I'm back. I'm guessing at least a few of you are glad. I've ascertained many of you are confused. But it's my birthday so I'm feeling forgiving and happy and stuff. I'd be feeling more happy if I could find someone who converts videotapes and could convince them, yes, this is fair use, because it's rather hard to watch PAL videos on an NTSC player. And I'm sounding nerdy here. But sometimes I hate to be an American. BLAH!
Dagny
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/9441/
"This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper." -T.S. Eliot
And vice versa! My VCR claims to offer NTSC to PAL conversion; my TV doesn't seem to believe it, as I discovered when I tried to play "Daria: Disenfranchised." Fortunately, the video presenter in the meeting room is one of those things with TV and VCR in one unattractive unit, and it successfully plays NTSC. It may be mono, and have a 14" screen, but it's better then RealVideo!
Having now seen an NTSC video, being accustomed to PAL, I can understand that. It's not that NTSC video is appalling, but it's like listening to a good quality portable FM radio when you've been used to a good quality hi-fi system with a good external aerial. It doesn't suck, but you just know it can be significantly better than this.
Good luck in your quest to get the tapes converted.
What these VCRs actually do is put out a hybrid signal, possibly PAL-60, ie. PAL format but at the NTSC frame rate. Only newer tv sets have the multisync capabilities to deal with such signals. Also, this means you can't use the facility to convert NTSC to PAL tapes by hooking two machines together, as a PAL VCR won't understand the pseudo-PAL output of the source machine. For real standards conversion you need expensive gear. There are places which will convert your tapes for you, but it will almost certainly cost more than the original videotape did.
One interesting possibility is to use a computer with a video capture card and simply get someone with an NTSC VCR to convert the tape to MPEG format and put it on a CD-ROM for you. The same would also apply for conversion in the opposite direction. The snag is that yer typical MPEG is lousy quality - for good quality you'd need expensive MPEG-2 capture card. There's a reasonably priced ATI card which can create MPEG-2 videos, but the snag is it needs a pentium III machine to achieve full quality.
Damn, this is getting geeky :) of course no one bothers about the whole converting-PAL-to-NTSC thing becaus America likes to pretend other countries don't exist, but I did get someone to do conversion for me! And there was much rejoicing.
Dagny
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/9441/
"This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper." -T.S. Eliot
That certainly would explain it, since I did get a colour picture: well, actually three or four of them superimposed out of sync. Like a maladjusted vertical hold.
Bummer that I sold my own TV before coming here, since there was already one on site, and I thought the money would be more use than a second TV. It was the best of those a rental firm were selling off about a year ago, and I'm pretty sure it had multisync capabilities. <sigh>
Thanks for the info, Shez. I've learned something.
"Man, as we know him, is a poor creature; but he is halfway between an ape and a god and he is travelling in the right direction." (Dean William R. Inge)
<singing> happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday to dagny happy birthday to you! </singing> glad you're back. :) errr so i guess singing at you isn't the best "welcome back".. lol.
Yeah!!!!! Dagny's back! She's in the shack! (sorry I'm just real happy) *happy dancing across the room* I hate it when people fight in such a peaceful atmosphere...well that's nice. *yawn*
"Man, as we know him, is a poor creature; but he is halfway between an ape and a god and he is travelling in the right direction." (Dean William R. Inge)
There are VCRs that are available that can do what you wish to do, but they usually cost about $350+, which I'm guessing is probably enough to make it not worth it. Of course, you can always check places like B&H Photo Video in NYC-- they carry a lot of used equipment, and I can vouch that they're good guys to deal with-- I've bought camera stuff and video stuff from them before. Here's their URL:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/
rich
"How can we be lying if we're on television?" -- Olly.
well said dagny. now if only i could convince some of your compatriots to feel the same way, the world would be a much better place. i'm just kidding - the world needs america ... as a place to keep all the americans.