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NTSC to PAL question – Episode
I’m using Episode to convert the assets for an NTSC DVD to a PAL DVD, and these are undoubtedly newbit questions on conversion. The video is a movie, shot at 24fps). This PAL version is just to give to friend’s of the director overseas, so it doesn’t have to be perfect and the budget is LOW.
The original M2v and AC3 files were provided to me by a telecine house and done on a high end Sonic or similar system.
Now I need to convert these to PAL (I know, the workflow isn’t perfect, compression on top of compression, but again, this isn’t for distribution).
I used one of the presets in Epsiode to convert NTSC to PAL, and understand that it needs to be resized to 720×576 (16×9) and go to 25fps. This takes the 40 minute movie and makes it 32 minutes. Now, my idea is to “time stretch” the audio files in Soundtrack Pro to be the exact same length as the encoded video file from Episode. The time stretch features says that it doesn’t change the pitch, but of course, everything is sped up a bit.
Am I on the right track? Any advice appreciated.
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3 Replies
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Haven’t done what you’re proposing so I’ll leave that up to others to answer, but….
Why are you bothering, especially with a low budget and for this intended audience?
Virtually every DVD player and TV made in Europe in years can read NTSC DVDs just fine.
Also, I’m not 100% on this (you can do a search here in this forum and the FCP forum to
confirm) but I think a 24P conversion to PAL harder to get right than a 29.97 to 25 conversion.
A search will also bring up your question and dozens of answers like mine.
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Agreed, there’s no need to bother doing the conversion as most devices have no problem displaying NTSC and it’ll always end up looking sub-standard unless you employ a proper broadcast grade standards converter, (or an FCP plug-in from Nattress! – https://www.nattress.com/Products/standardsconversion/standardsconversion.htm )
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As others have pointed out, most PAL DVD players can play NTSC. Although I haven’t done exactly what you’re doing, you do seem to be getting some odd results. Your movie length shouldn’t be changing . . . especially by 8 minutes on a 40 minute piece.
Is your source 24P in 29.97 or is it actually 24P?
You should set your Resize Filter to PAL frame size
If you look at the Frame Rate Filter one of the drop down choices is Film to PAL which is 24 to 25 so you might try that or, at least, set it to Automatic rather than Fast.
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