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Creating (and testing?) NTSC DVD from PAL footage
Hi,
I filmed a wedding for someone and have an edit nearly ready to give them on DVD. We’re from the UK so this is PAL footage shot on the Canon XL2. However, they also want an NTSC version of the resulting DVD for their American relatives.What is the best way to do this? I understand it should be easy enough to achieve with Compressor but I’ve read differing advice on the specifics.
Also, a problem that occurs to me is that I’ll have no way to test it. So even if I’m confident that I’ve followed the correct procedure and it SHOULD work fine, I won’t know if there is something wrong until it’s been sent to the US?
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4 Replies
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[Tom Marcham] “Hi,
What is the best way to do this? I understand it should be easy enough to achieve with Compressor but I’ve read differing advice on the specifics.Convert in Compressor using frame controls (search this forum)
Also, a problem that occurs to me is that I’ll have no way to test it. So even if I’m confident that I’ve followed the correct procedure and it SHOULD work fine, I won’t know if there is something wrong until it’s been sent to the US?”
Most European DVD players and TVs can play both formats
Cheers
Alexander -
Ok, so it should be fine to just test it on DVD players here.
As for the actual conversion process, this page seems to be referred to a lot:
https://www.macworld.com/article/49306/2006/02/marchcreate.htmlso at the moment i plan to try following that method.
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PAL to NTSC conversion even with the best settings in Compressor may display motion artifacts in some scenes.
One nifty method, if time (meaning duration) is not crucial is to
1. export your sequence as PAL 24fps with audio in a self-contained movie.
2. Open that in CinemaTools and conform it to 23.98fps
(this will alter the audio speed as well, but also increase the duration by 4% and alter the pitch and tempo of music slightly)
3. Use the normal settings in Compressor to make an NTSC mpeg-2
or
3. Simply use iDVD set to NTSC and professional settings.The 24fps to NTSC conversion is a tried and tested conversion in the NTSC world and so is acceptable. Of course, it is actually 23.98 to 29.97 as there is practically no 24fps in video in the NTSC world.
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Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India -
Would this be quicker or slower to do than just using Compressor? I’ve done a couple of tests now and I’m reasonably happy with the results, but it takes an incredibly long time – converting a file of about 1 minute took around 15 minutes, which considering I will be converting something of around 45 minutes is a bit terrifying.
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