NTSC or PAL?

[NuclearFusi0n]

I recently bought Air's "Talkie Walkie" album which came with a double-sided DVD with one being an NTSC version, and one being a PAL version. Which one should I choose to rip, if I disregard I'm in an NTSC country?

[jggimi]

Take the following quiz, NuclearFusi0n, since your question can't be answered without minimal information from you:[list=a] What video format are you going to? (EG: MPEG-4, DVD)
What display device will you be using? (EG: PC, TV)
Was the source video or film, and if video, was it PAL or NTSC?
Was there a video conversion from PAL to NTSC, or NTSC to PAL?[/list=a]

[Mug Funky]

Air are French, aren't they? then it'll be SECAM :D

i'd take a look at both discs and determine which works best. my guess is the PAL one, as in digital form, PAL and SECAM are identical (it's only when they leave your DVD player that there's a difference AFAIK... ask someone French because i've honestly never dealt with this format before), so most likely the content was made natively in PAL.

[jggimi]

Well, it could have been shot on film, say, in the US, and Telecined to NTSC, then converted to PAL. Lord knows, we've seen screwey stuff. If that were the case, the NTSC video will be better.

But his end display system could override:

If, by chance it was PAL video converted to NTSC, he should retain PAL for, say DivX/XVID for PC or standalone MPEG-4 player, since PCs don't care and NTSC standalone players handle multiple framerates in AVI and will pump out NTSC regardless. But if he were going to DVD in the US, he might want to use the NTSC source, in case his player/TV combo doesn't support PAL.

[Neo Neko]

I have capped and recorded several air videos from high quality NTSC analog sources recently. Including "Surfing On A Rocket" which I believe was from the album in question. It telecined to 24.97 fps. After I tried several settings. It is a true 25fps PAL/SECAM clip.

The easiest conversion would be the PAL/SECAM version. But NTSC will get you basically the same quality with just a scosh more work.

[zilog jones]

Actually, it's *kinda* easier/better to play PAL video on PCs than NTSC, if that's what you want it for. Any monitor and grpahics card is going to be able to display most resolutions at 75Hz no hassle, which will mean every frame can be shown properly since 25 divides into 75 (I assume it's film). If it was 24 fps, to show it correctly you'd have to display it 72Hz to get the best results, and this isn't always available on some PCs, and with a lot of LCD monitors (it seems they can only usually do 60 and 75Hz, if not just 60).

I'd be pretty certain that Air don't go to the US to record their videos, so it's most definately originally PAL/SECAM.

Only other thing of concern is that with the video being 25 fps, the music will be 4% faster than normal. Though you may not even notice this, and if you do you could just slow it back down (the video and audio, that is) to 24 easily enough - no IVTC for you!

[Mug Funky]

i wouldn't be so sure.

in PAL land, it's often the case to overcrank film cameras to 25fps - basically it fits better on the TV, and it's tit-for-tat with NTSC land, always giving us sped-up movies.

also, it may have been shot on video and deinterlaced. both scenarios would explain the 24.97 fps telecine that Neo Neko describes (btw, Neo, the PAL one should give better res with less work - remember there's more lines per frame).

[zilog jones]

Oh yeah, forgot they could have filmed at 25fps... silly me

Is that what they commonly do with music videos, though? Are these music videos?

[Neo Neko]

Originally posted by Mug Funky

also, it may have been shot on video and deinterlaced. both scenarios would explain the 24.97 fps telecine that Neo Neko describes (btw, Neo, the PAL one should give better res with less work - remember there's more lines per frame).

As I said it was captured from NTSC analog sources. So they had duplicated frames about 4 per second to be exact that were then interlaced. And the difference in vertical rez is not that noticable in almost all cases. But since the original is PAL and the PAL version is avalible. I will re-itterate that in this case PAL is the easiest and best choice.