speedup issues... it's a lot of hassle to go through, for no benefit.

Keep in mind that an NTSC DVX100, shooting progressive-scan in thin-line mode, has much higher resolution than any PAL camera (except, of course, a PAL DVX100/progressive/thin). So you'll already be higher-res than anyone else, right out of the box. Yes, the PAL camera will have even higher resolution, but you can't get at it, you give up that resolution and more when you convert it to a different frame rate and different color space.

Yes, HD downrezzed to SD can look very much sharper than standard-def. But HD shoots at NTSC-compatible frame rates, with MORE color information, so it makes for a nice high-quality down-rez. You won't get that from PAL.

But if you want that HD-style sharpened look, consider jacking up the detail control in the camera and see if you like it, before you consign yourself to the misery of using an incompatible system and all the compromises involved.
 
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