I need some help from the professionals on this board. As I read the multitude of reviews on movies, there are comments regarding the DVD transfer and how well its done or how well its not done. Phrases such as ghosting, clear PAL to NTSC port (bad I assume), edge enhancement, compressions artifacts, ... etc are used.

Can someone in the know, explain what these term clearly mean. I would sure appreciate it.

Thanks.

I am no expert, but I will try to help you out a little.

Ghosting: Kinda like an echo, but it is a video signal. You know when you are on a cell phone and you hear some things twice? That is because the tower that is broadcasting your cellphone signal is broadcasting it in all directions, not just right at you. It wouldn't know how to aim. So, when you go into an area that bounces that signal, you hear what you where supposed to hear and you hear the 'echo' of the bouncing of your signal. Same thing with Video, you get an image super-imposed on the image you want to see.

clear PAL to NTSC port: In different parts of the world, people use different kinds of equipment to watch DVDs. In the UK, for example, they use PAL system. The DVDs are the same, but the players operate differently. Also, we use NTSC in region 1, which is the basically North America. PAL is used through out the world, in all different regions. this means that the DVD suffered in quality because it was a PAL produced film that was re-coded for viewing in NTSC.

edge enhancement: Edge enhancement is a digital image processing filter that improves the apparent sharpness of the video. The creation of bright and dark highlights on either side of any line leaves the line looking more contrasted from a distance. Standard television sets' "sharpness" control is an example of edge enhancement. It is also widely used in computer printers especially for font or/and graphics to get a better printing quality.

In reality, edge enhancement only increases the perceived sharpness. It actually makes the picture LESS detailed because fine details are covered by the resulting "halo" artifacts. As such, purists swear off the filter as something that ruins a picture and only makes it look more appealing on low-end displays. (verbatim from Wiki)

compression artifacts: These are parts of a digital video that shouldn't be there. They are produced from editing and authoring that video digitally. If you shrink a video to a smaller size, the quality suffers and compression artifacts are the result.

Edge enhancement is a digital process used in an attempt to make a picture "sharper", but resulting in what looks like halos around objects.

PAL-NTSC, PAL is the British TV standard at 25 frames per second and NTSC is the North American standard at 30 frames per second. Since film is made at 24 frames per second, to make it NTSC, frames and parts of frames are duplicated to make 30. To make a film PAL, they'll often just increase it so it runs at 25 frames per second, which makes the film run 4% faster than it should. Sometimes studios take a transfer that's gone from 24 fps to 25 fps, and try to make it 30 fps, and it affects the image quality.

Compression artifact - the most common is when you see blocks in fast moving or dark scenes on a DVD where the compression program couldn't handle the image.

you may want to check out the "release topics, ... newcomer help" that's stickied at the top of this forum. looking at it, some of what you're looking for isn't on the sticky i think, so it may be good to post something there too and maybe get a few new things into the sticky

Perhaps there could be a DVDTalk wiki / glossary for this sort of thing.

Michael's short notes are always helpful:

Edge enhacement:
http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Article...hancement.html

Artefacts:
http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Article...Artefacts.html

PAL vs. NTSC
http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Article.../PALvsNTSC.asp

Aliasing
http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Article...sAliasing.html

Macro-Blocking
http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Article...oBlocking.html

Telecine Wobble
http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Article...ineWobble.html

Ciao,
Pro-B

As always, "Google" is the first term any newbie needs to learn.