• Avid Media Composer

  mixed format PAL and NTSC

  Posted by Luke David on July 30, 2009 at 11:56 am

  hi all, I am about to start a documentary edit and there are about 200 hours of PAL dv cam material. We also just shot a bunch of HD interviews (NTSC) and the film will rely heavily on archival material which will all be NTSC, either SD or HD (mostly SD I am guessing). Because there is so much PAL material, I am inclined to edit in PAL and covert the other/newer stuff. But here’s the rub, the director anticipates that this material will only cover about 15% of the film give or take. Also, the PAL material is all already digitized at DV 25 in it’s original PAL frame rate. What would you make the sequence and how would you deal with the material that is not native to that sequence? Thanks, any and all suggestions are welcome.

  Luke David replied 16 years, 9 months ago 4 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Grinner Hester

  July 30, 2009 at 3:26 pm

  I’d have the local dub house make one format per the director’s request then I’d give him a little grief for confusing the issue and multiplying his budget by shooting a wach combo of footage.
  do that toward the end though.

  
• 

  Kris Anderson

  August 2, 2009 at 6:34 am

  I’d find another gig, quickly. If the production doesn’t know (or care about) the difference between NTSC and PAL there are greater issues here and, odds on, you’re going to be the one who cops all the grief when the fit hits the shan.
• 

  David Keslick

  August 6, 2009 at 8:32 pm

  You may want to convert all your pal footage to ntsc footage using DVFilm Atlantis and then edit the entire thing as ntsc.

  Dave
  DVFilm.com

  Dave Keslick
  DVFilm.com
• 

  Luke David

  August 10, 2009 at 2:05 pm

  thanks for the conversion suggestion. The director inherited the project as is so not really her fault although I would be inclined to agree with distributing a healthy amount of grief for the mixed format. Because there is so much PAL, I want to go that route, but have heard bad things about going in that direction and that NTSC to PAL looks worse than the other way around. Also, running away is not an option and I don’t think DV Film Atlantis can handle MXF files which is how they were dig’d. Thanks for the sales pitch anyway and if I end up re-dig’ing the material it will be into a system that can handle both formats… I hope.

Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up