How to edit together NTSC, PAL, and Mpeg Formats

Question

How to edit together NTSC, PAL, and Mpeg Formats

for this Museum installation that I am compiling I have to get footage from a variety of sources and media, mostly VHS and DVD. The final output would be as a Mpeg2 to be played on a server. What is the best compression to use for editing? DVpal, was my first guess, but then I also have some NTSC material which would have to be edited together with PAL stuff. How do I convert one to the other. Should I use an uncompressed format for quality, or edit in the Mpeg2 format I hope to export.
Thanks very much for your help on this confusing subject
Peter

Posted on Oct 28, 2005 7:23 AM

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Answer 1

Andy Mees

Level 6

12,610 points

Oct 28, 2005 8:05 AM in response to Peter Stenhouse

If your final output will be in PAL then it would likely be best to edit using DV-PAL as was your first guess, especially as most of your footage will be coming from low resolution sources anyway. Of course, higher quality will always be better, but if its not for projection and/or broadcast then the relatively lower quality of DV or DV50 woud be ample.

For capture from VHS you would definately benefit if you could run it through a TBC (timebase corrector), see if you can get hold of one.

For converting NTSC to PAL you can go with a cheap convertor (you'll get a cheap looking conversion) or you could just render it out from FCP (you'll have long render times and a cheap looking conversion) ... you could use Compressor, which would get you a much better conversion, but if you have any kind of budget, then invest in Graeme Natress's very affordable Standards Converter plugins - they'll give you top quality conversions that would give a very expensive hardware based converter a run for its money ... and they render faster than Apple's bulit-in conversion too.

Good luck
Andy

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