"I was told that US DVD players will digest 24p NTSC and spit it out as 30i doing the pull down themselves. The only reason I'm considering this is for a given bit rate I can fit more onto the DVD at 24p than 30i."

As RBartlett wrote, not a problem, though if using VV4c the correct rate is 23.976. There should be 2 options, the one with pulldown simply inserts the flags to make the mpg2 more legal. Far as I can tell, not an issue except with some authoring software that refuses 23.976. VV4c *Might* cause better playback specifying which frames to double then the player itself, but in my experience this is dependant on the source video.

An interesting experiment would be to see if you can do your mpg2 at 25 as separate streams, then use restream to set the flag forcing 29.97 playback in the player. I've read of it being done, but haven't seen anything encoded that way to say whether the qual was up there. If it worked, changing the footage over to NTSC would simply involve cropping off the extra height pixels vs a PAL DVD & setting the flag.

RBartlett,
thanks SO much for that, I'll try some more experiments.

You've pretty much confirmed what SoFo had sort of told me some time ago but I was a bit worried about the progressive scan part of the equation, I thought only high end TVs would display progressive, unless the DVD player will interlace the output.

Unfortunately the footage is not of my making and of all things its been given to me on VHS so I'm not exactly off to a good start. Needless to say its PAL 25i.
Don't know why I fret so much about the quality of my contribution to the chain when others seem of the "if its got color and it moves its TV" mentality!

mikkie,
thanks I might try having a go at that as well.

DVDs are always such a drama, I've got this truly amazing DVD player that'll play anything, even raw MPEG1 or 2 off a DVD. Problem is its not a good benchmark for checking playability!
Main reason I bought it was it was all I could find with SCART RGB output to suit my TV, wonderful pictures now. I wonder just how many people never get to see just how good video can look. Makes me wonder why all the fuss over HD. Stuff I've shot on single CCD camera looks better than most stuff coming off analogue TV stations. Of course SD digital looks best of all.

I've also found most of the el cheapo units sold here will play anything whereas the brand name ones are much more neurotic.

"Don't know why I fret so much about the quality of my contribution to the chain when others seem of the "if its got color and it moves its TV" mentality! "

It's said that in the US, the majority of households have terribly misadjusted TVs, and are perfectly happy with them. Not sure we even require the color part - an obnoxious tint seems to do. But we're easy - if the stereo booms we're happy.

More on topic, the DVD player should insert the interlace as needed. Even the more expensive progressive players normally insert interlace for a std TV - most buyers just see Progressive next to a higher price tag and go Cool! Then wonder at the extra connectors on the back. Still not that many progressive TVs here, but at $2k (& up)versus $300 for a 31" - 32" conventional TV, not hard to figure that one out.

"I've also found most of the el cheapo units sold here will play anything whereas the brand name ones are much more neurotic."

Same all over I think... Apex is coming out with a set top recorder/player for ~$300 US, which one hopes will finally goad the brands into reality.