I have a multi-region player, and so I can sometimes pick between an NTSC vs PAL release of the same film.

If for sake of argument we assume the transfer is the same for both, and I don't care about being limited in who else could view it, I'm trying to figure out what would determine my choice for greatest viewing accuracy / pleasure.

It is an oversimplification, but NTSC is something like 720x480, and PAL 720x576, and if each transfer is encoded anamorphically, it would seem that the PAL transfer might give me a higher resolution playback.

I know that the original video source sometimes makes a difference as well, so I want to look at a specific example.

Mad Max 2 - The Road Warrior was produced in Australia. I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that it was probably sourced with PAL equipment.

Is there any way it doesn't look better played back on a PAL player?

And as a general rule: When does 576 vs 480 NOT give you better resolution, forgetting entirely the issue of PAL's more faithful rendering of color.

Opinions appreciated.

Quoting lasitter:

Quote:
It is an oversimplification, but NTSC is something like 720x480, and PAL 720x576, and if each transfer is encoded anamorphically, it would seem that the PAL transfer might give me a higher resolution playback.

It depends what you are playing it back on. What kind of TV and player are you using? If you have an NTSC TV, or if your player is converting PAL to NTSC at some point, PAL won't look any better.

Quote:
I know that the original video source sometimes makes a difference as well, so I want to look at a specific example.

Mad Max 2 - The Road Warrior was produced in Australia. I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that it was probably sourced with PAL equipment.

PAL and NTSC are television standards. Movies aren't sourced with either. Mad Max was made on analog strips of film, which are scanned into a computer and converted to NTSC or PAL. Either way, it has a lot less resolution than the movie originally did.

And as a general rule: When does 576 vs 480 NOT give you better resolution, forgetting entirely the issue of PAL's more faithful rendering of color.

Color is stored the same way for PAL or NTSC DVDs. Broadcast TV in PAL has better color fidelity, but DVD is not dependent on the broadcast standards. It uses the same framerate and resolution as local broadcast TV so it will be compatible with the televisions, but is stored quite differently. This does mean that PAL TVs are easier to calibrate for color, but that's your set. It makes no difference for the DVD itself.

As DJ Doena mentioned, there's also the issue of playback speed. Films are made at 24 frames per second. NTSC runs at 30 frames. Each frame is made of two fields, each containing every other line. NTSC DVD double every-other field to convert the framerate. It's the correct speed, but slightly jerky. PAL is 25 frames per second and just speeds the movie up with no doubling. It's smoother, but shifts pitch up by a semitone. Again, this is comparing an NTSC DVD on an NTSC TV to a PAL DVD on a PAL TV. How it works for you depends on what TV you and player you have.

My advice is just get a Blu-ray player if you have an HD TV. They are five times the resolution of PAL and six time the resolution of NTSC and play everything back at the correct speed.

In my years of experience watching hundreds of DVDs in both PAL and NTSC I have come to the conclusion that there exists no significant difference in image quality between them. If anything NTSC DVDs in general seem to be better mastered (maybe due to less compression since it has fewer lines to render) which can give them a slight edge. But in practice the only thing you might want to consider is the 4% PAL-speedup, if that bothers you.

Quoting KinoNiki:

Quote:
maybe due to less compression since it has fewer lines to render

PAL: 576 lines/picture * 25 pictures/second = 14,400 lines/second
NTSC: 480 lines/picture * 30 pictures/second = 14,400 lines/second

Quoting KinoNiki:

Quote:
Unfortunately the extra space required for PAL transfers to maintain the same quality often go to extra audio and subtitle tracks instead.

I suspected that there might be more data, but was hoping it would be allocated to video. That means in order to reach more people thru audio and subtitle tracks, the additional video information is compressed more.

There's never one right answer in video, is there?

Quoting KinoNiki:

Quote:
Quoting StaNDarD:

Quote:
Quoting KinoNiki:

Quote:
maybe due to less compression since it has fewer lines to render

PAL: 576 lines/picture * 25 pictures/second = 14,400 lines/second
NTSC: 480 lines/picture * 30 pictures/second = 14,400 lines/second

Yes, but that calculation only holds true when the source material is video based. Films are (almost) always sourced from 24 frames per second,

No, the mpeg2 video on a dvd has 25 frames on a PAL DVD and 30 frames on a NTSC DVD. 24 is not a valid framerate for a DVD.
On the other hand the video resolution may vary:

Allowed PAL resolutions for DVD:
720x576x25
704x576x25
352x576x25
352x288x25
352x288x25 MPEG1

Allowed NTSC resolutions:
720x480x30
704x480x30
352x480x30
352x240x30
352x240x30 MPEG-1

I saw a few DVDs with a width of 704pixels but none with a lower resolution.

You may need a little less bitrate at NTSC because of MPEG's motion compression, but I doubt this is enough to mention.

Quoting KinoNiki:

Quote:
Quoting StaNDarD:

Quote:

No, the mpeg2 video on a dvd has 25 frames on a PAL DVD and 30 frames on a NTSC DVD. 24 is not a valid framerate for a DVD.

At playback yes, I'm talking about the actual encoding on the disc. Please try again. Did you even bother to read the DVD FAQ? 

Believe me I encoded and mastered quiet a few PAL DVDs - you need 25 frames to do it. Before encoding the video has to be converted to the correct framerate.

The 24fps you're talking about is only valid on Blu-rays.

Hm, maybe you're right on NTSC-DVDs... But the few NTSC-discs I've seen have all been in 30fps.

Quoting StaNDarD:

Quote:

Hm, maybe you're right on NTSC-DVDs... But the few NTSC-discs I've seen have all been in 30fps.

There are certainly discs out there that has been sourced from old broadcast masters that may already have been converted to 25 or 30 frames per second before encoding. Even on blu-ray there are some of those 25 fps broadcast transfers with PAL-speedup, but all those discs are in 1080i and not progressive. Maybe this is more common for PAL discs (maybe another reason to avoid them?) but it's still not the best way to go about it.