"Phil Weldon" wrote ...
I guess you don't watch movies, right?
DGI: Digital Graphics/Imaging

Perhaps you mean "CGI" ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-generated_imagery

Google doesn't seem to know your definition of "DGI".

What Communist Bloc?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_bloc
It was in all the papers.

SECAM is French, though SECAM content is produced in
PAL, and only at the transmitter converted to SECAM by a
very simple process.

And SECAM was also selected by the USSR and propogated
across the communist bloc specifically to implement another
degree of state-controlled flow of information (to prevent
the populous from accidentally receiving any non-approved
propaganda).

NTSC and PAL and SECAM are defined as SMPTE
( http://www.smpte.org ) defines them.

People on the right side of The Pond would take great
exception to the notion that SMPTE defines PAL (or
SECAM :-) Perhaps you have your standards authorities
confused?

SMPTE is a US-based organization. My membership
certificate is in the other room. Furthermore, the NTSC
compatible color standard was defined by the "National
Television Standards Committee", not the by SMPTE.

All are standards for encoding color video signals.
Digital video signal encoding is completely different
(MPEG2 for example.) Pixels are not part of NTSC,
PAL, or SECAM.

Likely true in your theoretical world. Certainly not the
case in the real world.

Well, there you go again, posting about video cameras!

A popular subject in r.v.d and r.v.p

And you are wrong about digital video recording; the
encoding is neither NTSC, PAL nor SECAM.

You are so far from the kind of digital video that we deal
with every day that I have no clue where you are coming
from. I am unable to even respond to that very remarkable
statement.

Try reading an explanation of one popular form of digital
video (DV): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dv Note that
in nearly every paragraph, the differences in DV encoding
for NTSV vs PAL are contrasted.

What makes you think that the signal from the sensors of
a digital camcorder is encoded in NTSC or PAL before
recording?

If you read carefully, you will not that I did not say that.
I said that the video is encoded into (as a real-world
example) DV-NTSC or DV-PAL or MPEG 1 - 4 with
NTSC or PAL dimensions and frame-rates.

If you have a COMPOSITE, analog signal output it may
be NTSC or PAL, but not if the output is a digital signal.

And yet the most popular digital video codecs on this planet
(DV and SDI) are defined in either NTSC or PAL varieties.
They are not even recoverable without the knowledge of
whether they were encoded as NTSC or PAL.

People who are motivated to do quality video editing use
digital signals, and produce a digital recording.

Which are QC checked on a real television (NTSC or PAL)
monitor, NOT on a computer display.

Which brings up the question, what do you mean by a
good televison monitor?

A Sony BVP or Ikegami monitor and their ilk. Have you
ever seen pristine NTSC or PAL video on a calibrated
broadcast-quality color television picture monitor?

Certainly in editing on a non-linear system a NTSC
or PAL analog monitor is not appropriate.

You seem to have no experience editing video, linear
or non-linear.

Of course you can display a proper television picture
on a computer monitor. You are completely wrong
about the 'gamma transfer curve' as the display adapter
in a computer can set whatever gamma curves are
desired (good computer monitors come with color
rendition files.)

You are entitled to your view of the world. People who
do quality video for a living do not share that view.


The real use of a 'good' television monitor is to
determine quickly the time stability of the content,
blanking, and framing. More elaborate, quantitative
instruments are required to do any real evaluation
(waveform monitor and vectorscope for analog
NTSC/PAL, more elaborate instrumentation
for digital signals - see

You seem to be aware of only the technology part of
making good video, and completely ignoring the "art".
No amount of technology can substitute for an
experienced camera shader with a good eye and a
calibrated picture monitor.