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What is Genlock and what does it do?

Why is NTSC and PAL still an issue? Story of the missing framerate

  • As I understand it, AC current provided a good genlock source for recording equipment and TVs in the early days of television. Thus, the US [60hz/29,97fps] and non-US [50hz/25fps] created two divisions of equipment that were unable to record/read the other media because of the differing framerates and pulldown structure. Today, nearly every camera/TV/player (in Europe) are capable of switching between multiple framerates, as are NLEs worldwide. Still - cameras bought in the US are normally unable to output PAL material and vice versa. It's the missing framerate. 1. Why arent cameras able to switch between PAL/NTSC as they are with other framerates? 2. And even if they aren't - why is this even an issue? (I understand the point of backwards-compability, but golly - with the international distribution we have these days, shouldn't this have been fixed by now?)

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    I guess this post adds to the mix

Bjørn Molstad at Quora Visit the source

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I would say it is fundamentally about market segmentation. Software for embedded TV devices in different markets often differs to meet local market demands. Possibly they want to limit movement to stop grey imports (I have seen this in other countries) for tax and margin reasons. Finally it might be to do with calibration, some countries have different colour curves and so switching frame rate isn't always sufficient. A PAL camera isn't calibrated for NTSC pictures.

Bob Hannent

1. Why arent cameras able to switch between PAL/NTSC as they are with other framerates?Frame speeds apply to film. Resolution and scan rates are used to discuss video signals.  There is no technology today that has developed a multi-system video camera and why would any company spend money on such a unit?  A US-based news organization simply fits the crew with NTSC equipment as would a European company fit its crew with PAL equipment.  NTSC conversions to PAL are poor visual quality because of frequency and bandwidth losses suffered during the conversion process.  PAL - NTSC conversions suffer similar degradations of visual quality. NTSC video is designed to operate using a 60Hz 110V  electric input with a horizontal resolution of 525 lines. But these are old-school standards were made obsolete with the introduction of high definition standards (HD).PAL video was created after NTSC and managed to eliminate color shift at the transmitter.  The NTSC video signal was 'corrected' for hue and saturation at the reciever (TV).  PAL video was designed to operate at 50Hz 220V line voltage and presented a image superior to an NTSC image.Within the NTSC community there was a difference regarding where the audio was carried within the bandwidth.  Japanese NTSC broadcasts and videos would not play on US NTSC video units.There cannot be and probably never be a single global  broadcast broadcast standard because of the different electricity standards.   Multisystem (PAL/NTSC) televisions enable you to plug and play into 110 or 220V power mains to view the local programming. When we discuss 'fps' we are talking about film, not television.  The 24fps standard was adopted for film to include an optical sound track. Hope this adds to the discussion.Now add wide screen video 1800 resolutions to the discussion and allow time for your brain to pop!

Paul Crossgrove

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