Installed as PAL - Rendering to NTSC for specific projects

[Davidk]

I have a student who came to Australia years ago, now lives here, and is learning making movies with VS in my class. She wants to send some back to the US, where it seems a DVD in a player is the way to go. More modern stuff like using dropbox isn't on this radar. And that means a DVD formatted for NTSC.

The VS installation is X9, for Australia (ergo, PAL). Only some of her project are intended for the US, so my question is how to (at the share level) render a project with PAL preferences into an NTSC format for the final output? Once the file is rendered in NTSC it can be imported to the disc burn module as that format.

[lata]

Hi David

Create your own Share MPEG2 template either from Share – Mpeg2 – “+” to create a new template using NTSC settings
Or
Settings – Movie Profile Manager – Mpeg2 – New again choosing NTSC from the Compression tab Media Type.

Rendering or converting Pal video to Ntsc will add frames to the video to increase the frame rate from 25 to 29.97, that may be noticeable during playback, a bit of a stutter especially when panning.

Certainly here in the UK we can play NTSC without problems, It is of course possible that the US DVD Player will support Pal video, but from what I understand that is a problem, however maybe worth sending a Pal version just to try.

Post updated

If your student lived in US then I assume the Camcorder used to record video is a US version
Then the original video is NTSC, there should be no problems rendering the video.

David does NTSC video play in AU using your DVD Players?

[Ron P.]

Hi David,
She should be able to change the settings in the Properties for MPEG-2. Just click on the Plus(+} to access it. There should be a drop-down menu to change it from PAL to NTSC, just the same as what I'm showing here, to change mine from NTSC to PAL. She first needs to go to the Compression tab, where the drop-down menu is found, change that to NTSC. Then go back to the General tab, and she should see the correct Frame size and Frame Rate are displayed.

Well I see Trevor beat me to it.. I'll leave mine though.

Also DVD's aren't really the way to go, here in the US. In fact it is getting more and more difficult to find good DVD/BluRay burners and players. The current trend is using flash media, like thumb drives, EHD, Drop-box, OneDrive, YouTube, FaceBook, especially for photos. She could very easily upload her video to YouTube or FaceBook, using MP4 and share that with her family and friends back here. The US is not that far behind the tech-curve. In fact a lot of the "pro"s have long forgot about DVDs. I'll also add that unless the recipients only have access to a DVD player, then there's also the possibility of them having a smart TV, or some other means to view internet sites over their televisions, if not via a connection to a computer. The recipients may be like me, have a slow internet, living in a rural area, limiting high def video streaming. Most of the metro areas all have very high-speed internet, where they can stream/view 4k video without problems.

[asik1]

another way is the XVID way, I believe any DVD player in the last decade will play XVID SD file also.
Unless you want the crap menu/chapter thing.

[Davidk]

Hi Trevor, Ron,
Thanks for the feedback.
Student came to oz young and has a grown family here. I doubt that camcorders as we now know them even existed when she lived in the USA.
As to reading NTSC in oz - usually it's a case of the player (thinking, the player attached to TV or monitor here, not the PC) being able to play an all regions disk, which VS does create. Given that, most that I've had experience with do play NTSC. I haven't noticed any stuttering, but the resolution difference between NTSC and PAL is noticeable (which after all is one of 2 reasons - the other being colour stability - why PAL was invented).
The suggestions re uploads etc are (in more details) what I initially suggested, but the response was the DVD preference I originally mentioned.

[skier-hughes]

I haven't noticed any stuttering, but the resolution difference between NTSC and PAL is noticeable (which after all is one of 2 reasons - the other being colour stability - why PAL was invented).
The suggestions re uploads etc are (in more details) what I initially suggested, but the response was the DVD preference I originally mentioned.

VS does not do a proper conversion of PAL to NTSC. It will change the frame rate and the physical size, but it makes no change to many other factors including how the colour is carried black burst etc. It is enough to get a player to play a dvd and then it's down to you if the quality is good enough. If not, investing a few hundred dollars in a proper standards convertor would make quality better.................. that's then the quality v cost equation.