Woes of a conspicuous consumer
So I'm trying to shop around for a Pink Floyd DVD, specifically "Live at Pompeii," and I've come to find out that it's only available in a crappy VCD format and -- PAL! No NTSC version is evidently to to be had of this particular item. How bizarre. In the process of educating myself on the distinctions between the two formats and looking for ways to bridge the gap (nothing short of buying a new DVD player, unfortunately), I learned that NTSC displays up to 525 lines of resolution, whereas PAL, which is used almost everywhere else in the world save for the US and Japan (arguably the two most industrialized countries and economies on the planet), displays up to 625 lines of resolution. (A third, SECAM, is used sparingly outside of the US as well.) That means that DVD viewers (those who can afford to watch DVD's) in, say, Iraq, are watching better-quality video than I imagine just about anyone reading this who is an American.