Real World Experience - TIPS - Pal to NTSC and Authoring DVDS on both

I have just completed a DVD project.
It was shot and edited in Pal and then authored to both Pal and NTSC DVDS ( Pal for Europe - NTSC for Japan and USA)
Standards Conversion:
I used both compressor and graham Nattress' excellent G (for Graham?) Standards converter.
Compressor was a fast work around for a quick pal to ntsc conversion at ok quality. Since my footage is very demanding (lots of handheld heli shots, water housing footage)i imagine it was giving the converters a real work out).
The Nattress G converter was much slower but the results were as close to perfection as i would imagine a software solution can get. Obviously the extra render time was working extra hard to get the conversion looking good.
For anyone going down this path - For your master you just have to use the natress converter- thanks Graham - best $100 i have spent this year.
MPG2 encoding
i did this using compressor and it worked well.
Here is the rub - i THOUGHT compressor was not doing my MPG 2 conversion at acceptable quality - it was actually the lack of quality out of compressors fast and easy solution for pal - ntsc that was giving me banding on moving objects and color issues.
I suspect this may be where some people think they are coming unstuck with compressor. (go back and check you ntsc conversion relative to your original pal quality)
I hope this saves anyone else in my situation some time.
In summary - when working in PAL (ie you are shooting and editing in Europe or Australia)Your work flow should be - shoot and edit in Pal ,convert with Natress, encode with compressor (compressor 2.1 - i use 7.7 mbs max, 6.0 mbs av - 2 pass variable - use ac3 for audio) - which has actually been working well for me (despite various threads about issues with compressor)
Hope this come up nicely for anyone doing a search. Thank you to everyone who has helped me on the way and good night!

Rory85 wrote:
Ok cool, thanks Stan.
Re-doing the Encore stuff, as much as that would/will suck, it's not my worst fear.. the thing that scares me the most is the thought of re-doing all of the Premiere work again.. If an NTSC Encore project can convert a PAL Premiere working file to a NTSC DVD, I can live with re-working the Encore stuff.. And yea, Dynamic link takes care of all of the chapter markers, so that wouldn't be a big issue - it'd just be a matter of re-building the menus..
But yea, if anyone has a definite yes or no answer on whether or not Encore can turn a PAL Premiere project into a NTSC DVD, I'd love to know.. The person I'm doing the work for doesn't want to spend thousands of dollars getting PAL dvds printed etc unless we absolutely know it's going to be a complete re-start to get it to NTSC..
Thanks again,
Rory
Hi Rory.
It's not possible in Encore or Premiere.
The conversion process is a complex one & consists of changing the actual resolution from 720x576 to 720x480, which gives a very different shaped pixel as well.
Then it also changes the frame rate of the footage from 25 to 29.97.
The easiest way to do this with Adobe tools is to use Atter Effects, making sure that the AE render is locked to the duration of the composition - this is critical, or you will end up with footage at the wrong speed. All menus will need to be rebuilt.
Sorry I cannot give you better news.
As a general rule of thumb, if in doiubt - create & author in NTSC as there are almost no PAL setups that cannot output either pure NTSC or PAL-60, yet there are very few that can go the other way.....

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dang itpowda, you killing me.. haha jk!
anyway, ok i see where you can be confused. hopefully this can answer yoru questions.
ok in the NTSC world, if you are creating a graphic file for exampe for TV, then you would create the file with a square pixel (PAR = 1.0 in this case) and your frame size will be 720x540 only because if you create it using the rectagular NTSC pixel, your image will look sueezed and you would have to resize the graphic anyway for TV because remember, you would be creating it on a computer monitor that has a PAR of 1.0 natively, although your DAR is the same, the PAR is not. now, when you have video in D1 NTSC, you would have a rectangular pixel (PAR = 0.9 in this case) and a frame size of 720x486.
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i hope that is somewhat clear. now, to answer your questions:
First thing. If PAL and NTSC both had a PAR of 1:1, they would both have a DAR of 720*540, true?
nope, if you have or want a PAR of 1:1 (to create CG files), then NTSC would be 720x540 and PAL would be 720x768.
the rest of your questions are pretty much false :P
now, you might be wondering, HOW N THE HECK DID HE GET THOSE NUMBERS!
ok, lets say you need to create a CG file on a computer, but want to keep the PAR right (remember, if you create said file with a frame size of 720x576 and a DAR of 1:1, your image will be squeezed a bit) you have to take into account a specific formula in video needed to do such and many more conversions!
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we know we want to keep the width the same, since we are creating a image file for the PAL video.
lets get some numbers straight first:
width = 576
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so it would be 576 * 1.333 = 767.808 OR as a whole number 768.
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width = 576 * (4/3) / (1/1)
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w = 576 * 1.333 / 1
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w = 576 * 1.333 = 676.808 or when you round up to the nearest whole number, you get w = 678!
as long as you have the 3 of the 4 possible variables for the above formual, you can mathmatically get the variable you need.
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Hi
I tried using compressor to do a PAL to NTSC conversion on a completed project, but found it pixelated all still photos and graphics in my project. It was also going to take 18 hrs (macbook pro 2.4ghz)
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Test2 - reinterlace chroma option, no real difference to default settings, still minimal artifacts every fourth frame in certain shots
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http://www.sjoki.uta.fi/~shmhav/SVCDon_a_Macintosh.html#PALNTSC
http://www.danslagle.com/mac/iMovie/tips_tricks/6017.shtml

Real World Experience - TIPS - Pal to NTSC and Authoring DVDS on both

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