DVC-Pro HD to PAL

[David Jahns]

Is your footage 1080i29.97? 720p60, 720p24?

I have done a few NTSC-DV to DVD-PAL projects, and I’ve found a few things that work better than others.

1st – don’t try to do both the MPEG-2 conversion and the PAL conversion in the same pass. Bad things will likely happen.

I would suggest: From your FCP, export a quicktime at DVCPRO-HD resolution 1080 or 720 at PAL frame rates, then take THAT file into Compressor and make the MPEG-2 file.

Then import that M2V & AC3 files into Studio Pro – and make sure you choose the PAL Video Standard in DVD-SP, obviously…

[Lermentov]

Thanks. My footage is 720P at 24 fps. As I look at the compressor presets for MPEG, it doesn’t look like its frame aware, so I assume if I give it a PAL frame rate compatible HD file (25 fps) that it will make the MPEG the way it needs to be? (I thought maybe there would be some PAL MPEG settings but I couldn’t find any.)

[David Jahns]

I believe that is correct. Compressor will keep the current frame rate as your source file. You could also just bring your 25fps HD quicktime file directly into DVD-Sp and let it do the encoding. Just make sure your video track is set to 16:9.

Another issue with converting to 25fps:

Normally, if you export a 25fps quicktime from a 24 fps source, it will duplicate a frame, and you’ll have some stuttering issues. Another way way would be to take your 24fps HD quicktime into Cinema Tools at “conform” it to 25fps. This will cause it to play slightly faster, but smoother.

The audio will be sped up as well, so you might want to take the AIFF into Soundtrack Pro and pitch shift it down 4%. Then just drop those files in your track in DVD-SP and let it do the encode. You might get slightly better results going through compressor and spent some time tweaking the settings, but for a rough cut/screening copy the DVD-SP will look just fine.