A Fierce Battle between NTSC and PAL

When you wanna playback video files, you can find the two different options, NTSC and PAL. What are the similarities and differences between the two formats? Which format should you choose for your HD TV? Actually both NTSC and PAL are types of color encoding system that affect the visual quality of content viewed on analog television. Except for NTSC and PAL, there is a third standard as SECAM, which is used in Eastern Europe and France. In order to learn more detail about the two formats, just check more detail from the article now.

Part 1. What are NTSC & PAL formats

NTSC is one of the methods using for encoding color that is used by DVD users. Since color television began to take the place of black and white, some companies in the United States were using a number of different ways to encode color. However, those methods conflicted both with each other and also with the black and white television sets. Sometimes modern television sets do not use the NTSC format any more, the timing and type of signal used carry over, so the format they use is usually called NTSC.

PAL is another color encoding system that is used in DVD player and broadcast television. For NTSC color encoding system may cause the signal lose clarity under poor conditions. In order to solve this problem, PAL video format reverses every second line in the signal, effectively cancelling out errors. Moreover, PAL encoding is often used for over the air broadcasting. What's more, most PAL VCRs and DVD players can play NTSC video, whereas NTSC players generally can't play PAL video.

Part 2. NTSC VS PAL Comparison Chart

As for the major different between NTSC and PAL should be the difference in color encoding. The PAL standard manage color automatically, which use phase alternation of the color signal that removes hue errors. NTSC compared to PAL, has a manual tint control for color correction. That is, if the colors are off-hue, the higher saturation of NTSC system makes them more noticeable and adjustment to be made. For other differences, you can learn more detail from the comparison chart.

	NTSC	PAL
Abbreviation	National Television System Committee	Phase Alternation by Line
Electrical power system	In America and other countries that adopt the NTSC signal, electrical power is generated at 60 hertz. That is to say, NTSC signal is transmitted at 60 'fields' per second (30 images are sent out per second).	In Europe and other countries using the PAL signal, electricity supply is 50Hz, which means the PAL signal is sent out at 50 pulses per second (25 images per second).
Resolution quality	NTSC television contains 525 lines. And NTSC has a higher frame and image sending speed than PAL.	PAL television has 625 lines. Thus, generally speaking, PAL has better picture quality and resolution
Countries	North America, parts of South America, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and South Korea.	Australia, most of Western Europe, China, some parts of Africa, India, and elsewhere.
HDTVs	NTSC refreshes the screen 30 times a second, so it is more stable than PAL.	PAL system refreshes the screen 25 times a second. For some types of content, especially high-resolution images (such as those generated by 3D animation), HDTVs using a PAL system may show a slight "flicker" tendency. And the quality is equal to NTSC.

Part 3. Convert between PAL and NTSC

As you know, PAL and NTSC has some differences in some aspects, they still cause little consequences. However, this does keep European television sets from being functional in the United States and vice versa. That's to say, PAL video or DVD cannot be played on a NTSC system and also NTSC video and DVD cannot be played on a PAL system. Therefore, we should find some method to convert between NTSC and PAL. In order to convert between those two systems, I recommend you to use Tipard Video Converter Ultimate which can help you convert between two formats except NTSC and PAL.

How to convert between PAL and NTSC