Announcement

**Kruse** · 29 April 2000, 15:05

Hi Dave.

I don't know much about this myself, but I have the same problem, and I have been told by someone who seemed to know a lot about it, that when you play back an NTSC (e.g. region 1) DVD on a PAL tv, that stuttering is very hard to avoid. It is created when the NTSC framerate is converted to the PAL framerate.

I have had some success myself using a software player using the surface flip mode "Soft-DeInterlace". The Matrox DVD player will do this if you get DVD Genie (www.inmatrix.com). It requires a mighty powerful machine though (my 558 MHz is on the low side).

**Dave Carter** · 30 April 2000, 13:13

Thanks for replying
Ill give it a try
failing that i will buy a desktop player.
Its a lot less hassle.

Dave

**Brian R.** · 30 April 2000, 15:24

Dave - Are you playing region 1 DVDs or PAL DVDs. I thought, by default, that you were playing PAL DVDs. If you are indeed playing NTSC DVDs, you will never get away from this anomaly of skipping frames since NTSC plays at 60 Hz and PAL plays at 50 Hz. Have you tried PAL DVDs?

**Bond** · 2 May 2000, 01:34

Dave Carter!

I use the G400 for displaying DVD's on a LCD projector but became curious about your problem and how different DVD's would look on our Sony Wega Trinitron widescreen TV.
As Kruse and Brian R. already has said, this is caused by different framrates (PAL is 25 fps, NTSC is 24), and refresh rates (50 Hz vs. 60 Hz).
However, most modern TV sets sold in Europe sopports more than just PAL. There is something called PAL 60 wich is a compromise, (25 fps but displayed at 60 Hz). If your TV set is bought within the last 3-4 years it is also likely to support pure NTSC material. If so, then you sould select NTSC in your SW DVD player AND adjust your TV set accordingly, (look in the manual or play around in the TV sets OSD). Just make sure your TV set supports 3.58 MHz NTSC (3.58 MHz is the carrier freq. used in American NTSC, there are other/older iterations of NTSC of wich 4.45 seems to be the one with most support in Europe. I think it is used by some older game consoles.)
If your manual dosen't say anything about NTSC, contacnt your dealer and ask for detailed information or ask for the service manual.

Thank You // Bond

**Damien Green** · 2 May 2000, 06:59

Pal 60 is avalible on the Creative DXR3 decoder card, it does indeed work albeit causing a little bit of flicker on my ageing TV.

BTW Bond, NTSC runs at 30fps not 24 - that's the speed at which Cinema film runs.

The stuttering is caused because when you convert a region 1 disc to PAL, the system has to drop the extra 5 frams per sec somehow. The solution under many DVD players is to simply drop the frames then and there - hence the stuttering, More advanced players such as the Hollywood Plus Hardware Decoder software are more subtle, they still drop frames, but not 5 at once. This makes the video look smoother.

Pal 60 forces your TV to accept a 60HZ input. This allows the full 30FPS (remember that TV is interlaced - so 2 fields = 1 frame) to be displayed on your television. This is in fact the same technique used by Multisystem PAL VC R's when they play NTSC tapes. Unfortunetely, older Televiaions, and cheeper new models don't like PAL-60 very much. In a worse case scenario, you'll get a rolling picture, at second best your picture will flicker.

[This message has been edited by Damien Green (edited 03 May 2000).]

**Bond** · 3 May 2000, 01:34

Damien Green!

I am sorry for not beeing clear enough. I thought we where talking about the source material (=DVD's), PAL DVD's (wich is 25 fps) versus NTSC DVD's (wich is 24 fps).
I'm fully aware of the differences between our TV systems and the many shortcomings of them. That's why i use the PC to generate true progressive scan (= non interlaced) DVD video for my projector @ 72 Hz refresh rate for NTSC DVD's (3*24) and 75 Hz for PAL DVD's (3*25), always @ 960*540. It gives a picture quality WAY SUPERIOR to anything offered by any regular set top DVD player displayed on any front view CRT TV-set! Go out and check the price of a set top DVD player capable of displaying true progressive scan video. There are not many of them around, but i think Sony has released one in the US (lots of $, >> 1k$).

Also:
Your TV set has to support PAL60 to display it correctly. Do not expect your HW to perform correctly if you feed it with something it does not support!

And as always, i recomend those of you interested in Home Theatre to visit http://www.avsforum.com . Most participants deals with systems form 5-10k$ and counting, and many has discovered the advantages offered by SW PC DVD decoding for true progressive scan DVD playback. The searchable arcives should keep you busy for weeks... There are a lot af knowledged people around there.

Some links related to this particular issue, (there are a lot more...):
http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum12/HTML/002010.html
http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum12/HTML/002569.html
http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum12/HTML/002528.html
http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum12/HTML/001581.html
http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum12/HTML/001964.html

And for those of you that still belives in HW decoders:
http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum12/HTML/001661.html

Thank You // Bond

Announcement

DVD TV Out Problem

DVD TV Out Problem

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment