The PAL (Phase Alternating Line) TV standard was introduced in the early 1960's in Europe. It has betterResolution thanNTSC, having 576 lines in theActive Area of theFrame. TheFramerate, however, is slightly lower at 25fps.

The term PAL may also be used to describe any video, including digital video, formatted for playback on a PAL TV. This generally includes anyStandard Definition (SD) video with a verticalResolution of up to 576Pixels and a horizontal resolution no greater than 720, which also has aFramerate of 25fps. PAL may also be called625/50, in reference to the total number of lines (including lines not in theActive Area) andfieldrate.

Geography
PAL is used in most of the western European countries (except France), Australia, some countries of Africa, some countries of South America and in some Asian countries. Because the PAL signal is very close to theSECAM format used in France and some eastern European countries,SECAM viewers generally use PAL equipment (likeDVD players) modified to convert the output to use SECAM's unique color encoding.

Flavors of PAL
There are various versions of PAL, most commonly used method is called PAL B/G, but others include PAL I (used in the UK and in Ireland) and PAL M (a hybrid standard, which has the same resolution asNTSC has, but uses PAL transmission and color coding technology). All of these standards normally work nicely together, but audio frequencies might vary and therefore you should check that your appliances work in the country you're planning to use them (older PAL B/G TVs can'tDecode UK's PAL I audio transmissions even that the picture works nicely).

Capture Resolution
According to theITU-R BT.601 (Rec.601) standard for capturing analog video, the correct resolution is 720x576, with theActive Area (the area containing the actual picture) represented by the center 702 horizontalPixels. SomeCapture cards will use 720 pixels for the active area instead. The two lines below show the slight difference between using the full 720 pixels versus only using the center 702.


Standard Digital PAL Formats
Various consumer digital video formats have standards designed to work with PAL TVs. These includeVCD,SVCD,DVD, andDV. Below is a table showing the standard resolutions for each format. In the case ofDV, theFull Frame represents the Active Area of theFrame, meaning you may need to resize and add borders to the sides when converting to other formats likeMPEG-2 for DVD. DVD players may also implement the digital to analog conversion improperly, resulting in theFull Frame being squeezed into the analog video's Active Area.

Analog Video
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500 MCE Asus My Cinema P7131 Dual Pinnacle MediaCenter 300i
Video Capture Cards with Analog Video Inputs

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