Question on conversion of PAL DVD to NTSC DVD

[Don Smith]

I have a client who is planning on showing several movies on leased
access cable TV here. He gave me DVD's of the movies, which I captured
and discovered that that the compression is: PAL DVD, Lower Field
First, 8700 kbps. When I checked the clip properties further is says
Format: 24 bits, (720 x 576) 4:3, Frame rate: 25,000 frames/sec, Dolby
Digital Audio. He wants me to make a DVD to show on cable TV including
sections of this (and other PAL DVD's)along with some advertisements
(taken from NTSC VHS) and other material that I would edit and add
(image files with titles, etc). Interestly, the PAL DVD's play just
fine on all my players here. So can I just edit everything on a
timeline and convert to a standard NTSC MPEG 2 and have
everything play fine without a loss of quality? What should I know about this?
I've never dealt with anything other than NTSC before.

[Devil]

If you convert MPEG-2 files, there will be a definite deterioration of quality because it must be rerendered fro frame 1 to frame nnn,nnn. If you can't get hold of the original AVIs, then be resigned to the fact.

If I were you, I'd import the captured MPEG-2 into a PAL project setting with (preferably) no compression (or minimal) and render into a new reference file. Then render this file as NTSC, same settings other than dictated by the standard, and encode this file into MPEG-2 for making a DVD. Despite the four stages, this should give much better quality than a single MPEG>MPEG re-encoding.

[Don Smith]

Thanks for your reply, Devil. Since I had a real tight deadline on this, I just edited everything (parts of several PAL DVD's, type 1 DV, images and text) on the timeline and rendered a standard NTSC MPEG 2 file. It looks pretty good with the exception that some of the titles seemed to flicker a little bit. However, I have to make several more of these and would like to get a better quality and want to try what you suggested (since I can't get the original AVI's- I'm stuck with the PAL DVD's to work with).

I'm not real clear on how I would go about what you suggested. Do I start with a DVD-PAL template (shows the same properties as the PAL DVD), then drop the PAL-DVD file on the timeline. How do I do this with no or minimal compression? All I have is the PAL DVD file I ripped from the DVD. Then just render new (un-compressed) file to NTSC DV (Microsoft AVI files) and use that for my editing and then render the edited file to MPEG 2?

Thanks in advance!

[Devil]

Assuming MSP8, use the Capture module to convert the DVD to MPEG-2 (PAL, 720x576, 25 fps). Set your VE project settings to PAL uncompressed or (if you're in a hurry) DV type 1, edit and Create a file in this format. New VE project: NTSC, the same as the last except for the standard, Create a new file and then encode to MPEG-2 NTSC for your new DVD.

I would expect titles, as much as anything, to be dodgy.