kalra@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Devendra Kalra) (10/23/87)
References: I would appreciate any information that people on the net might have about conversion of video formats, inparticular NTSC to PAL and viceversa. Also info about multi-format VCRs and TVs will be appreciated Thanks Deven
pingpong@milton.acs.washington.edu (jimmy) (02/01/90)
How difficult is it to build a NTSC <-> PAL device? (Any commercially available ones?) (I have a PAL VCR and a NTSC TV.) Or would it be cheaper to buy a PAL TV? Thanks plenty. Jimmy.
kehres@lance.tis.llnl.gov (Tim Kehres) (02/01/90)
In article <1679@milton.acs.washington.edu> pingpong@milton.acs.washington.edu (jimmy) writes: > How difficult is it to build a NTSC <-> PAL device? (Any commercially > available ones?) > (I have a PAL VCR and a NTSC TV.) > Or would it be cheaper to buy a PAL TV? I'm not sure about building the NTSC <-> PAL converter, but I would not think it woule be trivial. If someone knows of such a device, I would also be interested, especially if it operates on 50/60 Hz. When I was in Japan earlier in the year, I noticed many of the newer VCR's that supported NTSC, PAL and SECAM. While in Germany a few months back, I saw many televisions that supported all three formats, but not many VCR's. I have not seen much of either in the United States. In case you are interested, I had compiled a listing (from the '89 WRTH) of many of the different broadcast formats: Country Name Country Code Power Primary Language TV System ============ ============ ====== ================ ========= China (PRC) 86 220/50 Putonghua,Amoy D/PAL China (Taiwan) 886 110/60 Chinese (Mandarin) M/NTSC Hong Kong 852 200/50 Chinese,English I/PAL Indonesia 62 127/50 Indonesian B/PAL Japan 81 VAR/VAR Japanese M/NTSC Korea (South) 82 100/60 Korean M/NTSC Malaysia 60 240/50 Bahasa Malaysia B/PAL Philippines 63 220/60 Philippine dialects M/NTSC Singapore 65 230/50 Malay,Chinese,Tamil B/PAL Sri Lanka 94 230/50 Sinhala,Tamil B/PAL Thailand 66 220/50 Thai BM/PAL Austria 43 220/50 German BG/PAL Belgium 32 220/50 Dutch,French,German BH/PAL Czechoslovakia 42 ???/50 Czech, Slovak DK/SECAM Denmark 45 220/50 Danish B/PAL France 33 220/50 French L/SECAM Germany (West) 49 220/50 German BG/PAL Germany (East) 37 ???/?? German BG/SECAM Hungary 36 ???/50 Hungarian DK/SECAM Italy 39 VAR/50 Italian BG/PAL Luxembourg 352 110/50 Luxembourgian BLG/PAL&SECAM Netherlands 31 220/50 Dutch BG/PAL Spain 34 127/50 Spanish BG/PAL Switzerland 41 220/?? German,French BG/PAL United Kingdom 44 240/50 English I/PAL USSR 7 127/50 Russian DK/SECAM Canada 1 115/60 English,French M/NTSC Mexico 52 110/60 Spanish M/NTSC United States 1 110/60 English M/NTSC Television System Codes ----------------------- System #Lines Channel Vision Vision/ Vestigal Vision Sound Width Bandwidth Sound side-band Modulation Modulation MHz MHz separation MHz Mhz ------ ------ ------- ------ ------- -------- ------ ----- A 405 5 3 -3.5 0.75 Pos AM B 625 7 5 +5.5 0.75 Neg FM C 625 7 5 +5.5 0.75 Pos AM D 625 8 6 +6.5 0.75 Neg FM G 625 8 5 +5.5 0.75 Neg FM H 625 8 5 +5.5 1.25 Neg FM I 625 8 5.5 +6 1.25 Neg FM K 625 8 6 +6.5 0.75 Neg FM K' 625 8 6 +6.5 1.25 Neg FM L 625 8 6 +6.5 1.25 Pos AM M 525 6 4.2 +4.5 0.75 Neg FM N 625 6 4.2 +4.5 0.75 Neg FM The sound carrier frequency for each channel can be determined by adding the appropriate figure to the vision carrier frequency given above (5.5 MHz for systems G, H; 6 MHz for system I and 6.5 MHz for systems K, L). In West Germany ch38 is reserved for aero-navigation. Regards, Tim Kehres
michael@fe2o3.UUCP (Michael Katzmann) (02/02/90)
In article <1679@milton.acs.washington.edu> pingpong@milton.acs.washington.edu (jimmy) writes: >How difficult is it to build a NTSC <-> PAL device? (Any commercially >available ones?) In the days before cheap digital memory it was done by an "optical" converter (i.e. a high linearity monitor and a camera! ). In the mid 70's the BBC produced ACE and the IBA produced DICE (Digital Inter- continental Conversion Equipment). Both in the UK. Marconi sold DICE under licence to the IBA and McMichael/GEC sold ACE. The TV station I used to work for bought a DICE in 1978 for $800,000. (When an Australian dollar was worth $1.10 US.) Cheap memory and LSI (DICE used mos shift registers) have made converters cheaper. I think you could pick up a cheap one for about US$30,000. Mind you the result looks cheap! The main difficulty in conversion is the 50 to 60Hz conversion. To do the temporal filtering properly you need at least 4 fields of memory and good motion interpolation algorithms. >(I have a PAL VCR and a NTSC TV.) >Or would it be cheaper to buy a PAL TV? > I think it would be cheaper to get a pal TV! If you were trying to look at an NTSC picture on a PAL set its a different story! All you would need to do is to adjust the scans, defeat the PAL 7.8Khz switch, and tweek the colour matrix resistors. We did this on some sets and we even put in a circuit that detected the PAL burst and switched the monitor automatically. --------------------------------------------------------------------- email to UUCP: uunet!mimsy!{arinc,fe203}!vk2bea!michael _ _ _ _ Amateur | VK2BEA (Australia) ' ) ) ) / // Radio | G4NYV (United Kingdom) / / / o _. /_ __. _ // Stations| NV3Z (United States) / ' (_<_(__/ /_(_/|_</_</_ Michael Katzmann Broadcast Sports Technology. 2135 Espey Ct. #4 Crofton Md. 21114 USA Ph: +1 301 721 5151
colin@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (colin.alan.warwick) (02/07/90)
I did go to a talk once (circa 1972) which had a demo of DICE (Digital Image Converter Equipment). It was full of ECL chips and converted from PAL to NTSC (Never Twice Same Color :-) ) digitally, in real time (and back, if you wanted). It was built for the Olympics or something, was for professional use by TV companies (ie megabucks). I think it was built by GEC of Britain.