[MacDV] Re: NTSC miniDV camcorder in France...

[YangZone at aol.com]

And if you are still confounded by the differing standards 'can go a bit deeper and look back to the first Guggenheims who bought up all the copper mines in the US and South America. There was a lot of copper available to the US. So when electricity came along good general purpose power transmission was attained by either running 110 volts through thick copper wires or 220 volts through half that thickness. The US had enough copper to go with the relatively safe 110 volts. Europe had not got the copper reserves to go with 110 volts. So Europe opted for the more dangerous but doable 220 volts. Now standards were split.

The US decided to generate AC at 60 Hz maybe because it simplified winding ratios in the motors of electric clocks (60Hz/60 seconds). Metric-centric Europe went with generating at 50Hz. Another important split in standards.

Now this second split may be the cause of the fps selection (PAL v's NTSC). Also because video was being used indoors under artificial lighting, with AC at 60 Hz, (as described previously) in the USA it was a good idea to go with 30 fps in order to avoid phase problems.  In Europe it made sense to select 25 fps for the same reason. 

Something like that.

PJ

In a message dated 9/3/2003 12:16:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Ben Ing <vbing at mac.com> writes:

>Actually, the original reason that the different standards exist is 
>tied to the different voltages in the countries. B&W TV was based on 
>the 60Hz AC current in the US (giving us 30 fps), while in Europe, 
>since the current was 50Hz, they went with 25 fps. The main 
>complication came when they decided to add the color carrier. The 
>frequency chosen was a multiple of 60, causing the color carrier to 
>beat against the main signal, forcing the NTSC system to have to come 
>up with dropframe as a fix. In Europe, because the base signal was 50, 
>they didn't have the problem and didn't have to patch their system.
>
>With NTSC, problems have always existed in moving between the video and 
>film formats, and those problems have continued as we have moved to 
>digital formats. Some animation projects have gone to working in the 
>PAL formats where film, video and digital formats all work at 25 fps, 
>allowing for much easier portability between systems.
>
>On Friday, August 22, 2003, at 04:53 PM, Karl Hayden wrote:
>
>> WHY WE ALL CAN'T HAVE THE SAME SYSTEM I DON'T KNOW !!!! (well actually 
>> I do... the NTSC system was developed in the US, the PAL system was an 
>> Anglo-German-Japanese development and the SECAM system was developed 
>> in France. Then nationalism took over and here we are)
>
>
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