Convert PAL to NTSC

http://www.macworld.com/article/49306/2006/02/marchcreate.html

Message was edited by: Eric Pautsch1

I use a program called "MOVIE CONVERTOR". mainly because it extremely easy to use and does the best job, in my opinion, of converting NTSC to PAL, or PAL to NTSC.

http://movieconverter.online.fr/intl/home.php

A lot of programs will give you a "jerky" playback after conversions due to not properly converting frame rates. I've always found MC gives very smooth playback, which for a Wedding video is what you want. And it resync's the audio as well. Unfortunately it's not free, but it's not too expensive and worth the money. And it's available to try out.

You can't convert a PAL DVD directly to an NTSC DVD of course. You need to convert the video from one format to another, (and all you assests), and then rebuild the DVD in the new format. See the above excellent link.

Good luck.

By far the best way to change a DVD from Pal to NTSC is using a small program called IfoEdit, which can be downloaded for free on the internet. However, it only works on PC platform.

With his program you only change certain parameters (in VOB/IFO files), no conversion necessary, and no quality lost. Then you burn the DVD - it works like magic - your DVD will also be region free. I advise you not to use this for copyright products.

Contact me if you have problems,

Francois

By far the best way to change a DVD from Pal to NTSC is using a small program called IfoEdit, which can be downloaded for free on the internet. However, it only works on PC platform.

With his program you only change certain parameters (in VOB/IFO files), no conversion necessary, and no quality lost. Then you burn the DVD - it works like magic - your DVD will also be region free. I advise you not to use this for copyright products.

Contact me if you have problems,

Francois

You could use the free MPEGStreamclip to convert the VOB from a PAL encode to an NTSC Quicktime file which could then be re-encoded and rebuild the project as an NTSC project. We have doen this in the past for "down and dirty" projects

The link that Eric steered you to gives exceptional results if you have the patience - we have used it to convert NTSC to PAL with very good results. But it does take a LOOOOONG time even on a very powerful machine.

As to using IFO Edit to do it... hmm... not convinced that it actually works - certainly would be magic as far as I can see

Steve

All IFO Edit does is change the structure of the information files. You still need PAL assets for a PAL disc and vice versa.

Message was edited by: Eric Pautsch1

Exactly right - if only it was a case of just changing a setting or two with IFOEdit 🙂

Steve Kirkham wrote:
You could use the free MPEGStreamclip to convert the VOB from a PAL encode to an NTSC Quicktime file which could then be re-encoded and rebuild the project as an NTSC project. We have doen this in the past for "down and dirty" projects
Steve

You beat me to it Steve.

(1.) Drag and drop the DVD onto your hard drive.
(2.) Use MPEG STREAMCLIP to convert the contents to "MPEG2 with MP2 audio"
(3.) Drop the "MPEG2 with MP2 audio" into MOVIECONVERTOR and convert to desired format. This will convert the video format and re-sync the audio.
(4.) Use MPEG STREAMCLIP to demux the new "MPEG2 with MP2 audio" file.
(5.) Convert the MP2 audio to AC3 with Apack or FFMPEGX.
(6.) Convert the DVD assests, eg; menu pictures etc to the desired format. Or just used NTSC versions if supplied in the build program.
(7.) Rebuild DVD in it's new format in DSP.

The Movieconvertor program does an excellent job in converting the file formats, and while it can take sometime, setting it toi run overnight usually results in a complete file the next morning. And I'm using a Quicksilver G4 Dual 1.73Mhz.

Have to admit to never having used IfoEdit so can't comment on it.

Hi Jay

I don't know MovieConvertor but it seems like an awfully convoluted and long path to get from a PAL to an NTSC version

What I was suggesting was to use MPEGStreamclip to open the existing PAL project's VOBs - and create an NTSC Quicktime conversion straight inside MPEGStreamclip. It's a bit of a Down and Dirty way of doing it but going from PAL to NTSC is better than the other way round. Just set the correct frame size and frame rate in Streamclip and you'll end up with a pretty good conversion

Then just drop that in to Compressor as an NTSC Quicktime and encode to m2v and AC3.

Take streams into new DVD-SP project...

Simple.

Granted they may have to redo the menus as well or recreate them

Steve

I would suggest doing it in Final Cut with this brilliant plug-in http://www.nattress.com/Products/standardsconversion/standardsconversion.htm

Agreed Nattress filters are well regarded and also Compressor with it's optical flow does a great job also. But I suspect original poster wanted a low or no cost solution hence why I suggested using the free MPEGStreamclip to do the job.

Here's a link to the suspect IFOedit "Patch Method":

http://forum.videohelp.com/topic221928.html

Steve, your suggestion is to use Slipstream to Export to Quicktime, but to choose NTSC settings instead of PAL, right? How does the quality of that method differ from Export to Quicktime with PAL settings and using Compressor to do the standards conversion? Also please provide more details about how to recover the dvd menus, subtitles, and other assets necessary to recreate the dvd in DSP.

Thanks for the tips!

Everyone cool but no one descriped the best way! Look at this cool app from this guy. Genius! Best way to convert from PAL <-> NTSC without any hardware an very fast. We did it for Broadcast an DVD Footage. Perfect!

http://www.xs4all.nl/~jeschot/home.html

Interesting Steve; but whats the quality like?
Does the video converted this way have a nice smooth motion or is it "jerky".

I actually tried a few ways before Movie Converter; (and am happy admit I haven't tried your suggestion of convert PAL vobs to an NTSC QT file); ie; letting DSP convert PAL to NTSC was easy enough, but was never happy with the results.

It's why I eventually ended up with MC; and it does work both ways; it dead easy to use; and so far I can't pick the PAL from the NTSC or the NTSC from the PAL after conversion.

And yes, my appraoch above is "an awfully convoluted and long path"; but hey, that's just me.

I'll give your method a try and report back.