You may be familiar with the terms NTSC (National Television System Committee), PAL (Phase Alternating Line) and SECAM (“Séquentiel couleur à mémoire,” which is French for “Sequential Color with Memory.”) 

They are the three main broadcast standards in the world, and the broadcast telelvision signals of a particular country are one of the three (some countries do have two). 

For a complete list of the standards in the world, check out http://www.sivideo.com/9stand.htm

We here in the USA are NTSC, while most of Europe is PAL.  France and a number of countries in Asia are SECAM.  

PAL and SECAM are quite similar, and since the requests for our making SECAM dubs is very rare here at Video Labs, I’ll confine my comments in this article to NTSC vs. PAL.

In Standard Definition video, the color and brightness information is carried via analog information, in otherwords, by fluctuations of voltage.  In the HD world, that information is determined digitally, in other words, by fluctuations of good ‘ole digital 0′s and 1′s.

But one difference between PAL and NTSC is the same in both standard definition and high definition television –frame rate.

And those frame rate differences go back to the differences in electrical cycles in the world.  For example, the electricity here in the USA is 60 cycles/sec.  And if you have traveled to Europe, you know that you cannot plug in your electrical device from here without a converter.  That’s because the electricity there is 50 cycles/sec.

You can see then why there are 60 frames of video per second in the USA’s NTSC televison signal and 50 frames per second in the PAL system. 

So, getting those good ‘ole British TV shows to play here in the US, and ours to play over there, requires a conversion process — otherwise known as ”standards conversion.”

We here at Video Labs have a various equipment to convert programs recorded in one standard to the other. 

A main challenge in standards conversion is combating ”judder.”  Think of it as a combination of the words “jitter” and “shudder.”  You probably have seen the artificat sometime when watching a program from Europe played here in the States.  It is most noticeable when there is a horizontal movement or the camera pans.  I personally have noticed it being most pronounced in scenes where people are crossing the street and the camera pans.  The result is an awkward gait in the folks.

Video Labs is one of the few places around that has the Snell & Wilcox Alchemist Ph.C, which is the recognized leading device in minimizing “judder.”

The secret is in the “Ph.C,” which stands for phase correlation.  It uses an algorithm process to best deal with the frame conversions.  Check out this link for more: (once there, hit Ctrl + F and enter “phase correlation”) http://tinyurl.com/cyutd

Now, full disclosure here — the Alchemist Ph.C we have is for Standard Definition only.  For converting HD tapes, we have both HDCAM and DVCproHD decks that can playback and record both 60i and 50i (remember from above, 60 = NTSC and 50 = PAL . . . the “i” refers to “interlaced” vs. “progressive” — but that’s another article).  We use our Final Cut Pro with its Kona card as a “conversion interface,” if you will, in that process.

I’ve just touched the surface of standards conversion, but be assured, the Video Labs team and I can get you where you need to be if you have project requiring that service.  Just give me a call at 301-217-0000 x104 or write me at dryan@videolabs.net

Curious about standard definition “anamorphic”? Read Chris Vazquez’ article: http://tinyurl.com/59jtfd