PAL or NTSC for international distribution?

Hi everybody, we have a 5 hrs film shot and edited in Premiere Pro CS6 in HD pal, 50fps, 16:9 intended for international distribution on 2 double layer DVDs. How should we best author it to guarantee worldwide compatibility and best possible quality? PAL or NTSC? There is no budget to press both, PAL and NTSC DVDs. Thanks for your help!!!

NTSC every time.
All PAL players these days will happily output NTSC content either as true NTSC (by running an on-the-fly standards conversion in the video decoder chips) or else as PAL-60.
Very few NTSC players will output PAL in any form.
Your biggest problem will be standards converting your 50i footage into 29.97.
EDIT.
Here's a great tip for you.
Do not ever shoot at 25 fps in any shape, way or form if you need international release. Use 24p instead - and when the time comes to burn a DVD all you need to do is scale it down & render to DV 24p widescreen from Adobe Media Encoder. All will be fine, and you can use fully progressive images all the way through.
Pros:
24p footage is universal, 25p is not spec compliant, must be interlaced & will only work in PAL regions.
24p will play - in an upscaling player (such as a modern Universal, or a good BluRay player) at the encoded rate (Hollywood have been pulling this trick for years now) and in a non-upscaling player it will automatically pull to 29.97 with no intervention needed from the user.
Cons.
None that immediately come to mind - although of course 24p footage has it's own issues but these are outweighed by not having to standards convert.
Why this is needed.
Because although most US discs will play in PAL players, either as pure NTSC or PAL-60, the reverse is not true and even when you can find a US player that will handle a 25i stream, you will run into difficulties with the display because the mains is at the wrong frequency (60Hz instead of 50Hz) and the image will be garbled, black & white or missing altogether. A study by Sony showed that perhaps 1/20 players can output PAL frame rates properly in NTSC regions.

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PAL or NTSC for France?

I have a project I need to burn for use in France. Should this be a PAL or NTSC disc?

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Pal to NTSC for the USA

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cheers WOlfgang

Oh dear! . . . All this conflicting advice!
Wolfgang, I can't agree with piero - I used JES Deinterlacer, and the quality's not good - especially if you have any action scenes.
I’ve found the best overall PAL to NTSC Standards Conversion comes from Hanumang’s Compressor method:
First, change your Easy Setup to DV PAL, then open a new sequence. This will make certain your Timeline is correct for PAL.
Before you Capture, be sure your Capture Settings (in Log and Capture) are:
Device Control: FireWire PAL
Capture/Input: DV PAL 48 kHz
"Load your DV PAL movie into Compressor 2, then choose
Advanced Format Conversions > DV NTSC from the settings.
Then, under the Frame Controls tab, alter your settings to:
Frame Controls: Custom
Resize Filter: Better (Linear Filter)
Output Fields: Bottom First
Deinterlace: Better Motion Adaptive
Adaptive Details: checked
Rate Conversion: Better (Motion Compensated)"
Results are stunning and once set up, it’s dead simple to use again because the settings are saved in Compressor.
The only downside is that it’s slower to process than other methods – but I find the results are better and I can use the Mac for other work whilst compressor’s working in the background.
A quicker (but I find, more fiddly) method is Graeme Nattress’ Standards Conversion:
http://www.nattress.com.
This method gives outstanding results too.
Andy
Quad 8GB. 250+500 HDs. G-Raid 1TB. NORTON. FCP 5.1.2. QT 7.1.3. Sony HVR Z1E Mac OS X (10.4.7)
"I've taught you all I know, and still you know nothing".

Converting PAL to NTSC for a dvd

I have a quicktime PAL movie that I want to burn to a dvd to send to the US as NTSC.
It's just a short movie using 720 x 576 size and 25 fps.
When I set up iDVD it warns me just before burning that I am trying to burn an NTSC dvd using a PAL format media and I don't know if this will result in a poor quality or an unplayable movie.
Can anyone please advice how to change the PAL movie to NTSC in Compressor so that I can make a good quality version of the PAL file into an NTSC file?
Thanks a lot for any advice.

Hi
Just going from iMovie (PAL) to iDVD (NTSC) does work BUT VERY BAD RESULT
I do.
• In iMovie Export out as QuickTime full Quality QT.mov file
• Use JES_Deinterlacer - Google it - It's FREE
• Here I open the QT.mov and let it convert to NTSC - VERY GOOD - and save with a new name
• Open iDVD and make a NTSC project
• Now import the converted movie
• Burn
To make sure that it plays well in US I also do.
• Secure a minimum of 25Gb free space on internal boot hard disk - Others not interesting
• I use Verbatim
• I use DVD-R (no +R or +/-RW)
• I set in iDVD pref/Advance/burn speed down to x1
This has worked for me and been confirmed from sunny Calif.
Yours Bengt W

Creating private ibooks for internal distribution - SLA

Hi, if we wanted to create ibooks for distribution to internal employees, can we distribute them for free as iBook files outside of the iBook Store? They would contain proprietary information and can not be made available for download to the public.
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The iBooks Author Agreement (from the iBA about menu) makes it clear - your content is yours to distribute as you see fit, including from your server to anyone with access, etc.
B. Distribution of Works Generated Using the iBooks Author Software. As a condition of this License and provided you are in compliance with its terms, works generated using iBooks Author may be distributed as follows:
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PAL to NTSC for DVD

I have got a PAL Final Cut Pro sequence that needs to be made into an NTSC DVD. What's the best way of doing this?
Can I just export my project as an NTSC self-contained movie and then encode it to mpeg2 and put into DSP as I normally would with a PAL project?

You need to converter the PAL sequence to NTSC before create the NTSC DVD. There are several ways to do the standards conversion.
1) Compression 2 has conversion in it now - just make sure you use the otipical flow setting to get the best result. Down side is it is VERY slow!!
2) Graeme Natress has a plugin for final cut - www.natress.com
3) We use the standard alone DVfilm application, Atlantis - with this you export your sequence as a self contained movie, and then open it in Atlantis and let it do the work. www.dvfilm.com .
We choose Atlantis over Natresses standard conversion because it worked a little bit better for us with slow-mo of fast action sequences, but we haven't used the latest versions.
With Atlantis we get a conversion time ratio of 1:3 eg. 1 minute of footage takes 3 minutes to convert. Thats on a Dual 2.5Gb G5 with 2Gb of RAM.
Of course once you;ve run the standards conversion you get out a NTSC-DV sequence and then you need to encode this to mpeg2.
Hope this helps.

Converting PAL to NTSC for 16:9 DVD

Hi guys,
Im trying to turn my HDV1080i PAL project into an NTSC DVD that will play on a TOSHIBA 19lv505 tv with a screen that's 16x10 inches - and retain it's 16:9 ratio.
I compressed my project in compressor then dragged it into DVD Studio Pro. 4 The dolby audio.dc3 file was recognised but the .m2v file was rejected, was it was a PAL format. It would only be accenpted if the the Video Standard settings were switched from NTSC to PAL - but ultimately im trying to make an NTSC DVD.
Do i convert my project by opening it in a new project with different sequence settings or copy it into a new sequence within the same project, but with new sequence settings? There's only a NTSC 4:3 option, not a 16:9 option.
Current sequence settings are:
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pixel: HD 1440x1080
Field Dominance: Upper (odd)
Compressor (HDV 1080i50)
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Any thoughts?
Thank you.

so after an hour hunting around on the internet it seems two common options are Nattress or Advanced Format Conversion in Compressor.
i appreciate there is probably much already said on this issue, but any thoughts as to which avenue is the better use of time and money?
thanks.

DVD for UK and World Wide. Should I shoot Pal or NTSC

Hey guys,
I have a project to produce a series of DVDs for an American client.
They want the finished films on DVD for Worldwide distribution.
I have a Sony Z1E and I can shoot HDV1080i50 for Pal or HDV1080i60 for NTSC.
I intend to edit in HDV and down convert the final films for standard def DVD.
Will there be a problem watching these films on certain TVs? Will a Pal DVD work on a NTSC TV or will a NTSC work on a Pal?
I want to know from the beginning so I can shoot in the format which will work best for the final DVD to be seen on both Pal and NTSC.
Please help if you can,
Jamie

NTSC DVD players cannot play PAL DVDs. Most (but not all) PAL DVD players can play NTSC DVDs. So if you want to make only one disc your best bet is NTSC. But be aware that you will get a few people who will say, "It doesn't work". The best solution is to make PAL and NTSC discs. And no, you cannot make a disc that is both PAL and NTSC.
A side note. DVD players will only play SD material. So shooting HD is overkill. You will have to convert it down to SD resolution. Also HDV is the poorest of the HD formats as far as quality goes.

PAL - NTSC for Japan

Hi all, I have a question that I hope someone can answer.
I've gotta shoot a few minutes if footage that a friend of mine is then taking to Japan and showing to
someone there. Now as far as I know they'll be watching in on a PC but Im gonna try give him as many format
variations as possible to be sure. So the queston is, f I'm shooting in standard miniDV PAL, what are the
best options for me in terms of encoding I should do, do I export as PAL MPEG 2 on DVD, what kind of
effect does the PAL->NTSC conversion have. Should I do a VideoCD version.
My plan is to to a NTSC DVD, and MPEG 1 & 4 version and maybe a few others. Does this sound good enough?
Thanks in advance
Declan

The OP said he thinks it will be played
on a computer but he wants to give as many options as
possible. . . I took that to mean he'd like it to be
watchable on TV in Japan if possible. He needs NTSC.
From the tone of the post I assumed, perhaps glibly, that this is not a life-threatening project. There was never mention of TV playback. But I take your point.
PAL to NTSC via Compressor . . . "successful" maybe
but read the posts on this forum to learn about the
quality! (I'd LOVE to be proved wrong
though)!
Oh, I hadn't seen those posts. I've only run a few small tests myself, but the results were excellent to my eye. This is the method I used:
http://www.macworld.com/2006/02/secrets/marchcreate/index.php?pf=1
What kind of problems have you seen? I've had a quick look back through a few threads and most of the issues I have seen would probably have been solved with a careful setup.
I'm sure Graeme Nattress's plugins are excellent, haven't used them. I've done most of my conversions to date in After Effects, also with good results.

NTSC - PAL colors conversion for betacam

I need to get a video file that is NTSC (no compression 8bit) into PAL (no compression 8bit) to edit it in Final cut pro 5.1.4 and to put titles from Motion, to finally put it on a betacam tape. To be shure that the conversion (NTSC-PAL) is well done, I gave the NTSC file to a professionel conversion compagny. (I tried to do it myself with compressor and with the plug-in natress, but was not completly satisfied with the result).
Now my problem is that the conversion company didn't compensate the modification of colors during the conversion. So now I have a file in pal (no compression 8bit) but the colors are lighter then the original file in NTSC.
Can someone tip me on a way to modify the colors in Final cut pro of my file in PAL? I know how to use most of the filters, but I don't now much about doing it professionally. I was hoping that there could be a filter or a plugin that is made for my kind of problem, and I'm afraid of making a mistake because I never prepaired a file for a betacam tape before. Do I have to be carefull with the percentage of black or of white? Do I have to work in RGB or YUV?
My second question is: the video PAL that was converted from NTSC has lines where there is quick movement when I look at it in Final cut pro or Quicktime. (the original NTSC file didn't have them) Should I use a filter to desinterlace it or will these lines disapear any way on the betcam tape? But I'm puting titles with Motion, so those titles don't have lines... How will they mix with the video?
Thanks for your help
Louie

Hi mish,
that is such a .. <searching correct english word> hillarious (?) idea, I give you a star for that ;-)))
changing some flags on a ready-made dvd... wow! nice try...- but as Fred said, NTSC<<>>PAL conversions are no trivial tasks... you run into many problems, e.g. where do you get the additonal 5 frames per second you need for a transfer from PAL to NTSC? how to make the audio fit to these new pictures? and, I HAVE to do this silly joke: NTSC has a very different color concept (Never The Same Color) then PAL.. and for sure a different res...
the name is irritating, but all mighty JES Deinterlacer is doing a fantastic job in converting video standards (ok, for a free software solution...) give that a try!

DVD for Pal and NTSC on same disc

somebody told me it's possible to have pal and ntsc format on one single DVD. I'll be curious if it's possible, in DVDSP, you have to chose your DVD format before you make the authoring. Maybe make to VIDEO TS folder? somebody any experience/idea about that?

I guess you could have a double sided disc (DVD-10?) with PAL on one side and NTSC on the other but I don't think many people actually do this. And i think there were compatibility problems with DVD-10 discs when replicated.
Otherwise the answer is no

Converting PAL to NTSC and making a DVD

I have a couple of .avi files, some are in PAL and others in NTSC, I wanna make a DVD in NTSC mode, How can I convert the files?

Hi
This is not easy and You need other programs to do this.
.avi.
You can use MPEG-Streamclip to convert the AVI files so that QuickTime can play them
and to streamingDV for iMovie.
This may work - I had great problems to get .avi into anything usably.
*PAL to NTSC or other way*
A. Commersial DVDs - No Not at all - Not even legal to discuss.
B. Home made DVDs (without copy protection)
NTSC ---> PAL.
• Most often not necessary - Most stand alone PAL-DVD players playback NTSC
(if TV is old in BL/W)
PAL ---> NTSC.
• If played on Mac - not necessary AT ALL
• If on NTSC-DVD-player - CONVERSION IS NEEDED - nearly no Stand alone NTSC-DVD-players
playback PAL at all.
• MPEG Streamclip (free on internet) to convert to NTSC
• Set up an NTSC project (29.97fps or 30) in iDVD and import then burn
I burn to
• Verbatim DVD-R
• Set down burn speed in iDVD to x1 or x4 recommended by many
• Secure a minimum of 25Gb free space on internal boot hard disk before burning (IMPORTANT)
Yours Bengt W

Video in Garageband - PAL or NTSC?

This is very annoying! My Canon HF100 is an NTSC model, so I imported into iMovie as NTSC, and my iDVD project was NTSC, all of which was designed to prevent the judder caused by dropping frames...
But it still happened! Really frustrating, as everything I did was meant to avoid this. And then I thought through the process and arrived at Garageband, which for some mad reason one has to use in order to put in chapters.
Did Garageband convert my videos to PAL, in which case iDVD would have converted them back again? I can't see how to switch from PAL to NTSC in Garageband preferences.

So does it look fine when you preview the video in iDVD? I don't think PAL and NTSC are the problem these are both international standards for Televisions, Garageband could be the problem but it would show up in iDVD.

I want to convert a movie that I've created in iMovie from PAL to NTSC.

I've created a large movie using PAL but now want to convert it to NTSC to send to my family in Canada. It took ages to create. Is there an easy way of doing the conversion? I don't want to have to do it all again.

Hi
A. Using iMovie'08 to 11 - Will not give 100% result - as You want interlaced SD-Video = NTSC
B. Converting from PAL to NTSC - is Never 100% loss free - but You lose a bit
I use iMovie HD6 or FinalCut - as they can deliver 100% over to program that converts.
• iMovie and iDVD can convert - BUT RESULT WILL BE Very POOOOR.
My notes on How I do it
PAL to NTSC or NTSC to PAL
A. Copying commercial DVDs - No Not possibly at all - Not even legal to discuss.
B. Home made DVDs (DVDs without copy protection)
C. Movies from iMovie or FinalCut
• Save as full quality QuickTime .mov and convert this with JES_Deinterlacer (free on Internet)
NTSC ---> PAL.
• Most often not necessary - Most stand alone PAL DVD-players playback NTSC
(if TV is old in BL/W)
PAL ---> NTSC.
• If played on Mac - not necessary AT ALL
• If on NTSC DVD-player - CONVERSION IS NEEDED - nearly no Stand alone NTSC-DVD-players
playback PAL at all.
To do this You need to convert the PAL DVD to streaming.DV or full quality QuickTime .mov
• I use Roxio Toast™ to do this (There are no free converter)
• JES_Deinterlacer (free on Internet) to convert to NTSC
• Set up an NTSC project (29.97fps or 30) in iDVD and import then burn
I burn to
• Verbatim DVD-R
• Set down burn speed in iDVD to x1 or x4 recommended by many
• Secure a minimum of 25Gb free space on internal boot hard disk before burning (IMPORTANT)
PAL is 25 fps and an analog TV standard of 625 lines
NTSC is 29.97 fps and 520 lines
NTSC (29.97fps) 520 lines - about 640x480 pixels (square) 720x480 rectangular (narrow) pixels
PAL (25 fps) 625 lines - about 768x576 pixels (square) 720x576 rectangular (narrow) pixels
to use a photo 702x480 resp 576 then add 9 pixels on each side to add together as 720
If iDVD hangs on PAL or NTSC.
Bengt W wrote
Deleting iDVD pref. file - should return You into NTSC mode.
Yes iDVD can switch to PAL - BUT as You see with a rather lousy result.
a. Need to convert to PAL - most often not - Most PAL-player can playback NTSC
and on a fairly new TV in color. (old TV in Bl/W)
(Other way around - from PAL to NTSC most often a must - few NTSC-player can use PAL)
b. IF MUST - then use JES_Deinterlacer to do this conversion - so much better and free.
My list on this (or rather PAL --> NTSC - just think the other way around)
I have to send it overseas
That too can be a problem. As USA = NTSC = 29.97fps and EU = PAL = 25fps.
DO Not let iMovie or iDVD do this conversion from one to the other - Result will be Very
BAD
I save the movie as a full quality QuickTime .mov file then I use JES_Deinterlacer to do the conversion - then I cont. in iMovie or iDVD with project set accordingly.
JES_Deinterlacer is free on Internet and there are Pro applications but not that much better and costs are astronomical.
PAL-DVDs - don't play in US
NTSC-DVDs - usually plays well in EU
All plays well on a Mac - What ever.
Allosaurus writes
Thank you SDMacuser. I dumped all the plist icons with no result, and was getting pretty plist off when it occurred to me to delete all the previous dvd.proj files. Bingo. That did the trick. So thank you for all your help and the additional information you provided.
Yours Bengt W

PAL to NTSC

How do I go from an existing FCP PAL video project to a DVD disc of that video in NTSC format please?
Background is I am using Final Cut Studio and a PAL camcorder. I am fairly experienced with FCP and DVD Studio Pro but all in PAL format, as is the Standard in Australia where I live.
I have an existing finished PAL project for Christmas in FCP and DVD Studio Pro, and have burnt several PAL DVD's for distribution, but now I have been asked for a DVD disc of the video in NTSC format, for a friend in North America.
Is it possible to do that please using my existing PAL format project?
I have looked at Export options from FCP and using Compressor, but I am not confident and time is short. Also I am unsure how to set up DVD Studio Pro for NTSC, having always used PAL to date.
Tony

There are a couple of ways to do it but the most straightforward is to use Graeme Nattress's Standards Converter to convert your PAL Quicktime file to NTSC.
www.nattress.com
Then all you need to do is to set up your DVDSP project using one of the NTSC presets. If you have any motion menus in the existing DVDSP project that are PAL, you'd need to convert them to NTSC as well. Still images are ok. You can get a lot of good advice over in the DVDSP forum here on the Apple site.
Your DVD player and TV monitor are likely dual standard, so you can use them to verify the disk after burning.
Good luck.
x

PAL or NTSC for international distribution?

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