Converting to NTSC??

VMP wrote on 12/29/2011, 12:04 PM

Hi,

What makes a video file NTSC?
Original source is PAL DV.
I convert this file to '.mov' with Quicktime player 7.

To get the final '.mov' file as NTSC at which editing-fase should I convert it?
Should I first convert the PAL DV to NTSC DV with Vegas before converting the DV file with QT?

Or could I directly convert the PAL DV to a NTSC mov file with QT player?

What setting should be changed to get a NTSC mov file?
This is the value of a currently rendered mov file from QT player:

General
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : QuickTime
Codec ID : qt
File size : 1.40 GiB
Duration : 2h 24mn
Overall bit rate : 1 384 Kbps
Writing library : Apple QuickTime

Video
ID : 2
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 2h 24mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 1 224 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 1 647 Kbps
Width : 768 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.111
Stream size : 1.24 GiB (88%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2011-12-28 12:04:07
Tagged date : UTC 2011-12-28 12:26:13
Color primaries : BT.601-6 525, BT.1358 525, BT.1700 NTSC, SMPTE 170M
Transfer characteristics : BT.709-5, BT.1361
Matrix coefficients : BT.601-6 525, BT.1358 525, BT.1700 NTSC, SMPTE 170M

Audio
ID : 1
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 2h 24mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 160 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 162 MiB (11%)
Language : English

Thanks for any reply

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 12/29/2011, 12:08 PM

Vegas does very well handling the conversion automatically. Drop the PAL file onto the timeline and render to an NTSC template. You can go straight to the desired output format in one step.

However, what is your purpose in doing so? It really only matters when being played back on an older television, and it's unlikely you're planning on doing that when choosing MOV as an output type. Any player on any computer will handle both PAL or NTSC with ease, without even bothering the user to have to do anything at all. Seems like you'd be better off just making a PAL MOV file and leaving it at that.

VMP wrote on 12/29/2011, 12:14 PM

Thanks for your reply Chienworks,
I totally agree with you about PAL and NTSC being compaitble nowadays.

But Its for Imdb and withoutabox.com all film festivals listed there only accept NTSC submissions, including the Quicktime screener.

It’s really complicating things for me. I have already uploaded a PAL mov screener, but have to replace it now with NTSC long upload time as well

Chienworks wrote on 12/29/2011, 12:19 PM

OK, in that case i'd set the project up to be NTSC DV. Then when you render to MOV most of the settings should already be correct.

I think my only preference would be to disable video resampling. Vegas' default behavior is to blend frames when the frame rate doesn't match but i think this makes the video look too blurry. With resampling disabled Vegas will duplicate or drop frames as necessary to match the target rate, while retaining the individual sharpness of each frame.

VMP wrote on 12/29/2011, 12:30 PM

From my post from two days ago I have learned that QT player is the best for rendering the mov file.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=793457&Replies=2

Due to Vegas having bad audio codecs for Quicktime renders.

Setting the settings in QT player: video to 1600 mbps and audio to 160 kbps produces a file under 2gig (Imdb 2gig file size limit)
The video has a length of 144 minutes.

I shall try to duplicate the output settings from Vegas to match the QT player settings, that will probably let the QT player render a NTSC file.

Steve Mann wrote on 12/29/2011, 3:04 PM

"From my post from two days ago I have learned that QT player is the best for rendering the mov file... Due to Vegas having bad audio codecs for Quicktime renders."

I think their absence from Vegas is most likely due to licensing issues from Apple.

BTW - The Apple QT encoder is the only way to get an mp4 file in a mov container.

amendegw wrote on 12/29/2011, 3:13 PM

I've never had the need to convert PAL to NTSC (and hope I never do!), but here's a thread that might be worth reading: Perfectionists' PAL<=>NTSC Conversion

...Jerry