FPS, or Frames Per Second, is a count of how many frames a movie displays per each and every second. A frame is a still, visible image. Showing these frames in succession creates the illusion of a motion picture. Different content has different numbers of FPS. The different FPS counts can be classified by the part of the world the DVD is from, the way the content was recorded, or the way the DVD was mastered.

Setting FPS in KVideoPod Pro

In the main window, on the Video tab, there is a pop-up menu labeled "Framerate (fps)". It lets you select the frame speed you desire.

PAL vs. NTSC

If you have ever purchased a DVD in Europe and not been able to play it in America, even on a region-free DVD player, you know what this section is about.

"NTSC" stands for National Television Standards Committee. NTSC DVDs are sold in the United States and other countries it deals closely with (Canada, Mexico, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, etc).

"PAL" stands for Phase Alternating Line. PAL DVDs are sold in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, much of the rest of Europe, much of South America, Australia, China, India, Pakistan, and large parts of Africa.

PAL and NTSC are really competing television standards. A "PAL DVD" or an "NTSC DVD" is just a DVD designed to play back on a TV adhering to either of those standards. So be careful googling--you will find much info that is not relevant to DVDs.

The big difference is that PAL DVDs are encoded at 25fps, while NTSC DVDs are encoded at 30fps. Also, PAL DVD frames are larger: 720*576 as opposed to 720*480 for NTSC.

If you use both PAL and NTSC DVDs, you want to use the "Same as source" selection from the "Framerate (fps)" pop-up menu. This will autodetect which format the DVD uses.

But wait...NTSC DVDs are 30fps? Aren't movies 24fps? How does that work?

24fps or 23.976? 30fps or 29.976?

Throughout this guide, I've used 24fps for NTSC film and 30fps for NTSC video. This is because it's simpler and takes less time to write. However, it's not really precise.

Back in the day, NTSC TV video was indeed 30fps. However, video hasn't "really" been 30fps since color TV broadcasts started. Before them it was 30000 frames for every 1000 seconds. But to accommodate the extra color information, the rate was very slightly dropped by stretching the frames to cover an extra second for every 1000 seconds, making it 30000/1001.

30fps == 30000/1001 == 29.97fps

24fps == 24000/1001 == 23.976fps

Use the more precise decimal form when you're telling KVideoPod Pro or any other piece of software what to do.