PAL vs. NSTC?

[calfranklin]

Could someone please explain to me the problem with compatibility with software that's either PAL (Europe)or NSTC (US, Canada). It really gets frustrating when you come across an Atari software gem on Ebay or here on Marketplace just to discover that's it's not compatible with your country's device. Doesn't this have something to do with video screen display? Is there a device that will bridge this incompatiblity?

[Ross PK]

Someone will be able to explain it a lot better than me, but NTSC = higher framerate & less resolution, and PAL = lower framerate & a higher resolution.

 

This is why the picture on American made TV shows seem to look less sharp and sort of fuzzy compared to the really sharp pictures you get with European made TV shows.

 

The electricity is different in the UK (not sure about all PAL territories) compared to America as well. So, if you were to use an NTSC system over in the UK you'd need a stepdown or a stepup converter to change the current going into your system so you don't blow it up.

 

Also, you'll need a TV capable of displaying an NTSC picture, most modern TV's do this.

Edited November 13, 2006 by Ross PK

[JamesD]

PAL operates at 50Hz and NTSC operates at 60Hz. That changes the timing of the screen updates and speed of games.

PAL has more horizontal lines on the screen.

[Gunstar]

If you use an Atari RGB monitor it can run at both PAL and NTSC refresh speeds and all those "incompatible" (only when hooked up to NTSC TV's) programs work fine.

 

The thing that bothers me is people claiming PAL is better becuase of the increased resolution, which is true, when watching TV&videos on a TV, but when it comes to computers I'll take the faster refresh rate of NTSC over PAL anyday, becuase the computers rarely use the extra scan-lines of PAL anyway. There are some games that use overscan and thus get better resolution, but if you are just using the standard text window (green desktop size window) then the extra resolution is wasted and the picture is much clearer, IMHO, at 60HZ without the headache inducing 50HZ "flicker." Plus, on ST RGB monitors all you have to do is adust the "V-height" and "squish" the graphics on the screen so you see all the PAL resolution in overscan, even at 60HZ, as the ST monitors can handle the extra lines of vertical resolution. I've thoroughly tested this with many hacker menu disks on the ST that allow you to choose between 50HZ and 60HZ and the only difference, when the monitor is adjusted, is the refresh rate, which the 60HZ screen wins hands down.

 

EDIT: OOPS! sorry, for some reason I though this thread was in the ST forum regarding the ST. But with my Commodore 1084 monitor with my 8-bit, the same is true with the 8-bits as the 1084 can also handle the 50/60HZ and added resolution of PAL too, just replace the "green desktop window" with the blue window on the 8-bits. And the overscan thing and "squishing" the screen with Vertical height knob all works the same as on the ST. If the programs stay within the blue "window" everything I said above about the ST is the same with 8-bits, only the overscanned games take advantage in PAL. Though with the 8-bits there are timing issues which make games incompatible unless you convert your ANTIC to PAL ANTIC, then most PAL games work too.

Edited November 14, 2006 by Gunstar

[Rybags]

The main cause of incompatibility is with games and demos that run out of cycles each frame.

 

PAL has 312x114=35568 vs NTSC 29868 cycles per frame.

 

Almost all older software is fine - it's usually the modern, non-commercial software which occasionally has problems.

[NightSprinter]

Well, I need to add some info regarding the 1084 monitor. I do have one (after some focus adjusting I get a rather sharp picture), but it will only display color for PAL systems if they're connected through the RGB port only. I have an Amiga1200 that is PAL output, and if I connect it via composite output I only get a monochrome picture (even if the display is set to NTSC). So in this case, you would have to either build or (if possible) buy a converter that changes the SCART-RGB output to a standard 9-pin D-sub connector for video and RCA for audio.

[Fröhn]

PAL operates at 50Hz and NTSC operates at 60Hz. That changes the timing of the screen updates and speed of games.

PAL has more horizontal lines on the screen.

Wrong. PAL and NTSC are color encoding techniques and have nothing to do with the refresh rate. PAL can be 50 or 60 Hz, and NTSC can be 50 or 60 Hz too... What you talk about are NTSC-M used in the USA and PAL-B used in Europe. There are countries (Argentinia for example) which use PAL-M which is a PAL signal in 60 Hz.

 

The incompabilities are caused by the different timing of the different video standards. A 60 Hz system has only 262 rasterlines on a frame while a 50 Hz system has 312. If software is written for 312 rasterlines, it is well possible that 262 rasterlines are not enough.

 

Also there is a difference due to the different color clock. USA uses 3.58 MHz color carrier signal which is exactly the half of the A8 pixel clock, while in Europe the color carrier is using 4.43 MHz which is some weirdo fraction of the A8 pixel clock. As a result of this, "artefacting" only works on machines with a 3.58 MHz color carrier.

 

Shorter:

 

- European games might fail on USA-computers due to lack of rasterlines there.

- USA-games with artefacting are monochrome on european computers.

[Wrathchild]

What you talk about are NTSC-M used in the USA and PAL-B used in Europe.

Nice clarification/explaination, but harsh on JamesD,

he was simply responding to the original question

PAL (Europe) or NSTC (US, Canada)

[ijor]

There are countries (Argentinia for example) which use PAL-M which is a PAL signal in 60 Hz.

 

Really I live in Argentina but nobody ever told me :!:

[Fröhn]

Here's a list of TV broadcast systems: http://www.paradiso-design.net/TVsystems_worldwide.html

 

Important is the letter after the color encoding abbreviation. B, D, G, H, I, K, K1, L, N are all 50 Hz, and M is 60 Hz. I was wrong about Argentinia though. They use PAL N (50 Hz) there and not PAL M (60 Hz). Brasil uses PAL M. I was mistaken because I heard of people from Argentinia who had a PAL C64 which runs on 60 Hz.

[ijor]

I was mistaken because I heard of people from Argentinia who had a PAL C64 which runs on 60 Hz.

 

They probably did. The computers used in developing countries normally have very little relation to the local TV norm. The market was too small to manufacture specific localized computers.

 

Furthermore, many of the local computers were imported by un-official channels. Either people that brought it from a trip to USA. Or either because there was no official importer/distributor.

 

So it was very common to have an NTSC computer here. But because at the time most people didn't owned a multi-norm TV (now almost everybody does), they were converted to PAL. The conversion was a simple/cheap one, only the modulation phase was adapted. Replacing ANTIC was too expensive.

 

So there were plenty of PAL-N/60 Hz computers in use. Most TVs could handle, some could not.

[Ross PK]

So can most modern TV's in America display a PAL signal?

 

I'm sort of torn between NTSC and PAL, I've never experienced NTSC on my 8-bit, but on my modern consoles the games fill the screen out more and move so much more fluidly and smoothly in 60HZ, but the picture quality looks a bit crappy, it's not that sharp, and you can sort of see loads of horizontal lines on the screen.

[MEtalGuy66]

Yep another think worth mentioning is that all AMIGA chipsets from ECS up, have programmable scan-rate.. In otherwords, the machine is hard-wired to either boot in PAL or NTSC, but once its booted, you scan switch the scan-rate quite easily in software, and the OS fully supports this..

 

The A1200/A4000 AGA chipset has a fully programmable scan-rate.

 

A1000s and early A500s that shipped with only 512k of CHIP RAM are the exception. These have what is referred to as the OCS AGNUS which is not PAL capable, if sold in the US..

 

Once you upgrade to the newer AGNUS (8372A) chip, you get the ability to use 1meg of CHIP RAM, and the ability to switch scan-rates.. as far as I remember, the ECS (8373) DENISE is not required for this feature.

[NightSprinter]

If televisions that support NTSC and PAL are so commonplace here, then why have I not seen them wherever I go? It may not exactly matter when I acquire a Spectrum +2 and hopefully one of the Amstrad Plus computers (RGB output), but if I wanted to buy a game system from the UK, it would be useful.

[Rybags]

They don't really promote the fact that TVs do both PAL and NTSC.

 

Possibly because it's only properly supported when using A/V inputs.

 

PAL and NTSC, and even different versions of PAL have a different seperation between the audio and video frequencies - which means incompatibility since you'd be able to tune the picture perfectly but have no audio.

[Urchlay]

So can most modern TV's in America display a PAL signal?

 

Multi-standard TVs are rare to nonexistant in the US.

 

I have got a multi-standard DVD player, but if I play a PAL DVD on my NTSC TV, it looks like crap because the player is inserting extra frames (made up of a combination of two existing frames). I can tell the DVD player to put out a PAL video signal, but my modern TV can't display it (it just rolls).

 

I also have a really old (1976) color TV that can display a PAL signal... sort of. It can handle the framerate, but not the PAL color encoding scheme (so I'd get a black & white signal from the DVD player in PAL output mode, if the TV had a composite or s-video input). I can also play PAL Atari 2600 games on it, which play fine, but with the wrong colors.

 

I think the reason you never find PAL-capable TVs for sale in the US is that so few people are interested in importing consoles or movies from outside the US (whereas in PAL countries, people want to watch the latest Hollywood stuff, whether it's been released there yet or not. A lot more movies are made in the US... which says nothing about their quality). If I hadn't gotten addicted to Dr. Who at a young age, I probably wouldn't know there *was* another TV standard (well, I would by now, from reading this board).

 

From what I read on here, it sounds like multi-standard TVs are standard in Europe... that a new PAL-only set might be hard to come by. No idea if that's actually true...

[deathtrappomegranate]

From what I read on here, it sounds like multi-standard TVs are standard in Europe... that a new PAL-only set might be hard to come by. No idea if that's actually true...

 

From a UK perspective, that's pretty accurate. If you really want a PAL-only TV, you can get one, but you'd probably have to go for a CRT. In fact, most new CRT TVs are NTSC-capable too.

 

It's not quite so easy to get TVs that accept NTSC signals via the RF input, but it's not difficult if you look around.

[ijor]

If televisions that support NTSC and PAL are so commonplace here, then why have I not seen them wherever I go?

 

Probably because my "here" is not same as "yours"

 

 

Possibly because it's only properly supported when using A/V inputs.

 

That's not correct. All the ones I've seen support it on all the inputs, including RF.

[calfranklin]

As usual on AtariAge Forum, the response has been great! Thanks for all the info everyone has shared with me concerning this issue. I feel I'm better off sticking with NTSC compatible software here in the US, especially with the 8-bit and 7800 series, don't you think?

[Rybags]

With the 8-bit it's hardly an issue. The only things I can think of are more recent non-commercial games and demos, mostly originating from Eastern Europe.

 

And you wouldn't be paying for them on eBay - virtually all of them are freely downloadable.