NTSC and PAL60

[lostn]

Everyone says NTSC's color is far inferior to PAL, but does this hold true for video games, since they were designed to run on NTSC in the first place?

Reason I ask is because I did a bit of comparisson with Jak and Daxter 1 PAL version. That game allowed you to switch between PAL and NTSC in the menu, instead of right at the beginning when the game boots. With that I was able to see the difference in color, and NTSC's colors was much more saturated and it seemed richer than the PAL.

Between NTSC and PAL60, the only difference should be the color right? So for gaming, which has better color?

[Kyro]

nope Pal 60 is 576 scan lines at 60hz, NTSC is 480 scan lines

[xtremeboat]

Through an RGB SCART they should look pretty much the same

[Yoshimoto]

Theres never been anything wrong with NTSC as a video signal.

Its broadcast NTSC thats dodgy. That where the "joke" of Never The Same Color comes from.

[HHarm]

nope Pal 60 is 576 scan lines at 60hz, NTSC is 480 scan lines

Unless I'm completely misinformed PAL60 has the same amount of lines as NTSC. Google for confirmation.

[MD]

Right... technical stuff so get the coffee out.

Picture is made from Luminance (Y) and Chrominance (C), Chrominace is made of the colour difference signals (U and V), the being the subtraction of the Red and Blue signals from the luminace. Green is worked out from these signals.

NTSC is 525 lines (about 483 visable lines) at 59.94 (the weird frame rate is to do with the colour carrier) frames a second. However the screen is interlaced (draws every other line then the next frame draws in the lines it missed and repeats) so you only get 29.97 frames. Horizontal scan rate is 15.73425Khz (59.94x525/2)

PAL is 625 lines (about 576 visable lines) at 50 frames a second (25 frames interlaced). Horizontal scan rate is 15.625Khz (50x625/2). Notice the similar HSR, this is intentional as it means that tubes designed for NTSC will work for PAL. If PAL was 60Hz and 625 lines it would require a much higher scan rate and the monitors wouldn't be compatable...

So the differences?

The gaps between the lines in NTSC is more visable so the picture looks darker...

NTSC also uses a low frequency colour carrier (3.58Mhz) which means that noise from the Luminance signal is likely to creep in.

NTSC also has poor colour hues due to the low frequency colour carrier and slight phase shifts of the U and V signals. This is why NTSC TVs (and if you look at the on screen menu a new option will appear...) have a tint control so you can adjust the green level.

PAL alternates the Phase in each frame so that phase shifts don't happen as much so green is er green.

Some NTSC curcuits will have a Hue compensator circuit which tries to make reds and pinks better however some other colours go slightly off (cyans and magentas...)

NTSC has a lower Gamma then PAL, so it does appear slightly darker.

PAL flickers due to the 4.97 Frame difference

PAL 60 is 525 Lines at 60Hz (horizontal scanning frequency 15.625KHz), it's not 625 lines (or 576 lines) as this would require the horizontal scanning frequency to be higher (18.73125Khz...). PAL 60 is technically PAL 59.94... but that doesn't trip off the tongue.

NTSC is inferior to PAL in terms of resolution and hue handling, but better circuit design has meant that the difference aren't as bad as they were in the 70s and 80s. Although whack up a test card on both and you'll soon see the differences...

[lostn]

Since PAL60 has the same number of lines as NTSC (and thus wide gaps between each line), will it also appear darker than PAL50?

All of this stuff you mentioned... is that for TV broadcasts only, or everything NTSC?

If the framerate is only 30 fps, how come games claim to run at 60 fps?