On Sat, 7 Nov 1998, Tony Duell wrote:
> PAL does _not_ necessarily imply 50Hz vertical, though. It just happens
> that the 2 most popular TV standards in the world are 60Hz vertical NTSC
> and 50Hz vertical PAL B/G/I (those all have the same video signal
> essentially). There are other PALs, for example PAL-M and PAL-N. I can
> never remember which way round they are, but one is 625 line PAL (50Hz
> vertical) with a colour subcarrier near 3.5MHz and the other is 525 line
> PAL (60Hz vertical) with a colour subcarrier near 3.5MHz.
Who uses these other standards? I've heard that some South American
countries use different TV standards from just about anywhere else.
I think most people associate PAL with 50Hz and NTSC with 60Hz, even
though they really refer to very different things.
Then again, by "most people" I'm probably thinking "most Amigans". The
50Hz screen modes are officially called PAL modes, and 60Hz are called
NTSC, regardless of how the colour is generated. Perhaps they should have
found different names for these modes.
Most people think that Amigas can switch between PAL and NTSC, because of
the phoney definitions used. But they can't. They can just switch
between 50Hz and 60Hz. So when my Amiga is running in "PAL" mode on my
television, it's really just 50Hz NTSC.
> > Our current television (JVC model no. AV-27965, manufactured in 1995) will
> > definitely _not_ synch to 50Hz. This annoyed me. All of our old
> > tube-based monstrosities are perfectly happy with 50Hz.
>
> That is suprising. Are you sure there's not an option on a hidden service
> menu to enable this ?
Humm.. I never read the TV's manual, and I don't know where it is now. :)
I think I've played with every button and every menu setting on the thing,
though. Where would I find a hidden service menu? :)
> Some sets in the UK have NTSC and PAL decoders and select the appropriate
> one based on the vertical scan rate. Cheaper versions of those sets
> sometimes have only the PAL decoder and do odd things if fed with 60Hz
> video. Often looking at the service manuals for both models will indicate
> what needs to be added (which may not be very much, actually).
For what I want to do at the moment, it would be better if the set would
just synch to 50Hz and keep using the NTSC decoder. But if I ever get a
computer that generates PAL, I'll definitely want the PAL decoder. They
should let geeks choose frequency and colour decoders separately.
Another thing that would be great would be a VCR that could record/play
PAL and/or 50Hz.
> > But north American televisions are primitive relative to European ones. I
> > would _really_ like it if they'd put SCART connectors on the sets over
> > here!
>
> For all I don't like the SCART connector from an engineering viewpoint, I
> have to admit it's useful.
>
> Do US TVs have RGB inputs? European ones almost always do.
No. I've never seen a set with RGB inputs. Usually they just have
composite, and the more expensive ones have S-Video.
> -tony
--
Doug Spence
ds_spenc_at_alcor.concordia.ca
http://alcor.concordia.ca/~ds_spenc/
Received on Mon Nov 09 1998 - 03:26:21 GMT