Dear All
I have made a RC model aircraft movie.
I would like to try and sell it in America.
Can I convert my Pal version to Ntsc or will I have to recapture it.
Regards Phil Goff.
Convert movie in Pal format to Ntsc can I do it easily?
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lancecarr
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I have to convert PAL to NTSC on a regular basis due to my cam being PAL but I have to send copies of finished DVDs to people in NTSC countries.
Just recently I have gone through a complete series of tests to find a method that will work best. The thing you have to undersatnd is that when converting this way three things need to be handled.
1. The frame rate of the vid has to change from 25fps to 29.97fps so it is important how the program you use pads the frame rate to achieve the higher frames per second.
2. The resolution needs to go from 720x576 to 720x480. This is the easy part and nearly everything I tried can crop the image successfully.
3. The sound track needs to be adjusted in length to match the new frame rate otherwise you get out of sync problems.
There are a number of $30 cheapies on the market that claim to do this and ALL fail hopelessly.
I have tried them all!
The most important point is the frame rate conversion, if this is not done well the result will be jerky video in motion scenes where the subject is moving against an unmoving background. This gets especially bad if the background has vertical lines such as a paling fence.
The one touted as the best solution is Canopus Procoder. I downloaded the free trial and tested using DV Type 1 and 2 codecs from Canopus as well as the MS codecs. Using the Canopus codecs the motion remained reasonably smooth but there was noticable "combing" occurring.
Using the MS codecs the "combing" was less but the vid lost picture quality.
When all of these were rendered to DVD compliant MPEG they were out of sync by the end of the vid indicating that the sound track had not been handled successfully to match the new frame rate of the vid. I used Canopus, Nero and VS to render the avi to MPEG and it was the same with all of them.
Finally I tried a program that was not designed specifically to do this...believe it or not it was my own copy of VS9 however the work flow is important.
I Capture to PAL DV AVI type 1, load the clips into the timeline and do my editing.
When I have finished everything I output to a PAL avi file using the DV Type 1 codec. (ie. Same properties as the capture).
Clear the timeline and start a new project.
I then load that PAL avi file into the new project and go straight to "Share" and create a new video file. I output a new AVI file to NTSC standards being careful to use the DV Type 1 codec, change the resolution to 720x480 and the sound to NTSC DV.
Once I have that NTSC avi file rendered I use it to create a DVD compliant MPEG2 using the highest quality settings I can.
This gives a very high quality conversion and only those scenes with a LOT of camera panning and motion will have the slightest jerkiness in the background motion that YOU may notice but no-one else watching will.
Hope that helps!
Just recently I have gone through a complete series of tests to find a method that will work best. The thing you have to undersatnd is that when converting this way three things need to be handled.
1. The frame rate of the vid has to change from 25fps to 29.97fps so it is important how the program you use pads the frame rate to achieve the higher frames per second.
2. The resolution needs to go from 720x576 to 720x480. This is the easy part and nearly everything I tried can crop the image successfully.
3. The sound track needs to be adjusted in length to match the new frame rate otherwise you get out of sync problems.
There are a number of $30 cheapies on the market that claim to do this and ALL fail hopelessly.
I have tried them all!
The most important point is the frame rate conversion, if this is not done well the result will be jerky video in motion scenes where the subject is moving against an unmoving background. This gets especially bad if the background has vertical lines such as a paling fence.
The one touted as the best solution is Canopus Procoder. I downloaded the free trial and tested using DV Type 1 and 2 codecs from Canopus as well as the MS codecs. Using the Canopus codecs the motion remained reasonably smooth but there was noticable "combing" occurring.
Using the MS codecs the "combing" was less but the vid lost picture quality.
When all of these were rendered to DVD compliant MPEG they were out of sync by the end of the vid indicating that the sound track had not been handled successfully to match the new frame rate of the vid. I used Canopus, Nero and VS to render the avi to MPEG and it was the same with all of them.
Finally I tried a program that was not designed specifically to do this...believe it or not it was my own copy of VS9 however the work flow is important.
I Capture to PAL DV AVI type 1, load the clips into the timeline and do my editing.
When I have finished everything I output to a PAL avi file using the DV Type 1 codec. (ie. Same properties as the capture).
Clear the timeline and start a new project.
I then load that PAL avi file into the new project and go straight to "Share" and create a new video file. I output a new AVI file to NTSC standards being careful to use the DV Type 1 codec, change the resolution to 720x480 and the sound to NTSC DV.
Once I have that NTSC avi file rendered I use it to create a DVD compliant MPEG2 using the highest quality settings I can.
This gives a very high quality conversion and only those scenes with a LOT of camera panning and motion will have the slightest jerkiness in the background motion that YOU may notice but no-one else watching will.
Hope that helps!
Welcome to the forum Phil!
I'd be interested to know the content of your video, and how you shot it!
Hey Lance, your PAL to NTSC workflow sounds just a little convoluted - since you introduce the additional step of making an NTSC AVI file from your project. Did you find that using this gave you better results than just rendering the PAL AVI straight to NTSC mpeg-2?
I also hope that the $30 programs you referred to were available as trials, and that you didn't waste too much money on them!
Now this may not be relevant for Phil, since he's hoping to sell his DVD's, but might be appropriate for you - I've found that most PAL DVD players can play my NTSC DVD's. There were quite a few posts on the topic, with contributions from Trevor Andrew and Ken Berry, amongst others, with direct experience of this. There seems to be anecdotal evidence that the cheaper the DVD player, the more compatible it is with diferent formats. It may well be that the reverse situation is also true - that cheapo NTSC DVD players can play PAL DVD's. You might try checking this out, or other posters may relate their own experiences - and it could save you the bother of converting to NTSC.
The other big difference between the NTSC and PAL formats is that the former only allows a limited palette of colours - hence the warning message you often get when working in NTSC to the effect that a colour filter has been applied to say, a text element. (and the VS9 checkbox for "apply NTSC color filter)
Interesting that Phil wonders if he might have to recapture to NTSC format. I think a greater problem may be that he has to reshoot the source video, since the planes will of course be flying on the wrong side of the sky.....!
I'd be interested to know the content of your video, and how you shot it!
Hey Lance, your PAL to NTSC workflow sounds just a little convoluted - since you introduce the additional step of making an NTSC AVI file from your project. Did you find that using this gave you better results than just rendering the PAL AVI straight to NTSC mpeg-2?
I also hope that the $30 programs you referred to were available as trials, and that you didn't waste too much money on them!
Now this may not be relevant for Phil, since he's hoping to sell his DVD's, but might be appropriate for you - I've found that most PAL DVD players can play my NTSC DVD's. There were quite a few posts on the topic, with contributions from Trevor Andrew and Ken Berry, amongst others, with direct experience of this. There seems to be anecdotal evidence that the cheaper the DVD player, the more compatible it is with diferent formats. It may well be that the reverse situation is also true - that cheapo NTSC DVD players can play PAL DVD's. You might try checking this out, or other posters may relate their own experiences - and it could save you the bother of converting to NTSC.
The other big difference between the NTSC and PAL formats is that the former only allows a limited palette of colours - hence the warning message you often get when working in NTSC to the effect that a colour filter has been applied to say, a text element. (and the VS9 checkbox for "apply NTSC color filter)
Interesting that Phil wonders if he might have to recapture to NTSC format. I think a greater problem may be that he has to reshoot the source video, since the planes will of course be flying on the wrong side of the sky.....!
JVC GR-DV3000u Panasonic FZ8 VS 7SE Basic - X2
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lancecarr
- Advisor
- Posts: 1126
- Joined: Sat Dec 11, 2004 6:34 am
- System_Drive: C
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- processor: 3.20 gigahertz Intel Core i5 650
- ram: 12GB
- Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 5400 Series
- sound_card: ATI High Definition Audio Device
- Hard_Drive_Capacity: 700GB
- Location: Taipei, Taiwan
- Contact:
Hi 2dogs.
In VS and Procoder I tested going from the PAL avi file straight to MPEG2 and that resulted in extreme jerkiness in the final product although both programs kept the sound in sync.
The $30 programs were all free tials!
It is true that these days most PAL players will handle NTSC. Many will do it automatically, some require going into the setup of the player to adjust for NTSC.
However the reverse does not seem to be true to my knowledge. In my case I have a PAL cam and send PAL to family in Australia. However I live in Taiwan which is NTSC territory and I am yet to find an NTSC player that will handle PAL. (Unless I like to watch everyhting in a sort of jumpy flickering black and white kind of way!)
It is a good point that you mentioned the color range difference between the two systems as that is something I forgot to mention in my post. In VS before I do the conversion steps. I go to "File" "Preferences" "Edit" and change the color filter to NTSC. Procoder has a similar function called "Color Safe."
Phil: I too would be interested to know how you shot the original footage because if it was on a PAL cam then re-capturing isn't going to change anything...I don't think.
In VS and Procoder I tested going from the PAL avi file straight to MPEG2 and that resulted in extreme jerkiness in the final product although both programs kept the sound in sync.
The $30 programs were all free tials!
It is true that these days most PAL players will handle NTSC. Many will do it automatically, some require going into the setup of the player to adjust for NTSC.
However the reverse does not seem to be true to my knowledge. In my case I have a PAL cam and send PAL to family in Australia. However I live in Taiwan which is NTSC territory and I am yet to find an NTSC player that will handle PAL. (Unless I like to watch everyhting in a sort of jumpy flickering black and white kind of way!)
It is a good point that you mentioned the color range difference between the two systems as that is something I forgot to mention in my post. In VS before I do the conversion steps. I go to "File" "Preferences" "Edit" and change the color filter to NTSC. Procoder has a similar function called "Color Safe."
Phil: I too would be interested to know how you shot the original footage because if it was on a PAL cam then re-capturing isn't going to change anything...I don't think.
Hi Lance
Well that's good to know. When I made a PAL DVD from NTSC source material a couple of years back with VS7, I noticed some jerkiness and an overall drop in picture quality - maybe that would have been helped by first doing your AVI to AVI thing.lancecarr wrote:In VS and Procoder I tested going from the PAL avi file straight to MPEG2 and that resulted in extreme jerkiness in the final product although both programs kept the sound in sync.
Phew! I hate to think of people paying for stuff like that!The $30 programs were all free tials!
Now I am itching to get my hands on a PAL DVD to check out all my players and friends' and family's too!I am yet to find an NTSC player that will handle PAL
JVC GR-DV3000u Panasonic FZ8 VS 7SE Basic - X2