Convert PAL DVD to NTSC DVD

TeetimeNC wrote on 7/25/2004, 11:14 AM

I am trying to convert a PAL MPEG to NTSC MPEG but am having problems outlined below.

BACKGROUND
I have been asked by a friend if I can prepare a quick and dirty NTSC version of his daughter's PAL wedding video while he awaits the real NTSC version from the videographer. I took one of the VOBs and changed the extension to MPG. I then followed these steps:

WHAT I HAVE TRIED
1. I created a new PAL Standard project in Vegas 5.

2. I dropped a 1.01 GB PAL mpg on the timeline. Vegas shows this as 16 seconds of video. If I drag the right edge of the clip I immediately see the white triangle indicating it is repeating. However, I know this clip is much longer than 16 seconds. As I move forward through the timeline frame by frame it looks as you would expect. If I then move backward one frame I am in a completely different part of the video and then either back or forward movement displays somewhat random frames.

3. I right clicked the event and disabled resample.

4. I then highlighted a small section and File/Rendered As MainConcept MPEG-2. It rendered this small section and looked ok, although I haven't gotten to adding the audio so I'm not sure whether the speed is correct.

5. I then used the same approach to render the entire clip, but all I get is 271 frames of black screen.

Any ideas what I am doing wrong?

Thanks, Jerry

Comments

Bolon wrote on 7/25/2004, 11:27 AM

Dropped frames sometimes occured by diskdrive issues, and length of the clips, Harddisk rpm speed (7,200rpm and above), insuficient Space, Ram.
Try Defragting your drive, or make sure your harddisk is ok.
But it can be other reasons.

Cheers
Bolon

B_JM wrote on 7/25/2004, 2:14 PM

this is what is happening ..

when the original DVD was made - it was made up of more than 1 clip (not uncommon) .. when those clips were first rendered , an end of file notation was placed in each of their headers (normal and not uncommon) ..

when authored -- when the VOB's are multiplexed, these settings are basically ignored in the header and authoring goes fine and playback is fine ..

when later these vobs are dropped into vegas , vegas will read up to only the end of the first clip as it gets a 'end of clip' still from the original rendered clip ..

there is another way this can happen but above is the more common issue ..

anyway -- no big deal !

how you can fix it ..

method 1 - sometimes works but not always:

demultiplex vob into m2v and ac3 files and run m2v through "restream" , stripping out headers that pertain t this issue. Remultiplex m2v with no audo and import into vegas ....

rather clumsy and time consuming ..

method 2 ..

install virtualdubMOD ..

load VOB into VirtualdubMOB

frame serve to vegas OR re-render mpeg to DV or Huffyuv - and import into vegas ..

see this post i just wrote in the last day or two for more info on frameserving and/or virtualdubMOD

http://www.creativecow.net/forum/read_post.php?postid=109058646790581&forumid=24

TeetimeNC wrote on 7/26/2004, 3:47 AM

B JM, Thanks very much - this was exactly what I was looking for. I tried frame serving into Vegas but could not get the vfapi wrapper tool to work. I'll mess with that later. But for now, I am able to use VD to save as DV and load into Vegas.

Jerry