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From: "John S. Dyson" <toor@dyson.iquest.net>
Message-Id: <199705060017.TAA25504@dyson.iquest.net>
Subject: Re: And now for something completely different
In-Reply-To: <199705052318.QAA21490@kithrup.com> from Sean Eric Fagan at "May 5, 97 04:18:08 pm"
To: sef@Kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan)
Date: Mon, 5 May 1997 19:17:38 -0500 (EST)
Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG
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> For anyone in britain:  Ch. 4 (whatever that is) is going to be doing
> animated versions of two Terry Pratchett books (_Wyrd Sisters_
> and _Soul Musc_).
> 
> I haven't been able to find out if they will ever be released in
> the US.
> 
> Is there any chance of someone taping them, and transferring them
> from PAL to VHS?
> 
> I know several freebsders who would be interested (myself, obviously,
> and I bet Jordan as well)...
> 
One comment (I am not interested in the show content, but two orthogonal
standards were mentioned.)

VHS -- Somewhat lousy consumer video tape standard.  Its bigger cousin
       S-VHS trades lousy resolution for higher resolution but terrible
       signal to noise ratio (and aliasing due to FM wrap around zero Hz.)
       VHS is used in PAL, NTSC, and SECAM countries.

PAL -- Slightly advanced color standard over the NTSC (US) color standard.
       Provides less sensitivity to phase shifts that cause hue errors
       in video than NTSC color does.  (PAL trades vertical color resolution for
       an improvement in color.)  The video systems that use PAL typically
       have a vertical refresh of 25/50 Hz vs. 30/60 Hz for NTSC.  That,
       with the greater bandwidth allocations given by the countries that
       use PAL, gives PAL a generally sharper picture, with terrible flicker.
       (There are newer TVs in the 50Hz countries that get rid of the flicker
       by refreshing the screen twice as fast -- I see the flicker from
       60Hz TVs and especially computer monitors.)  Used in Germany and
       England.  (Slightly different channel and bandwidth allocations though.)
       (The PAL video from Europe without comb filters looks as good as
       (or better) than NTSC video with comb filters -- except for flicker.)

SECAM -- A very different color standard.  Used in France and Russia.
	The SECAM color signal is very robust, but has more color/luma
       interference.  The SECAM signal is also more difficult to mix, and
       early-on, many studios producing SECAM video used PAL origination
       equipment.  Note that SECAM is so robust that you can almost record
       it on a tape recorder w/o time base correction, and still get color.
       Neither NTSC color or PAL color can make that claim.

So much for the video lesson.

John