OFF: Converting vid formats

[Duane Hoyt]

Duane 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.

And Paul kindly replied;

>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).
The sound is o.k., you can kinda tell it's Dave & Co., maybe they all borrowed
Nik's paint as Keith alluded to :-)

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

That's what I was afraid of.  I was told this tape was a rarity, but as
a fledgling collector, I don't quite know what is rare and what is not.
Even a common HW item could be considered a bit of a rarity outside the
circles of HW collectors.
I would assume there is no way to digitally restore the picture, or if
there is, it would not be cost-effective.
>
>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? ;-)
>
I checked the gigslist that was posted awhile back, and there is a show
on video that might match up to this as it cites a rehersal on the tape.
I can't access that list at the moment, so I can't say for sure which one it
was.

Thanks,

Duane