OFF: Converting vid formats

[Paul Mather]

On Sun, 21 Jul 1996, Duane Hoyt asks:

> I often see mention of problems between different vid formats, NTSC?,
> and such.  I am not very knowledgable about this stuff. What I would like to
> know is, what would a vid look like in the US if it were not in the correct
> format?  I recieved a vid in trade that when I played, everyone looked silver.
> You could tell it was HW, and it began with a rehersal, and then it switched
> to an outdoor stage, and the band was having some sort of "best tits" or
> wet t-shirt contest. I couldn't tell what exactly cause everyone was fuzzy and
> silver. Is this a very very old, badly recorded tape or is it in the wrong
> format?  Hopefully it is the latter and I can have it switched.

I don't think you'd get any recognisable picture showing a PAL/SECAM video
on an NTSC TV.  I can't see how you'd get any sync.  For one, the two
systems have differing frame rates (30 fps NTSC vs 25 fps PAL), and
differing numbers of lines per frame (480(?) NTSC vs 525 PAL).  In
addition, PAL and NTSC encode chrominance and luminance with differing
amounts of bandwidth (PAL gives more bandwith to luminance than NTSC does,
and this is why you get a much better picture with PAL/SECAM compared to
NTSC, because the human eye is more sensitive to luminance than
chrominance).

I think you just have a poor 2^Nth generation copy, alas.

As for identifying the material, I'm afraid I can't help you there.  The
wet t-shirt contest + outdoor gig suggests a biker festival to me; is it
the Bristol Custom Bike Show? ;-)

Cheers,

Paul.

e-mail: paul at csgrad.cs.vt.edu                    A stranger in a strange land.