PAL or NTSC better?

[Derek Roff]

> Which is a better DV format NTSC or PAL?

Compared to NTSC, PAL has higher resolution, lower frame rate, no 
overscan and no "dropped frame" variant. Three of those four are 
advantages for PAL, with the lower frame rate being a mixed blessing. 
PAL is the standard in many countries.  NTSC is the standard in the 
United States and a few other countries.  It is seldom advantageous 
to use a standard different from that of the country where you live.

If you choose to work in a PAL, while living in the USA, you will be 
incompatible with almost all video activities and resources around 
you.  You won't be able to borrow or rent compatible equipment 
locally.  You won't be able use your camera to help your buddies 
shoot the great documentary they've been hired to do.  You won't be 
able to film your daughter's kindergarten play, and then send a copy 
to the grandparents.  Nor run your tape of the flying saucer crash 
over to the local TV channel, in order to get it on the 6 o'clock 
news.  Not without extra time and conversion equipment.  (The same is 
true if you decide to shoot NTSC in a PAL country).

You might want to use PAL if you intend to transfer the majority 
(preferably all) of your footage to film.  PAL's frame rate of 25 
frames per second (fps) is closer to film's rate of 24 fps than is 
NTSC's 29.97 fps.  Panasonic now markets a 24 fps mini-DV camera, for 
those who want to convert to film all the time.  You might want to 
use PAL if your intended market is largely or exclusively in PAL 
countries.  You might choose PAL if all of your distribution will be 
on the web or in compressed formats at lower frame rates.

I am not thinking of any other reasons why someone living in the USA 
would want to use PAL.  Some of the above reasons would apply 
correspondingly to someone shooting NTSC while living in a PAL 
country.  I wish the whole world would use PAL, or some common new 
standard, but the politics and economics have prevented that.  So I, 
and most of us, will continue to use NTSC, as long as we live in an 
NTSC country.

Derek Roff
Language Learning Center, MSC03-2100
Ortega Hall Rm 129, 1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
505/277-7368, fax 505/277-3885
Internet: derek at unm.edu