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NTSC TO PAL (& BACK?) WORKFLOW QUESTION
Hello:
I’m working on a feature that was shot primarily on 25i PAL miniDV — however, a small amount of footage was shot on a DVX at 24P normal. The most immediate end product will need to be a 1:1.85 letterboxed PAL master, with the possibility of a filmout (35mm., 1:1.85 ratio) later on.
My question is: should we cut the PAL footage in PAL and deinterlace (to give it a ‘filmic’ look for video screenings) and scale up the NTSC 24P stuff to PAL to match? Or should we go the other way and do a SLO-PAL transfer to NTSC to match the 24P as our final master? This master has to be able to play in Europe too.
Any real-world advice welcome.
JIM.
OSX.4.3
Dual 2.7 G5
3.5 GB RAM
Radeon X800 XT
Kona 2 / K-Box
Seritek 1.2 TB RAID
AVID XPRESS PRO/MOJO -
2 Replies
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I think it depends on who your main market is. Is the more important master PAL or NTSC?
The most important thing to avoid is double converting your material. PAL-NTSC-PAL looks terrible (as does NTSC-PAL-NTSC).
Given that the majority of your material is PAL, I’d recommend mastering PAL, and then converting to NTSC. Your 24p material will have gone through some funky converting for the final master, so you might have to consider eye-matching the 24p material into your final NTSC master.
It’s a pain, but I’ve been in your situation before – material sourced in PAL & NTSC for delivery in PAL & NTSC. I offlined in PAL, and then onlined the PAL and NTSC elements seperately, cross converted each, and created the PAL and NTSC masters seperately, so that each shot had only been converted once. A SERIOUS pain, but it did give me the opportunity to compare the once-converted material to the double-converted material. The difference is huge – the double conversion looks like you a put a guassian blur on your shots.
If it’s any consolation my current project has been shot 16mm25fps, 1080i59.94, 1080p29.97 & 1080p23.98, for delivery in 1080i59.94 and PAL.
Rob
Rob Tinworth
http://www.1021.tv -
Rob:
Many thanks for the info. I hadn’t considered cross-converting both sources separately — makes total sense. Probably end up making a PAL master, with a convert to 24P NTSC, and re-cutting the 24P back in.
Best, JIM.
OSX.4.3
Dual 2.7 G5
3.5 GB RAM
Radeon X800 XT
Kona 2 / K-Box
Seritek 1.2 TB RAID
AVID XPRESS PRO/MOJO
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