Dumb Question For All...

Hey, PlayStation Players... This has been urking me for weeks. What the heck are NTSC and PAL? I see Formula 1 has 30fps NTSC and 24-25 with PAL. Huh...? Please enlighten me... John :|:

NTSC is the CRT (TV) standard used in countries with 60hz current, whereas PAL is for 50hz current. Not sure what the acronyms actually stand for, but the upshot is that unless re-optimised PAL games run slower than their NTSC counterparts (which is why, if you follow any of the Nintendo 64 NGs everyone is whinging about how the UK version runs slower and has a letterbox screen). This is why PAL F1 doesn't run at 30fps. If the game hasn't been modified to take account of the slower speed it means that everything runs slower and therefore your reactions don't have to be quite as fast (hence endless discussions of how UK gamers have it easy!) Alan Head Screamer 2 homepages: http://www.feature.demon.co.uk/games.htm -----------------------------------------

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> Hey, PlayStation Players... > This has been urking me for weeks. What the heck are NTSC and PAL? I > see Formula 1 has 30fps NTSC and 24-25 with PAL. Huh...? Please > enlighten me... > John :|:

NTSC is the broadcast standard for the United States, Canada and some of South America. PAL is the broadcast standard for most of Europe and some of Asia. SECAM is the broadcast standard for some of the Arab nations and surrounding regions. MONO is the poorest current standard, only found in a handful of third-world countries. The fps (frame rate) differs from one standard to another, as does the vertical bandwidth. This is why you can't take a tape from New York City, fly over to Germany, cram it into any ol' VCR and have it playback properly. God Bless, Steve

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> >Hey, PlayStation Players... > >This has been urking me for weeks. What the heck are NTSC and PAL? I > >see Formula 1 has 30fps NTSC and 24-25 with PAL. Huh...? Please > >enlighten me... > NTSC is the CRT (TV) standard used in countries with 60hz current, > whereas PAL is for 50hz current. Not sure what the acronyms actually > stand for, but the upshot is that unless re-optimised PAL games run > slower than their NTSC counterparts (which is why, if you follow any > of the Nintendo 64 NGs everyone is whinging about how the UK version > runs slower and has a letterbox screen). This is why PAL F1 doesn't > run at 30fps. If the game hasn't been modified to take account of the > slower speed it means that everything runs slower and therefore your > reactions don't have to be quite as fast (hence endless discussions of > how UK gamers have it easy!)

I'm an engineer who works in television, so w/o being too technical, perhaps I can shed some light on this; NTSC-The United States Standard for television. It stands for National Television Standards Committee. As Alan states, it uses 60 Hz (normal AC line voltage in the US). The frame rate is one-half of the line voltage frequency. (Hz stands for Hertz, and is a measurement of time.) The purpose of a 30 frame per second interlaced rate is to reduce flicker, which is visually distracting. It has 525 lines of video per frame, though only 483 are visible on the screen. The rest are used for timing and signals used for other purposes (such as closed captioning.) It is the oldest standard for television in use in the world today, thus it has become a bit archaic. We engineers jokeingly suggest that NTSC stands for Never Twice the Same Color. :-) PAL-Phase Alternating Line. This is used primarily in the UK, Western Europe, and South America. The PAL standard scans 625 lines per frame and has 25 frames per second. Once again, this frame rate is one-half of the frequency of their house voltage, which Alan correctly states is 50 hz. The method of phase shifting used in PAL makes for better color hues, and by shifting on each line eliminates the flicker that made it objectionable for use in the U.S. in the early 1950's.