As far as I know those PAL standards only relate to the transmitted signal. What's on DV tapes and DVDs is the same.

From memory for example there's PAL Simple which doesn't do the phase alternate line thing, makes for cheaper TVs and is used in some parts of the world.

Edit:

PAL B refers to PAL on VHF channels, PAL G refers to PAL on UHF channels. Down here we have both VHF and UHF channels, hence the PAL B/G notation. The PAL M,N,L are the main variants but relate mostly to things like subcarrier frequencies. At baseband (A/V connections etc) all PAL is compatible.

for more details:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL

i'd be worrying about the accents more than the standards ;-)

as bob pointed out, it's broadcast pal that has differences.

mid pacific accent

Good thought, might need SBS to do some subtitles :)

Farss is correct. PAL and NTSC are braodcast standards, but the terms have been (incorrectly) applied to recording standards.

The difference between PAL versions is the bandwidth, and the audio subcarrier frequency. The colour subcarrier frequency is, if memory serves me right, fixed at approx. 4.43 MHz from the transmitted signal frequency.

In the UK, the bandwidth of the PAL signal is 5.5 MHz, but in other parts of the world it is 5.0 MHz. The only ramification in terms of picture quality is that the horizontal resolution is lower.

In days of yore, if i were to take my UK television to mainland Europe, I would receive only a picture or the sound, not both.

France (and Russia), however, is a different beast. There the transmission standard is SECAM. Still 625 lines, but the colour information is encoded differently.

It is the colour subcarrier frequency that causes the NTSC signal to be broadcast at 29.997 frames per second. to reduce picture interference the subcarrier has to be as high as possible whilst fitting into the bandwidth of the transmitted signal. During testing, engineers found that the only way to get the best quality audio and colour video was to reduce the frame rate marginally.

Worley

For the pedants among you, and remembering that as already stated earlier - the differences in the PAL systems are very much based on their RF properties for transmission over the various analogue mediums available.

When the UK seriously started rolling out DVB-T (DTT) they did in fact adjust PAL-I to become PAL-I1 for over-the-air broadcasting. The two BBC channels and 3 main ITV channels certainly changed over. It is possibly that SixTV (channel 6 in Oxford/Southampton and any stations like them) didn't choose to enforce PAL-I1....

What this did was not to move the relative audio carrier about in any way. However they did overlay PAL B/G's vestigial side band's width from 1.25MHz down to 0.75MHz to reduce the intermodulation between digital TV and analogue.

It is of very little meaning to this thread, to anyone's viewing pleasure or the recorded standard (that doesn't itself carry the same modulation through intact anyway). As mentioned in the papers below, the "PAL B/G VSB filter modification to the original PAL-I system" is supposed to have been essentially transparent to the viewer.

I quote it as it may improve people's perception that Euro PAL B/G and Australian B/G has a good deal of compatibility. It is the audio carrier and NICAM bits that make the difference and that the UK and Australia haven't been particularly embracing of the PALplus enhancement.

http://www.bci.eu.com/library/articles/dtt.pdf
http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp023.shtml

Thanks for that. I never knew there had been a revision to the standard. I haven't watched the terrestrial broadcasts for years, so wouldn't have notice a difference (had there been one).

On a side note, Channel four toyed with PALplus a few years ago, before widescreen was widely introduced. When this happened, everyone in Brookside (soap opera) suddenly had widescreen televisions in their homes!

I've no idea how successful PALplus was. Probably not very.

Worley