You poor Americans!

M

mmm

Veteran
I was watching a NTSC (converted to PAL) baseball broadcast in the UK last night. I see why the USA is so keen to move to HDTV!! NTSC looks horrible. I suppose I have to allow for the conversion but still!

Was this a bad broadcast, or is NTSC really that much worse than PAL? I have watched TV in the USA before and can't remember it being that bad but it may seem worse when you see it compared directly with PAL.

I think US shows like "CSI" and "Friends" must be re-telecined for PAL because they look great. Anyone know if that is the case? Some old episodes of "Friends" do look ropey, so maybe they skimped and just converted them.

Anyway, my sympathies for any NTSC user. I guess it means you will move to HDTV before us PAL folk though! :cry:
 
Shows like Friends and CSI are on film - they run the 24 frames per second at 25 frames per second, and play it in 50i to transfer it to PAL. The quality of a film transferred to PAL vs NTSC is actually higher, because you have higher resolution and no pulldown, so the motion appears smoother. You don't notice the speed difference.

To my understanding, with NTSC video being converted to PAL, you take the 60i source and "remove" a 3:2 pulldown - that was never there - giving you a 24fps version. Then THAT version is speed-altered to get 25fps, and is played in 50i. Interpolating programs could probably get higher quality, but it's no better than converting 60i video to 24fps film (ie movies like Open Water).
 
I knew that most "quality" US shows were on film, I was just wondering if they re-telecined for PAL markets. I think CSI New York has now moved to HD though, but that is only based on the one episode I saw where the highlights showed typical "video" bleaching.

Is stuff like "Friends" shot at 30fps because it is only destined for TV? Someone told me it was, but somebodies are often wrong.

Regarding the speed difference, viewers may not notice, but the broadcasters do. Running Titanic at 25fps instead of 24fps cuts the running time enough to remove a whole commercial break from the schedule, losing the odd million in advertising revenue.
 
Friends was shot in 24fps film. As far as I know, CSI is shot on 35mm, but I could be mistaken - I don't watch television very often.

That's true about the 24/25fps difference. I heard once that a while ago, theatre owners would deliberately run movies at a slightly faster frame rate to squeeze more screenings in. I don't know how realistic this is, a few seconds here and there won't save much - but an interesting side effect of the transfer.

But yes, 60i video looks horrid when transferred to 50i. 50i looks bad, too, when transferred to 60i, though I don't think it's as bad. Couldn't tell you for sure since I've never done a side by side comparison.
 
I think that we are comparing apples to oranges here. A baseball game shot at 60i for broadcast converted to PAL vs a network fictional narrative episodic show, come on. The potential audience for CSI is way higher than a rebroadcast baseball game. "They" are gonna spend much more $$$ to provide a high quality PAL version of CSI than a rebroadcast baseball game. I do not think that they do a seperate telecine for the PAL version, I believe that in the high end on-line post houses they just do a better standards conversion.
 
Interesting point Rosestar. Here is something else to consider; was that ballgame's broadcast from the local affiliate or one of the majors? I know when I watch Padres Channel 4 it looks different than say FOX Primetime or ESPN Coverage.
 
In the UK, we only have the five main analogue terrestrial channels. BBC 1&2, ITV1, C4 & C5. They all broadcast to a pretty high standard, although many might argue that C5 (the newbie) lags behind slightly.

It looked like quite a major baseball game that I saw, so I guessed that it would have I high budget. It just looked terrible though, like it had been shot on £500 camcorders with incorrect white balance. I recognised the obvious motion conversion, but it was more in the actual picture quality.

I was comparing it to fictional narrative shows to ask if this is just the NTSC system, and had shows such as "CSI" been re-telecined to avoid using NTSC because they look fantastic when shown in the UK.

Anyone know if I am right about CSI New York being shot on HD?
 
If you convert anything, you will loose some quality. What about PAL to NTSC??? That does'nt look great unless time is taken over the conversion, using the right software.
Somethings are rushed in TV.
 
I am asking about comparing NTSC and PAL, just in a round-about way. Is NTSC that much worse?

jpbankesmercer, if you convert PAL to NTSC it is going to the poorer system, so of course it will look worse. Then you have to add degrading of the conversion on as well. I just thought that for such a broadcast, the conversion would have been well handled. I could well be wrong.

As far as comparing fiction shot on film to video factual programming, I was flicking between a video doc and a filmed drama the other day, and the CC of the doc made it look better than the drama IMO.
 
Depends on what you prefer. PAL has more lines, but a slower refresh. And the color stabilization is built-in, rather than adjusted by the user.

6 of 1, half a dozen of the other.

And then there's good ol' MESECAM. ;-)

Dan
 
Well, you know the old joke...

NTSC = Never Twice the Same Color

SECAM = System Exactly Counter To American Method

PAL = Perfection At Last!
 
Ok yes PAL is higher res than NTSC. However, I think if you were watching the same game on two TVs next to each other, one with the originally NTSC broadcast from the states, the other with your PAL converted broadcast, the original NTSC would look far better than the PAL converted broadcast. NTSC really is not all that horrible, it's just that some NTSC to PAL conversions are bad.

I often convert NTSC work to PAL. Some places do it better than others. Sometimes the conversion looks like crap. Ideally if I had to do a PAL version and a NTSC version of the same piece for broadcast I would do each individually in the film transfer. Unfortunately, since transfers for my :30 spots typically run in the $20k range it's not always cost effective. Sometimes we have to do a DigiBeta (sourced from the film transfer) NTSC convert to PAL and this just isn't as good as doing it in the transfer. In short it's better to convert straight off the film than off DigiBeta (or any other format) video.
 
natob2, is that what is done for higher budget shows: eg Friends, OC, CSI etc.

The older Friends looked a lot worse, so thought they might be video conversion instead of going back to the 35mm original.
 
I would assume that has a show gets bigger and bigger and the chances of syndication increase they would be doing NTSC, PAL and SECAM transfers early in post straight off the neg. Not only this, but HD transfers as HD and DVD HD become more likely outlets of distribution.

I'd guess that the older stuff was converted with video, the newer stuff probably looks better because it's straight off the film. I don't know for sure though, just a guess.
 
mmm said:
Anyone know if I am right about CSI New York being shot on HD?
Click to expand...

All the CSI franchise is still shot on film. CSI New York uses mini-DV for some of the fancy flashback stuff. I would be willing to bet that the difference in quality you see is do to the PAL versions being done from the HD masters instead of a SD NTSC to SD PAL conversion.

It would be possible to re-telecine from the film (or better yet, do simultaneous versions during the original telecine). I would be very expensive to do it this way,
having to re-do the on-line edit with converted EDLs. It would make sense to do it from the HD master.

NTSC does suck. The original US televison standard was established in 1941!!!! and the color standard was established in 1954 (I think, I know it was mid fifties). It is 2005 and we still only have about 7% of the population with HD tvs. WTF... I mean, for gosh sakes, were we not supposed to have flying cars and vacations on the moon by now?!!!!
 
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