Deep Space Nine DVDs - PAL vs NTSC

[Lateralus]

I've been travelling abroad (from the US) for a while now. And before leaving, I unloaded a good chunk of my DVD collection including my DS9 series collection.

I'm currently in Australia and am considering taking the opportunity to grab the collection here before I head back to the states on the thought that PAL is higher resolution than NTSC and generally upscales much better on HDTVs.

What I'm wondering is if this is true with DS9 and TV shows in general that originated in the US; were they actually shot in a resolution high enough to feed PAL systems, or were they filmed in NTSC and then 'converted' digitally to PAL? If the latter is the case, then I'd might as well just grab the NTSC set since the upscaled result will pretty much wind up looking the same.

I also recall reading that the newer slimeline international release of the sets only has Stereo Audio? Is this true? Must have surround...

Thanks guys.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Go with NTSC, all native NTSC television has to be converted to PAL, and you may gain extra resolution in terms of number of lines, but there's no actual gain in picture resolution. There is the difference in frame rate as well, which adds to the headaches.

 

[Navaros]

I don't know the answer to your question but I do know the UK DVDs have been censored in some episodes like To the Death. Therefore, I advise you to stick with the R1, uncensored DVDs.

 

[Warp Coil]

I am fairly confident in saying that the series was edited and composited on video in NTSC since the series aired in the U.S. in that format. The finished NTSC/525 episode masters were likely then converted to PAL/625 for overseas markets like Europe and Australia. Converting from one standard to another creates some conversion artifacts in the video and also changes the sound of the audio a bit (since the frame rate has changed). So, in reality, the NTSC versions are more "accurate" than the PAL conversions.

 

[Lateralus]

Darn. Thanks for the info peeps.

 

[Monoplex]

IMHO, the effectiveness of your DVDs upscaler is going to make a far bigger difference in how it's going to look on your HD than the difference between the two formats. This assumes that you can get PAL to play on your TV.

Just hang in there until DS9, TNG, and VOY is available on blu-ray!

 

[TheGodBen]

They wont be, the shows were edited on video-tape, a blu-ray release for those three shows would be too expensive to produce. TNG has a slim chance, DS9 and Voyager are almost certain never to happen.

 

[Lateralus]

Upscaler effectiveness only matters to a point. No manner of tech wizardry can overcome the limitations of the content, and in that respect PAL is indeed a much better source material for upscaling than NTSC, particularly in 4:3. It offers on the order of 30% more pixels.

Regarding PAL or NTSC handling; any HDTV will handle any standard defintion source fed to it since both PAL and NTSC's resolutions and framerates are far exceeded by any HDTV's capability.

Hmm... I'm tempted to e-mail CBS/Paramount for this query, but past experiences have taught me that the horse's mouth generally isn't any wiser than what can be had from... any online forum.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

I've seen too many dodgy NTSC-PAL conversions to opt for PAL in such situations.

1) You can't make 525 lines go into 625. You're not going to get a sharper image that way. There has to be interpolation and guesswork to get the extra picture information, and that generally means a softer image. In essence the two images should look the same, but they rarely do.

2) NTSC runs at 30fps, PAL at 25 fps. If it was a frame to frame conversion, everyone would have really deep voices and be walking in slow motion. Instead you have to this technical 3:2 pulldown technique that I know nothing about, except that it results in softer images, ghosting artefacts, judder and fuzziness. Unless you're a big company that can throw megabucks at the transfer to make it look acceptable. Which is what the PAL DVDs of Star Trek TNG-VOY are, acceptable. NTSC will probably look better.

Of course with TOS which was shot on film, and with ENT and modern TV which is shot on HD, this is mostly a thing of the past. But that era of television between 1980 and 2000-ish isn't all that pleasant to watch,

and also the niche stuff which is still available today, and which companies can't afford to get looking brilliant.

 

[Warp Coil]

I've seen too many dodgy NTSC-PAL conversions to opt for PAL in such situations.

1) You can't make 525 lines go into 625. You're not going to get a sharper image that way. There has to be interpolation and guesswork to get the extra picture information, and that generally means a softer image. In essence the two images should look the same, but they rarely do.

2) NTSC runs at 30fps, PAL at 25 fps. If it was a frame to frame conversion, everyone would have really deep voices and be walking in slow motion. Instead you have to this technical 3:2 pulldown technique that I know nothing about, except that it results in softer images, ghosting artefacts, judder and fuzziness. Unless you're a big company that can throw megabucks at the transfer to make it look acceptable. Which is what the PAL DVDs of Star Trek TNG-VOY are, acceptable. NTSC will probably look better.

This. Converting from NTSC to PAL creates artifacts and makes the image look different. It's a little fuzzier, a little softer. Some of the edit cuts/transitions can look bad (three-field dissolves). Also, the first few times that I watched something in PAL, it made my eyes hurt because of the "flicker" (the video is moving at 25 fps instead of 29.97 fps and it the difference is noticeable).

I work in TV post-production and have watched several programs that have been converted to PAL, and they never look as good as the original NTSC source.

 

[Lateralus]

Indeed.

Well, I guess it all boils down to my original hunt - shot with optimal-quality international broadcast in mind, or; specifically for NTSC... Since the answer appears to be NTSC, I guess I'll be grabbing another R1 set.