[TriLUG] myth tv question

Joel Ebel jbebel at ncsu.edu
Thu Oct 13 14:39:45 EDT 2005


You are mistaken.  NTSC DVDs and PAL DVDs are encoded differently.  NTSC 
DVDs are encoded at 29.97 fps interlaced video, and PAL DVDs are encoded 
at 25 fps interlaced video.  In addition, PAL has more 576 scan lines as 
opposed to 480 for NTSC.

However, many DVDs are created from film which is at 24 fps, and DVDs 
can contain the data at 24 fps progressive.  They also contain MPEG-2 
repeat_first_field flags in the video to tell the decoder to perform a 
2-3 pulldown on an NTSC dvd.  In the case of a PAL DVD, the flags tell 
the decoder to perform a 2-2 pulldown which results in a 4% speedup at 
50 Hz.  Even though the source is the same, the flags are different for 
NTSC and PAL discs.  Again, the resolution is also higher on the PAL 
discs as well, so they take up more space.

The dvd faq at dvddemystified.com has some good information on this.

As for encoders that can translate, I'm not certain, but you might try 
out ffmpeg or mencoder.  Maybe VLC could do something like this.

Joel

Tarus Balog wrote:
> 
> On Oct 13, 2005, at 1:40 PM, Greg Brown wrote:
> 
>>> Speaking of which, does anyone know of a tool (or set of tools) on
>>> Linux which can "reencode" (or whatever the correct term is) a PAL DVD
>>> to NTSC. In other words, I'd like to be able to rip a PAL DVD so that
>>> I could watch it on a regular DVD player and not just on a computer.
> 
> I didn't think there was a difference at the DVD level between PAL and 
> NTSC - that would depend on your DVD player and the output signal it 
> creates. The DVDs should be the same except for region codes (and you 
> might be able to turn your DVD player regionless with the right hack).
> 
> Am I off base here?
> 
> -T
> 
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