Authoring a DVD from PAL wmv files - no audio, poor video

Toby · Post by **Toby** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 11:49 pm

I have used Ulead MovieFactory to very successfully create several NTSC DVDs. However, now I cannot create a PAL DVD.

I captured from a PAL analog tape to avi using VirtualDub, and edited in Windows Movie Maker. I used VirtualDub to avoid the common audio sync problems of capturing using a graphics card and sound card rather than a proper converter.

At this stage, watching the resultant wmv files on my computer, the audio and video quality are fine.

Authoring a DVD, the menu comes out perfectly, with audio, but the videos have no audio and the video is fuzzy when moving (the first time, I accidently burned it in NTSC format, and the video was very, very fuzzy when moving, when I burn it as PAL, it's not as bad, but still poor).

Now, from reading these forums, the problem lies in Ulead converting the wmv to mpeg2 - which appears to have problems with PAL audio (and perhaps its not handling the framerate or fields or something quite so well???)

So my question to others is, what should I do? I'm lost for ideas. Should I use a third party program to encode the wmv to mpeg2? (please, only freeware ... I can't afford to pay for another program)

Thank you for any help you can give me.

ploggy · Post by **ploggy** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 5:45 am

what are the properties of your WMV files?

Toby · Post by **Toby** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 10:05 am

Thanks for posting ploggy.

Here's the info WMP will give me:

Bitrate: 864Kbps

Size: 640x480

Audio codec: Windows Media Audio 9.1, 96kbps,44 Khz, stereo (A/V) 1-pass CBR

Video codec: Windows Media Video 9

Thanks.

skier-hughes · Post by **skier-hughes** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 6:00 pm

Why did you save as wmv? It would be best to continue using dv-avi, save from MM to dv-avi, see Here if you don't know how. Import this into movie factory and then burn your pal dvd.
What are you watching your pal dvd on anyway? If you are in ntsc land and don't have a proper PAL tv then it will not appear to be as good a quality as it actually is.

Toby · Post by **Toby** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 7:07 am

Thanks skier-hughes,

Grrrr, I hadn't found that little option tucked away there. I assumed you could only save it to wmv.

I'll try re-encoding them as dv-avi and see how that goes.

Just to clarify: The first few videos I worked with were shot on a Japanese NTSC DV camera. I live in Australia (i.e. PAL-land), but since all modern DVD players have no trouble playing NTSC, I didn't convert it to PAL. The current videos I'm working on are captured from analogue PAL video tapes.

Thanks again for your help,

Toby.

ploggy · Post by **ploggy** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 6:15 am

just make sure the program is set to PAL if your burning PAL DVds in the Preferences.

MovieFactory cannot convert NTSC videos to PAL dvds correctly. Especially if your NTSC video is DVD compliant, DMF will skip reencoding it and remux it to PAL format causing playback problems.

Toby · Post by **Toby** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 9:53 pm

Thanks to both of you.

It appears there's something very wrong with the captured video. Windows Movie Maker turns it to rubbish whether its set to NTSC or PAL. Strangely, NTSC comes out better than PAL, even though there's no doubt it's a PAL video cassette.

I'm going to have another shot at recapturing it, making sure everything is set to PAL from the start, and if that doesn't work, I'm going to resort to paying someone else to do it.

Thanks again for your help.