G400 TV-Out colors in PAL vs. NTSC

[fberger]

I am converting PAL videos to NTSC and am running into some issues with the color output of my G400. The TV-Out cable is connected to a Hitachi multistandard TV. I can set the TV-Out standard of my G400 to either PAL or NTSC and view the MPEG fine on the TV, however colors change considerably between PAL and NTSC. I am trying to determine if this color change is caused by the G400 or the TV or both.
Do you know what impact the change in standard (PAL vs. NTSC) has on the colors and brightness settings of the G400's TV-Out?

[Debbie]

As far as I know your settings must corispond with the type of movie standards.

If you have a PAL movie then you must set the DualHead settings to PAL.

Same goes for NTSC.

Debbie

[fberger]

Debbie,

The problem is, I have some color adjustments to make to my PAL movies before I render to NTSC. I want to have an accurate preview of the colors on my TV-Out device, and I don't know if the differences I see between NTSC and PAL are caused by the G400, the TV or both. I see that PAL output is less saturated for example. Is that due to the Matrox driver? Do I need to adjust my TV or is it calibrated correctly? The Dual Head DVDMax settings for PAL and NTSC have big differences in saturation, brightness, contrast and hue values, did Matrox make those adjustemnts according to a standard, or is it done just to look good on my system? I am wondering if my videos, when played on a regular DVD player, will have the same types of "adjustments" made to them.

Fred

[dkazaz]

Originally posted by Debbie
As far as I know your settings must corispond with the type of movie standards.

If you have a PAL movie then you must set the DualHead settings to PAL.

Same goes for NTSC.

Debbie

It's true, that's what Matrox say, but I've been outputing PAL movies to NTSC and vixe versa for years now with my G400Max (I have a dual standard TV). The picture quality obviously changes - NTSC has shows some very faint horizontal 'scan lines' - I'm the only one who really spots them, everybody else doesn't seem bothered by them, guess I'm just picky.

fberger, I believe the problem is related to the driver used for NTSC and PAL output - in a very old thread (about 3 years ago) at the Matrox support forums I remember reading complaints about PAL playback and Matrox responded basically saying this was only the case with PAL and not NTSC, so no problem

So in answer to your question, I think at least part of the problem is the card, and possobly part is your TV. Which I realise is not what you want to hear

May I ask why you're transcoding stuff from PAL to NTSC? This kind of procedure almost always degrades the video to some extent. Also PAL is slightly better quality than NTSC (it's closer to the original filming standards).