conversion headache

[Aanarav Sareen]

Andrew,
I would reccomend using an application such as Canopus Procoder to convert the tapes to the same format. You will avoid a lot of headache this way.

[Andrew Yoole]

So long as you have a means of capturing the tapes to disk (meaning, you have a deck capable of multiple playback standards) then you can convert the PAL to NTSC or vice versa in AE, or using third party NLE plugins like Nattress Standards Converter.

If the job has any kind of budget, I’d take the PAL tape to a reputable dub house and have it standards-converted professionally.

[Andrew Minett]

i have captured the contents of the tapes.. i guess i should have made this clear. so the problem isn’t really an NTSC/PAL problem as much as a resolution/framerate/widescreen-not widescreen problem.

So, I’ll again put it to the forum:

Is there a way I can take 720×480, 29.97 video and make it look like it was more or less shot on a PAL camera in widescreen? (That would be 720×576, 25 fps with black bars). I’ve tried stretching it out and dropping the framerate within the render settings of AE but I’m not convinced this is the best method. As far as the widescreen bars go should I just create two solids of 53 pixels each on the top and bottom of the video? This would match the resolution of the PAL footage.

Anyway, in the end I’m more or less wondering if I should even bother with the whole thing at all.

Thanks for any ideas here.

Andrew

[Steve Roberts]

There are plugins such as Twixtor (or Magic Bullet?) that should allow you to make 29.97 look like 25.

Assuming you’re delivering as PAL widescreen footage, you can drag the NTSC into a PAL-widescreen-sized comp and stretch it, but you need to make sure you separated the fields in import (check with file>interpret footage>main), lower field first if DV. The NTSC video should be scaled up proportionately so its top and bottom are cut off. If the widescreen comp looks odd, click the pixel aspect ratio correction button at the bottom of the comp window.

That’s how I’d do it, anyway.

By the way, how are you delivering? Where is it going? How will it be shown?

[Andrew Minett]

Steve,
I’ll look around to see if I can find either of those plugins and try
the comp tips as well. I think I was on the right track but the
advice about lower field first might be the key to making things look
convincing.

I’ll be delivering on NTSC DVD, 720×480 and hopefully it will be shown
on Musique Plus in Quebec, Canada.

Cheers,
Andy

[Steve Roberts]

It sounds as if you should drag everything into a DV-NTSC comp — sort of the opposite of my earlier advice.

[Andrew Minett]

That’s what I was wondering about as the finish is in NTSC. But the framerate still remains an issue and I think has to be 25 fps as I can’t add frames to the PAL footage.

Thanks again for your advice, Steve.

Andrew

[Erik Hansen]

Umm… If you are delivering and NTSC master… YOU NEED TO CONVERT THE PAL FOOTAGE TO NTSC.

It makes no sense to convert the NTSC to PAL, and then convert again to NTSC. Yeah, you can do it, but it’s going to look bad.

Again you’ve said that you are delivering NTSC DVD, and then later you say “But the framerate still remains an issue and I think has to be 25 fps as I can’t add frames to the PAL footage.” I’ll let you soak that one in.

Personally, you need to do the standards conversion before dealing with how they “look” – ie. widescreen.

– Erik