How to tell a VCD's output is PAL or NTSC?

-- Jeremy Ma (jl3838@hotmail.com), May 18, 2001

Answers

One way is with a multisystem TV. Force the TV "color system" setting to PAL and play known PAL and NTSC VCDs. You see that for NTSC VCDs (352x240 res) the picture will b/w and may be vertically unstable. Same effect on NTSC setting and PAL VCDs. If you set the TV to auto, you get correct playback whichever VCD you insert. There are many variations here. There are 3-color system TVs (PAL/SECAM/NTSC4.43) that will play NTSC VCDs correctly proportioned, but if the VCD player is expectedly outputting a NTSC3.58 signal the colors will be incorrect. There are players and TVs that have an NTSC->PAL option, where the color signal is PAL, but the sync remains 60Hz, which is that of NTSC. Failing all these, you can play your VCD on a PC with at least Windows MediaPlayer 6.4+. In file>properties>video of the avseqxx.dat (or musicxx.dat) tracks if the resolution is 352x288 that's PAL and if 352x240 that's NTSC.

-- Mehmet Tekdemir (turk690@yahoo.com), May 19, 2001.