In article ,
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Don't care where they were from - you can't judge any system using
domestic tapes of those days. I'm beginning to wonder about your
personal standards if you think you can.


Yawn. More America bashing.

Eh? Well I suppose you are American.

Commercially produced European tapes on European VCR & TV.

And you think commercially produced VHS or BetaMax tapes are suitable for
judging any system? And you claim to have worked in broadcasting?


The BBC did extensive testing before introducing colour. In the
first instance with NTSC RCA cameras. Huge things with 3" IO
tubes. Had a modification of NTSC to say 625 50 Hz been the way
forward, they'd not have adopted (and been part of the design) of
PAL.

Image Orthicons? That figures.

Just when do you think colour cameras stopped using them? The plumbicon
wasn't invented until '60.


I have no idea when the BBC quit using them, but Image Orthicons were
short lived in the US.

IOs where in use for mono up until the late '60s. Colour started off with
4 tube plumbicons.

The RCA TK-44 was a vidicon color camera. The
TK 46 was the same camera, but using Plumbicons. Image Orthicons
required a lot more light, and didn't provide as clean of an image as
the Vidicons. A Plumbicon is a Vidicon with a lead oxide faceplate.

IO were more sensitive than videcon. Only videcon colour cameras I've seen
were low end industrial.

--
*When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say? *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Meat Plow wrote:
How did this devolve into a PAL/NTSC ****ing match? From what little TV I
watch in the evening, HD channels on TWC, I think the color rendering is
perfect. And NTSC DVD video is the same. So what's the problem here? A
lack of real things to argue about?

Don't think you've been following things. DVDs as such don't have either
an NTSC or PAL footprint unless the originating material had.

--
*Give me ambiguity or give me something else.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:

In article ,
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Don't care where they were from - you can't judge any system using
domestic tapes of those days. I'm beginning to wonder about your
personal standards if you think you can.

Yawn. More America bashing.

Eh? Well I suppose you are American.

Commercially produced European tapes on European VCR & TV.

And you think commercially produced VHS or BetaMax tapes are suitable for
judging any system? And you claim to have worked in broadcasting?

The BBC did extensive testing before introducing colour. In the
first instance with NTSC RCA cameras. Huge things with 3" IO
tubes. Had a modification of NTSC to say 625 50 Hz been the way
forward, they'd not have adopted (and been part of the design) of
PAL.

Image Orthicons? That figures.

Just when do you think colour cameras stopped using them? The plumbicon
wasn't invented until '60.

I have no idea when the BBC quit using them, but Image Orthicons were
short lived in the US.

IOs where in use for mono up until the late '60s. Colour started off with
4 tube plumbicons.

The RCA TK-44 was a vidicon color camera. The
TK 46 was the same camera, but using Plumbicons. Image Orthicons
required a lot more light, and didn't provide as clean of an image as
the Vidicons. A Plumbicon is a Vidicon with a lead oxide faceplate.

IO were more sensitive than videcon. Only videcon colour cameras I've seen
were low end industrial.


And you think the few cameras you've seen are suitable for judging
any system? Just because you didn't see them doesn't mean they weren't
built. I was using an RCA TK-16 Vidicon camera in the service that was
built in the late '60s.

Vidicon cameras were usable in low light, properly designed. Not
that the BBC was renowned for state of the art. I saw one of the first
single gun color TV cameras in 1972/73, built by Magnavox for industrial
video applications. That was at Ft. Rucker, Al. where the video
production section was looking into newer cameras. If you consider 2"
Ampex industrial video, you might argue. The mobile production units
were several tractor trailers full, and they had just bought the first
Tektronix U-matic decks built.



http://afrts.dodmedia.osd.mil/herita...archive_email1 About
half way down has an email I sent to a DOD website about the history of
AFRTS.


--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a band-aid on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:

In article ,
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Other thing is control room monitors (Grade 1) are designed for close
viewing, so generally in the smaller sizes. Nor have I ever seen a
widescreen CRT with decent geometry and registration. Control room CRTs
even for widescreen were still 4:3, but underscanned, making the small
size even more of an issue.

Our control room used 25 to 30 inch monitors.

4:3. So as I said a small size when showing 16:9. If indeed you ever saw
16:9 pictures in the studio.

Underscan was
switchable. A mask was used with lines to show the hot area for cheap,
overscanned TV sets.

You think all 'cheap overscanned TV sets' had the same 'hot' area?


Sigh. Did your mother have any kids without brain damage? Quit
trying to put words in my mouth, you aren't smart enough to even try.
Proper camera work made sure that the active portion of any image was
properly framed. Proper framing was for near worst case TVs. No one
gave a **** if your $139 jpanese TV cut off 25% all the way around the
image.


And why would the engineer in charge of the actual pictures care about
home overscan? That would be left to the production side.

Tell us, how many US TV stations did you work at
as an engineer? How many state of the art NTSC studios have you built?
How many years of maintaining a commercial US TV station?

I'm beginning to wonder how well you've kept up with things. Not much by
the sound of it.

--
*Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.


--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a band-aid on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 20:24:06 +0000, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:

Meat Plow wrote:
How did this devolve into a PAL/NTSC ****ing match? From what little TV
I watch in the evening, HD channels on TWC, I think the color rendering
is perfect. And NTSC DVD video is the same. So what's the problem here?
A lack of real things to argue about?

It got there because there had to be some justification over which
system was chosen other than the country next door did something else.
Then it devoloved from ignorance of existance of multisystem TVs and
VCRs into justification why they could not exist.

To summarize, by 1985 I had bought, in Philadelphia (USA) the following:
TV set, 19 inch, 25 inch and 14 inch and VHS and BETA VCRS which would
play and record NTSC/60 3.57, NTSC/60 4.43, PAL/50, PAL/60 (TV only)
and SECAM/50 video. Tuners for NTSC, European PAL, UK PAL and non
French SECAM (aka Middle East SECAM).

In 1987 I added a VCR that would record and play PAL/60 and French
SECAM.

In 1992 I added a VCR that would do digital conversions between any of
the above.

Geoff.

I've no experience in PAL or SECAM whatsoever. But to just unilaterally
claim the NTSC is inferior I just don't see it. So there must be more to
the story. Maybe politics in some wild manner? That tends to **** people
off.



--
Live Fast, Die Young and Leave a Pretty Corpse

Don't think you've been following things. DVDs as such
don't have either an NTSC or PAL footprint unless the
originating material had.

I don't think that's correct. There are differences in the number of
scanning lines and frame rate on NTSC and PAL DVDs.

With regard to your comment -- which is something like "there's no water in
a glass unless you've poured water into it" -- what sort of non-PAL or
non-NTSC-format material would you record on a video DVD?

I've no experience in PAL or SECAM whatsoever.
But to just unilaterally claim the NTSC is inferior --
I just don't see it. So there must be more to the
story. Maybe politics in some wild manner? That
tends to **** people off.

It appears that the incorrect belief that PAL is "superior" is based on the
fact that PAL is somewhat self-correcting for non-linear phase errors, and
that one can build a receiver that automatically corrects for static phase
errors in the burst or subcarrier.

These features, of course, have nothing whatever to do with the /basic/
image quality of the system, and aren't needed if the video distribution
system is properly designed and maintained.

In every other respect, NTSC is objectively superior to PAL.

In article ,
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
And you think the few cameras you've seen are suitable for judging
any system? Just because you didn't see them doesn't mean they weren't
built. I was using an RCA TK-16 Vidicon camera in the service that was
built in the late '60s.

You appear only to have heard of RCA cameras.

Vidicon cameras were usable in low light, properly designed. Not
that the BBC was renowned for state of the art.

Really?

I saw one of the first
single gun color TV cameras in 1972/73, built by Magnavox for industrial
video applications. That was at Ft. Rucker, Al. where the video
production section was looking into newer cameras.

Can you name a broadcast use for a single tube colour camera? Apart from
stunt stuff where it would be destroyed.

If you consider 2"
Ampex industrial video, you might argue. The mobile production units
were several tractor trailers full, and they had just bought the first
Tektronix U-matic decks built.

U-matic? Only ever used for news stuff here. And office viewing before VHS.

1" C Format ruled until the arrival of Beta SP and MII.

--
*Acupuncture is a jab well done*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
4:3. So as I said a small size when showing 16:9. If indeed you ever
saw 16:9 pictures in the studio.

Underscan was switchable. A mask was used with lines to show the
hot area for cheap, overscanned TV sets.

You think all 'cheap overscanned TV sets' had the same 'hot' area?


Sigh. Did your mother have any kids without brain damage? Quit
trying to put words in my mouth, you aren't smart enough to even try.
Proper camera work made sure that the active portion of any image was
properly framed. Proper framing was for near worst case TVs. No one
gave a **** if your $139 jpanese TV cut off 25% all the way around the
image.

So why the mask on the monitors if 'proper camera work made sure that the
active portion of any image was properly framed'? Cameramen not trusted?

Only time I saw an electronic mask displayed on a production control room
monitor was when things were destined for 16mm telerecording only.


And why would the engineer in charge of the actual pictures care about
home overscan? That would be left to the production side.

Notice you've omitted to answer this...

--
*(over a sketch of the titanic) "The boat sank - get over it

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Meat Plow wrote:
I've no experience in PAL or SECAM whatsoever. But to just unilaterally
claim the NTSC is inferior I just don't see it. So there must be more to
the story. Maybe politics in some wild manner? That tends to **** people
off.

Don't think anyone with sense claims any of these are universally
superior. Each had merits and de-merits.

Think it goes something like this:-

NTSC gives the best pictures in the studio.
SECAM records best.
PAL transmits best.

--
*Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 1/11/2011 6:00 PM, Meat Plow wrote:
I've no experience in PAL or SECAM whatsoever. But to just unilaterally
claim the NTSC is inferior I just don't see it. So there must be more to
the story. Maybe politics in some wild manner? That tends to **** people
off.

People like to make stupid acronyms.
Innovations People Don't Need and Always Off Line for example.

When you call them on it, they go sideways, just like asking
a person to explain "why" they feel the way they do when you
ask them a political or religious question.

You'll get the same response mentioning Bill Gates and Micro
Soft. Despite that fact that without MS and the accidental
release of the IBM PC architecture we wouldn't have the speed
or power at the price we have now.

And of course, when psycho's off their meds get involved,
Well....

Jeff

In article ,
William Sommerwerck wrote:
Don't think you've been following things. DVDs as such
don't have either an NTSC or PAL footprint unless the
originating material had.

I don't think that's correct. There are differences in the number of
scanning lines and frame rate on NTSC and PAL DVDs.

There are - but neither are *fundamental* to PAL or NTSC.

With regard to your comment -- which is something like "there's no water
in a glass unless you've poured water into it" -- what sort of non-PAL
or non-NTSC-format material would you record on a video DVD?

If the material is sourced from a composite PAL recording, it will retain
the PAL footprint.

--
*Gargling is a good way to see if your throat leaks.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
William Sommerwerck wrote:
In every other respect, NTSC is objectively superior to PAL.

Explain how 525 lines gives superior resolution to 625?

--
*When the chips are down, the buffalo is empty*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:

In article ,
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
4:3. So as I said a small size when showing 16:9. If indeed you ever
saw 16:9 pictures in the studio.

Underscan was switchable. A mask was used with lines to show the
hot area for cheap, overscanned TV sets.

You think all 'cheap overscanned TV sets' had the same 'hot' area?

Sigh. Did your mother have any kids without brain damage? Quit
trying to put words in my mouth, you aren't smart enough to even try.
Proper camera work made sure that the active portion of any image was
properly framed. Proper framing was for near worst case TVs. No one
gave a **** if your $139 jpanese TV cut off 25% all the way around the
image.

So why the mask on the monitors if 'proper camera work made sure that the
active portion of any image was properly framed'? Cameramen not trusted?


maybe on your planet. A cameraman has a lit of things to pay
attention to. The lines on his monitor make it easy to frame the shot.
Not that you would know.

Only time I saw an electronic mask displayed on a production control room
monitor was when things were destined for 16mm telerecording only.

And why would the engineer in charge of the actual pictures care about
home overscan? That would be left to the production side.

Notice you've omitted to answer this...


No matter what answer yo got you would still pull out a ruler to
measure yor dick so there was no reason to give you the pleasure.

--
*(over a sketch of the titanic) "The boat sank - get over it


Another case of UK engineering gone very bad - get over it.



--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a band-aid on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:

In article ,
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
And you think the few cameras you've seen are suitable for judging
any system? Just because you didn't see them doesn't mean they weren't
built. I was using an RCA TK-16 Vidicon camera in the service that was
built in the late '60s.

You appear only to have heard of RCA cameras.


Sigh. You appear to bbe an idiot. RCA & GE made most of the studio
cameras in the US. A few stations got screwed when they bought Philips
cameras that had no factory support and few spare parts.


Vidicon cameras were usable in low light, properly designed. Not
that the BBC was renowned for state of the art.

Really?


it makes as much sense as the bull**** you're posting.


I saw one of the first
single gun color TV cameras in 1972/73, built by Magnavox for industrial
video applications. That was at Ft. Rucker, Al. where the video
production section was looking into newer cameras.

Can you name a broadcast use for a single tube colour camera? Apart from
stunt stuff where it would be destroyed.


Yes they were used for ENG before color CCD cameras were availible.


If you consider 2"
Ampex industrial video, you might argue. The mobile production units
were several tractor trailers full, and they had just bought the first
Tektronix U-matic decks built.

U-matic? Only ever used for news stuff here. And office viewing before VHS.

1" C Format ruled until the arrival of Beta SP and MII.


So, you used 2" until the other formats were availible? Umatic was
second generation video for use in classrooms, dubbed from the broadcast
grade masters. Long beofre VHS or any beta crap was availible. I used
1" Sony at WACX in orlando for the master edit suit. OTOH, I had 13
Sony U-Matics at the transmitter site for the LaCarte Video automation
system. WACX had better video quality than most of the other stations
in the market. The worst used Beta and it was obvious.


--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a band-aid on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

On 1/11/2011 7:27 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:
So, you used 2" until the other formats were availible? Umatic was
second generation video for use in classrooms, dubbed from the broadcast
grade masters. Long beofre VHS or any beta crap was availible. I used
1" Sony at WACX in orlando for the master edit suit. OTOH, I had 13
Sony U-Matics at the transmitter site for the LaCarte Video automation
system. WACX had better video quality than most of the other stations
in the market. The worst used Beta and it was obvious.

Back in 1970 I took course "TV production" in my Senior year.
We had a nice 1" tape deck and a mixer/fader console along with
two dolly mounted cameras.

By 1971, the students had trahed enough of the equipment, so
that they were using a 1/2" Sone deck and hand helds on tripods.

Sigh, what a waste of studio grade gear.

Jeff

On Jan 11, 3:15*pm, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:
In article ,
* *Meat Plow wrote:

How did this devolve into a PAL/NTSC ****ing match? From what little TV I
watch in the evening, HD channels on TWC, I think the color rendering is
perfect. And NTSC DVD video is the same. So what's the problem here? A
lack of real things to argue about?

Don't think you've been following things. DVDs as such don't have
either
an NTSC or PAL footprint unless the originating material had.

--
*Give me ambiguity or give me something else.

* * Dave Plowman * * * * * * * * London SW
* * * * * * * * * To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Oh they most certainly do as they are either 525/60 or 625/50. While
your computer will have no trouble with this, CRT sets definitely did
(but could usually be adjusted). There must be some pretty dumb people
all over the world buying standards converters at $200K a pop to
convert 25 Hz frame rate to 30 Hz and vice cersa.

G²

On Jan 11, 7:02*pm, Jeffrey Angus wrote:
On 1/11/2011 7:27 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

* * So, you used 2" until the other formats were availible? *Umatic was
second generation video for use in classrooms, dubbed from the broadcast
grade masters. Long beofre VHS or any beta crap was availible. *I used
1" Sony at WACX in orlando for the master edit suit. *OTOH, I had 13
Sony U-Matics at the transmitter site for the LaCarte Video automation
system. *WACX had better video quality than most of the other stations
in the market. *The worst used Beta and it was obvious.

Back in 1970 I took course "TV production" in my Senior year.
We had a nice 1" tape deck and a mixer/fader console along with
two dolly mounted cameras.

By 1971, the students had trahed enough of the equipment, so
that they were using a 1/2" Sone deck and hand helds on tripods.

Sigh, what a waste of studio grade gear.

Jeff

The 1" decks you refer to are not the 1" machines used in broadcast.
The broadcast flavor was the late '70s SMPTE C format built by Ampex,
Sony, RCA, Hitachi and NEC but mostly Ampex and Sony. Did I miss any?

G²

Michael A. Terrell wrote:



William, Phil is a mentally ill Aussie who rarely takes his
medicine. Just ignore him.



And you're a ****ing socially retarded shut in who should take medicine.

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
Don't think anyone with sense claims any of these are universally
superior. Each had merits and de-merits.

Think it goes something like this:-

NTSC gives the best pictures in the studio.
SECAM records best.
PAL transmits best.

The reality is much more mundane. NTSC was perfectly fine. It gained a bad
reputation becuase of problems in distribution, which were managment issues,
not technical ones.

The BBC, adopted the original NTSC specification calling it PAL. It included
the alternating line phase (hence the name), that was found to be unecessary
in the US.

For what may have been a good technical reason when the 405 line system was
developed in the 1930's, by the time the new system was designed around 1960,
there was absolutely no technical reason that the US system, as implemented,
would not work in the UK. (50 fields/25 frames versus 60 and 30).

The political reason was to keep the UK electronics companies in work, to
avoid cheap sets made in much larger quantities in the US. At that time,
there was no electronics industry to speak of in Japan, so it was not a threat.

The PAL is better hype was exactly that, it was to make you think that
technically it was different than NTSC and ripping off the british public was
a good thing.

SECAM on the other hand really was designed to make TV Sets incompatible
with NTSC/PAL and more expensive.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it.

Jeffrey Angus wrote:

On 1/11/2011 7:27 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:
So, you used 2" until the other formats were availible? Umatic was
second generation video for use in classrooms, dubbed from the broadcast
grade masters. Long beofre VHS or any beta crap was availible. I used
1" Sony at WACX in orlando for the master edit suit. OTOH, I had 13
Sony U-Matics at the transmitter site for the LaCarte Video automation
system. WACX had better video quality than most of the other stations
in the market. The worst used Beta and it was obvious.

Back in 1970 I took course "TV production" in my Senior year.
We had a nice 1" tape deck and a mixer/fader console along with
two dolly mounted cameras.

By 1971, the students had trahed enough of the equipment, so
that they were using a 1/2" Sone deck and hand helds on tripods.

Sigh, what a waste of studio grade gear.


No kidding. One of the local high schools gets new equipment about
every other year when they need to learn on beat up old junk.


--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a band-aid on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

In article ,
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
So why the mask on the monitors if 'proper camera work made sure that
the active portion of any image was properly framed'? Cameramen not
trusted?


maybe on your planet. A cameraman has a lit of things to pay
attention to. The lines on his monitor make it easy to frame the shot.
Not that you would know.

Can you make up your mind if you're talking about what a camera has
available on the viewfinder or what you'd find on a control room monitor?

Only time I saw an electronic mask displayed on a production control
room monitor was when things were destined for 16mm telerecording only.

And why would the engineer in charge of the actual pictures care
about home overscan? That would be left to the production side.

Notice you've omitted to answer this...


No matter what answer yo got you would still pull out a ruler to
measure yor dick so there was no reason to give you the pleasure.

Seems to me you were a 'back room boy' with no experience of production.
Gawd help us if you were responsible for providing the facilities others
had to work round.

--
*The more people I meet, the more I like my dog.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
You appear only to have heard of RCA cameras.


Sigh. You appear to bbe an idiot. RCA & GE made most of the studio
cameras in the US.

I don't live in the US.

A few stations got screwed when they bought Philips
cameras that had no factory support and few spare parts.

Pretty well the same as the few UK companies that bought RCA, then.


Vidicon cameras were usable in low light, properly designed. Not
that the BBC was renowned for state of the art.

Really?


it makes as much sense as the bull**** you're posting.

Well, I'm trying to think of a US broadcaster that designed much of its
own equipment. If you want to debate the BBC and 'state of the art'.


I saw one of the first
single gun color TV cameras in 1972/73, built by Magnavox for industrial
video applications. That was at Ft. Rucker, Al. where the video
production section was looking into newer cameras.

Can you name a broadcast use for a single tube colour camera? Apart
from stunt stuff where it would be destroyed.


Yes they were used for ENG before color CCD cameras were availible.

I'm talking about proper broadcasting, not news. News will use domestic
shot pictures if it suits them. Please stick to top end.


If you consider 2" Ampex industrial video, you might argue. The
mobile production units were several tractor trailers full, and they
had just bought the first Tektronix U-matic decks built.

U-matic? Only ever used for news stuff here. And office viewing before
VHS.

1" C Format ruled until the arrival of Beta SP and MII.


So, you used 2" until the other formats were availible?

Which part of 1" C format don't you understand?

Umatic was
second generation video for use in classrooms, dubbed from the broadcast
grade masters. Long beofre VHS or any beta crap was availible. I used
1" Sony at WACX in orlando for the master edit suit. OTOH, I had 13
Sony U-Matics at the transmitter site for the LaCarte Video automation
system. WACX had better video quality than most of the other stations
in the market. The worst used Beta and it was obvious.

Seems to me you know little about broadcast standards.

--
*A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it uses up a thousand times more memory.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article
,
wrote:
The 1" decks you refer to are not the 1" machines used in broadcast.
The broadcast flavor was the late '70s SMPTE C format built by Ampex,
Sony, RCA, Hitachi and NEC but mostly Ampex and Sony. Did I miss any?

Yup. Marconi made a clone. Very good too - with Dolby A for the main audio
pair.

--
*I speak fluent patriarchy but it's not my mother tongue

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
NTSC gives the best pictures in the studio.
SECAM records best.
PAL transmits best.

The reality is much more mundane. NTSC was perfectly fine. It gained a
bad reputation becuase of problems in distribution, which were managment
issues, not technical ones.

Given receivers were fitted with a front panel hue control, it must have
been a known issue. PAL sets have no such device.

The BBC, adopted the original NTSC specification calling it PAL. It
included the alternating line phase (hence the name), that was found to
be unecessary in the US.

I wonder just how available were the delay lines needed when NTSC was
introduced? They were quite an expensive component years later.

For what may have been a good technical reason when the 405 line system
was developed in the 1930's, by the time the new system was designed
around 1960, there was absolutely no technical reason that the US
system, as implemented, would not work in the UK. (50 fields/25 frames
versus 60 and 30).

Well, film uses 24 fps. Probably for a good reason. Which makes 25
somewhat closer. But not going for NTSC allowed the use of 625 lines. And
therefore better resolution.

The political reason was to keep the UK electronics companies in work,
to avoid cheap sets made in much larger quantities in the US. At that
time, there was no electronics industry to speak of in Japan, so it was
not a threat.

The US have never been at the forefront of producing 240 volt 50 Hz
anything - they tend to stick to the local markets.

The PAL is better hype was exactly that, it was to make you think that
technically it was different than NTSC and ripping off the british
public was a good thing.

That would have had more weight if only the UK had adopted PAL.

SECAM on the other hand really was designed to make TV Sets incompatible
with NTSC/PAL and more expensive.

The French often go their own way.

--
*Who are these kids and why are they calling me Mom?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Back in 1970 I took course "TV production" in my Senior year.
We had a nice 1" tape deck and a mixer/fader console along with
two dolly mounted cameras.

By 1971, the students had trahed enough of the equipment, so
that they were using a 1/2" Sone deck and hand helds on tripods.

Sigh, what a waste of studio grade gear.


No kidding. One of the local high schools gets new equipment about
every other year when they need to learn on beat up old junk.

Big snag with pro gear at one time was it needed pros to set it up and
maintain it. And then there was the size.

--
*Why are a wise man and a wise guy opposites?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
William Sommerwerck wrote:
In every other respect, NTSC is objectively superior to PAL.

Explain how 525 lines gives superior resolution to 625?

Because it does it 30 times a second instead of 25. Less bluring in live action.

Geoff.


--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it.

Don't think you've been following things. DVDs as such
don't have either an NTSC or PAL footprint unless the
originating material had.

I don't think that's correct. There are differences in the number
of scanning lines and frame rate on NTSC and PAL DVDs.

There are - but neither are *fundamental* to PAL or NTSC.

Okay... Right...


With regard to your comment -- which is something like
"there's no water in a glass unless you've poured water
into it" -- what sort of non-PAL or non-NTSC-format material
would you record on a video DVD?

If the material is sourced from a composite PAL recording,
it will retain the PAL footprint.

Now you've lost me. I didn't know that DVDs were -- or could be -- made from
composite sources. MPEG encoding wasn't intended to work with composite
signals -- was it?

Oh they most certainly do as they are either 525/60 or
625/50. While your computer will have no trouble with
this, CRT sets definitely did (but could usually be adjusted).

Modern sets can't be adjusted. The last TV I owned with a vertical hold
control was the Sony KV-1920. The hold had sufficient range to lock to 50Hz
sources. Every set since then has had scan sync locked to the color burst.

William Sommerwerck wrote:
In every other respect, NTSC is objectively superior to PAL.

Explain how 525 lines gives superior resolution to 625?

I thought we were talking about /color/ encoding and display. But since you
brought up resolution... NTSC has better color resolution.

Don't think anyone with sense claims any of these are
universally superior. Each had merits and de-merits.
Think it goes something like this:-

NTSC gives the best pictures in the studio.
SECAM records best.
PAL transmits best.

#1 is meaningless, because "in the studio", you can display RGB directly,
without encoding.

I remember an article about 15 years ago in one of the pro publications
arguing over color TV standards. The author -- who was someone famous (it
might have been Henry Kloss, but don't hold me to that) -- said that the
best color TV images he'd ever seen were NTSC. He was talking in terms of
optimum reception and display.

The reality is much more mundane. NTSC was perfectly fine.
It gained a bad reputation becuase of problems in distribution,
which were managment issues, not technical ones.

Given receivers were fitted with a front panel hue control, it must
have been a known issue. PAL sets have no such device.

They don't? I've never understood how an automatic Hue control would work on
a PAL set.

NOTE: I just started browsing the Wikipedia article, which is loaded with
errors. For example, it says:

"PAL was developed by Walter Bruch at Telefunken in Germany."

Note "developed" (not "invented"). Herr Bruch might have added useful
features, but PAL is basically the original NTSC proposal.

"NTSC receivers have a tint [sic] control to perform colour correction
manually. If this is not adjusted correctly, the colours may be faulty. The
PAL standard automatically cancels hue errors by phase reversal, so a tint
control is unnecessary. Chrominance phase errors in the PAL system are
cancelled out using a 1H delay line resulting in lower saturation, which is
much less noticeable to the eye than NTSC hue errors."

Just about everything there is wrong. I think.


I wonder just how available were the delay lines needed when NTSC
was introduced? They were quite an expensive component years later.

The anticipate cost of the additional circuitry was one of the reasons NTSC
dropped phase alternation. The Wikipedia article states that a PAL receiver
"needs" a 1H delay line, but I don't see why that is an absolute
requirement.


For what may have been a good technical reason when the 405
line system was developed in the 1930's, by the time the new
system was designed around 1960, there was absolutely no
technical reason that the US system, as implemented, would
not work in the UK. (50 fields/25 frames versus 60 and 30).

Well, film uses 24 fps. Probably for a good reason. Which makes
25 somewhat closer. But not going for NTSC allowed the use of
625 lines. And therefore better resolution.

NTSC gets around the frame-rate difference with 3:2 pull-down. European TV
simply runs the film 4% faster, at 25fps. Neither system is ideal. At least
Blu-ray displays motion pictures at their correct frame rate.


SECAM on the other hand really was designed to make TV Sets incompatible
with NTSC/PAL and more expensive.

It was actually designed to get around the problems of recording video
images on tape.

By the way... PAL has no more /horizontal/ resolution than NTSC. (The
bandwidth/line is about the same.) The extra hundred scanning lines is nice,
but the eye judges resolution more by horizontal resolution.

Oh they most certainly do as they are either 525/60 or
625/50. While your computer will have no trouble with
this, CRT sets definitely did (but could usually be adjusted).

Modern sets can't be adjusted. The last TV I owned with a vertical hold
control was the Sony KV-1920. The hold had sufficient range to lock to
50Hz
sources. Every set since then has had scan sync locked to the color burst.

Correction. My NAD MR-20 also had a vertical hold control.

People like to make stupid acronyms. Innovations
People Don't Need and Always Off Line, for example.

Perhaps the most-brilliant reverse acronym was for PCMCIA (personal computer
memory-card international association):

"People can't memorize computer-industry acronyms"

I wrote:

SECAM on the other hand really was designed to make TV Sets incompatible
with NTSC/PAL and more expensive.


William Sommerwerck wrote:

It was actually designed to get around the problems of recording video
images on tape.

It depends upon what you mean by SECAM. SECAM as a color and video encoding
method was designed as you say, to improve video recordings. SECAM as an over
the air transmission system used by France was designed to produce a signal
that could not be received by an NTSC or PAL TV set, would not display any
color nor have any audio. Or vice versa.

This meant that you could only receive French SECAM TV signals on French TV
sets, and French viewers could not receive foreign signals.

Many countries did use SECAM over the air signals that were compatible with
PAL, and except for the color could be received on PAL TVs and vice versa.
(look up PAL B/G versus SECAM D/K).

Two system (PAL/(me)SECAM) TV sets and VCRs were common, and if I remember
correctly unmodifed PAL VCRs could play (me)SECAM tapes to a two system TV
set.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it.

In article ,
Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
William Sommerwerck wrote:
In every other respect, NTSC is objectively superior to PAL.

Explain how 525 lines gives superior resolution to 625?

Because it does it 30 times a second instead of 25. Less bluring in live
action.

That isn't the definition of resolution.

If 30 fps is needed for 'less blurring in live action' how come Hollywood
managed at 24 fps for the large screen?

--
*Men are from Earth, women are from Earth. Deal with it.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
William Sommerwerck wrote:
Don't think anyone with sense claims any of these are
universally superior. Each had merits and de-merits.
Think it goes something like this:-

NTSC gives the best pictures in the studio.
SECAM records best.
PAL transmits best.

#1 is meaningless, because "in the studio", you can display RGB directly,
without encoding.

It would be a very stupid studio that did so if it were intended for
analogue transmission.

--
*Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
William Sommerwerck wrote:
By the way... PAL has no more /horizontal/ resolution than NTSC. (The
bandwidth/line is about the same.) The extra hundred scanning lines is
nice, but the eye judges resolution more by horizontal resolution.

The vertical/horizontal resolution relationship is correct with PAL 625
lines. Unless US eyes differ from the rest of the world.

--
*Be more or less specific *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
If 30 fps is needed for 'less blurring in live action' how come Hollywood
managed at 24 fps for the large screen?

Viewing distance. Large screens are watched much farther away than TVs.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it.

In article ,
Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
The political reason was to keep the UK electronics companies in work, to
avoid cheap sets made in much larger quantities in the US.

When colour started in the UK, it was only on one UHF channel out of 3.
The other two were still 405 line VHF. So the first colour sets were dual
standard.

Given the US never attempted to make sets to the UK mono standard of 405
lines - which pre-dated any US one - just why do you think they'd have
been interested in any other UK market? A few years later, UK colour sets
were UHF only when the other channels went colour.

I also doubt any US manufactured set would have been cheaper in the UK
after transport and setting up a service/dealer network, etc. US cars, for
example, have never been competitive here, price wise.

Your idea that the whole world should adopt US standards regardless of
local conditions was just to protect their home industries says much.
It's the reason why the far east has taken over the manufacture of such
things. They tend to make what people want, rather than what the
manufacturers think they should have. And the UK is equally as guilty.

--
*When the chips are down, the buffalo is empty*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.