Hardware FAQ
Questions about anime-related equipment.
Q. What can I do with a PC-TV card?
A You can watch TV (+ Teletext) on your PC screen. This only works properly, in practice, if your PC is fast enough, which generally means a P166 or better, or a Pentium less than 2 years old. If it's on the slow side, it will only work in a tiny window. You also need a high quality aerial; a set-top aerial will NOT work.
The other thing you can do with a PC-TV Card is to capture stills and video clips (and Teletext). For stills, an older Pentium or maybe a 486DX2 will suffice. I recommend the Hauppauge cards and their software; buy anything else and you may well find that it just doesn't work properly. The Hauppauge cards cope with multiple video formats, i.e. PAL, NTSC etc. They cost from about £60 / $90, which is great value.
Q. What is NTSC?
A A TV standard with 525 lines and a frame rate of 60Hz, used in USA and Japan.
Q. What is PAL?
A A TV standard with 625 lines and a frame rate of 50Hz, used in the UK and Europe. PAL is a development of NTSC, with a slightly better resolution and better colour stability when used for broadcasting.
Q. What is SECAM?
A. A TV standard used in France with 625 lines and a frame rate of 50 Hz. SECAM is a development of NTSC and differs from PAL in the method of colour encoding.
Q. What is NICAM?
A. A technique for digital stereo broadcasting, used for TV broadcasting. NICAM VCRs also use a digital audio signal recorded and replayed by helical scan heads to provide hifi stereo. All modern "Stereo", "HiFI Stereo" or "Nicam" VCRs use this technique, but this was not always the case, and tapes exist which were recorded with two linear stereo tracks - definitely not hi-fi!
The digital hi-fi stereo recording system works under both PAL and NTSC and may be found on the more expensive multi-standard VCRs as well as on NTSC-play-on PAL machines (q.v).
Q. How can I play back a NTSC tape?
A. You use a NTSC VCR and a NTSC TV. If you live in the UK, this is really not the answer you want to hear, and in fact much UK market equipment comes equipped to work a clever technical fudge called "NTSC-Play", or "NTSC Play on Pal TV". You need to understand a few things, the first being that it is just a Play fudge, and you cannot use it as a standards converter, or for recording. Essentially, what happens is that part of the NTSC colour information is discarded, and the remainder used to make a replica of a PAL colour signal (4.43 MHz) that the PAL TV circuits will decode. The frame rate remains at 60 Hz, not 50 Hz, but most modern TVs don't mind this, and the height and frame lock are seamlessly adjusted so that you don't notice anything odd. The result is not perfect, but sufficiently good that only the most fanatic viewers will want to invest in a proper NTSC VCR/TV lineup. TV sets that accept a true NTSC (3.58 MHz) colour signal are neither common nor cheap in the UK.
On some VCRs, selection is automatic, while in others you have to set switches.
Q. Can you recommend a good VCR for playing back NTSC tapes (for UK market)?
A. It's not practical to do so; there are dozens of candidates in production, and the manufacturers update their ranges every few months. It's also worth bearing in mind the following: a few years ago, it was possible to buy VCRs on the UK market that would record and play in true NTSC (3.58 MHz) as well as the 4.43 Mhz NTSC - to - PAL fudge. These two versions of NTSC cause immense confusion among "near-expert users", not least because of the amount of automatic switching built into the equipment. Now, a few exotics excepted, the only way you can get the capability to record in true NTSC is to buy one of the "Multistandard" or "Export" VCRs available from London dealers, or track down one of the old Panasonic UK models.
Q. Are there any snags attached to buying a "Multistandard" VCR?
A. Yes. They tend to be a little more expensive, and servicing may be a problem, especially if it turns out to be a "grey import". I tried to get a fault mended in my Sharp do-everything VCR, and the local repairers, after making confident noises, eventually just handed the machine back unrepaired.
Q. What is Laserdisk?
A. This is a quite old technology (as old as VHS tape), very popular in Japan but not much seen elsewhere, where video is recorded in the form of tiny digital pits recorded in a spiral on a large (30cm dia) silvery disc. Originally the sound was analogue, but now the sound is analogue and digital, or digital only, a fact that may cause some vexation to purchasers of laserdisc players. In common with exotic tape formats like Hi-8 and SVHS, the colour is recorded at a high frequency rather than being transformed to a low frequency as in domestic VHS. This accounts for the superior quality of laserdisc (its principal selling point). The sound is two-channel hi-fi stereo. Both PAL and NTSC laserdiscs exist, but as far as anime is concerned, all laserdiscs are NTSC. The players cost from £300 upwards (and if you think that's expensive, I'll remind you of the old saw "If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it").
Q. What is DVD?
A. This is a disk-based system using CD-sized (5 1/4") disks, which is emerging from a clutter of incompatible and confusing standards as a competitor to sell-through VHS tape, and laserdiscs. This is a digital system, using new-generation storage technology to store about 4 gigabytes of data (several times the capacity of a CD-ROM) on a CD-sized disk. Advanced compression technology is also used. In video terms, they play for about 75 minutes, depending on the degree of compression used. Potentially, the quality is said to be much better than laserdisk, in a smaller package, but one suspects that the compression will be set to give VHS-type quality and a longer playing time. The disks already on sale sell at a $2 premium over VHS tapes. It is quite likely that the companies involved will try to use country-specific encoding to stop you playing a Japanese DVD on a machine sold in the UK or US.
Q. What is "Surround Sound"?
A. This is a technology for using multiple speakers to reproduce the effect of ambient sound, usually in conjunction with video. Currently in "Dolby Surround", signals are decoded from two input channels into "left", "right", "Center" (one speaker each) and "Rear" (two speakers, one signal), but this is being replaced by a system using five discrete channels. For best results, it is essential to use a discrete amplifier and five or six special (and fairly expensive) speakers. As for the results, most anime tapes give some sort of surround effect, even when they don't have "surround" on the cassette box. And a few give stunning results that would sell a surround system to anybody. (While not cheap, Surround is well worth having. If you rely on the TV sound, you are not getting full value out of your tapes, and at £12.99 ($20 to $39.95) a tape that soon adds up.
G.Cowie 28.2.98