NTSC to PAL

karlconnolly · Post by **karlconnolly** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 7:02 pm

Hello I am completly clueless about the 2 programs i bought from ulead at xmas videostudio and dvd movie factory . I have had very little time with both.
I have a dvd of a tv show i did in Boston and I want to import it and convert it to PAL for people I want to send it to in the UK - will either app do this >?
thanks

Post by **Ron P.** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 7:24 pm

Not very well. To fully understand why, you need to understand the main difference in PAL and NTSC TV standards. First understand that the PAL/NTSC are Television standards. PCs do not apply. So you can burn a DVD using NTSC (in Boston) and play it on a PC in England (PAL). No affect at all.

PAL
1. Frame sizes of 720 x 576
2. Frame Rate of 25 fps

NTSC
1. Frame sizes of 720 x 480
2. Frame Rate of 29.97fps.

So with that said, to convert a PAL video to NTSC, the program needs to create, ie; make up just shy of 5 frames for every second of video, AND decrease each Frame size about 96 pixels on the height.

According to Steve the electricity in your wall outlets, in England pulse at a rate of 50 cycles per second (50Hz) where here in the US (NTSC) it pulses at 60 cycles per second (60Hz).

There are some programs that claim to be able to convert them. How good a job they do is unknown to me.

You could try a free program called DV Date by Paul Glagla. Nice free, very light weight application, that not only will allow seeing the date/timecode and burning to your video, but claims to be able to convert to a few other formats, and the NTSC-PAL conversion is one.

For converting your video from one format to almost any other, try SUPER. It can convert DivX, Xvid or even MPEG4 files.

Finally I will add that several members have posted, many current DVD players can play either NTSC or PAL. In fact they claim for years that the PAL DVD players have been able to play NTSC, and that only within the last year or two, NTSC players have started doing the same.

Trevor Andrew · Post by **Trevor Andrew** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 7:32 pm

Hi

First send the Ntsc version to the UK, it will probably play ok.

2Dogs · Post by **2Dogs** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:38 pm

I also have direct experience of this, since I used to send DVD home movies to relatives in England.

Whilst working in the UK, I went to a local branch of "Dixons" and tried playing my NTSC discs in their DVD players. Just about all of the ones I tried had no problem, and certainly the cheap and compact player I bought for my mum could play them just fine. (she was old, and would only have been confused by a fancier one!)

Funny, it's the way it should be, isn't it, rather than there being artificial and impassable boundaries created.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 1:30 am

I am in the UK and all of my DVD players will play an NTSC DVD.

karlconnolly · Post by **karlconnolly** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 4:37 pm

wow an active board and fulll of great info .
cheers all this exceeded my expectations