>> My preview shows things stretched vertically..is this correct?

I think: Yes. As long as you do watch this file with Vegas NTSC project properties. Switching to PAL projekt properties then and using "Simulate Device Aspect Ratio" for the preview should show a perfect image without any stretching.

Marco

Thanks Marco

I am slowly getting this together...I forgot about the simulate device option.
I also got a reply from a sony rep on the DVDA board saying this can be done in DVD Architect

just load in my NTSC render and let DVDA do the conversion

i appreciate the reply
Bryan

BTW - I just had to do exactly the same here (I am in Germany, a PAL land) to support a german company. They got delivered with NTSC dv video but have to sell PAL DVDs then. They had problems with converting this stuff and I think there is something broken with their windows system. So I just got some NTSC stuff from them. I put it into the Vegas timeline (a NTSC project) and rendered out using the MPEG-2 DVD-A PAL template (video stream only) and rendered an AC3 stream separately. I then opened a PAL project in DVD-A, ensured there is no recompression demanded and prepared and burnt the DVD. It played very fine on the PAL equipment. Quality loss wasn't serious. Actually there is some loss, because the video must be rescaled and all the frames must be resampled but I've seen lots of converted stuff on tv which looked much worse. Watching images with no movements the PAL converted DVD is very close to the NTSC dv original. The more movement there is the more you'll see resampling traces. But that's the way NTSC-PAL conversions work on whatever system you do it. So Vegas does a pretty nice job here!

Marco

Thanks Marco
that's exactly what I am trying to do..in fact my project is going to Germany.. ..an old friend from my SPV days, now at .Cultural Minority.

Sony SDB (a sony rep) suggested taking my NTSC DVDA project and just reburning from within DVD Architect with the "Project Video format" changed to PAL. This would eliminate the need to redo menus etc.

Is there a difference in quality do you think in just reburning from DVDA (converting an MPEG2 file) as opposed to rerendering from the Vegas timeline (Rendering from an .AVI) and redoing the menus etc. in DVDA.

Thanks this discussion is teaching me alot and I know it will be putting it to use often in the near future

Bryan

I don't know about the way DVD-A works. I cannot see any selections available for resizing quality or resampling which you get in Vegas. Nor a way to have a 2-pass encoding (which only works in Vegas 5 though). Especially that becubic resizing of Vegas (render setting of the video tab set to "best") and the Vegas resampling are two points which very determins the quality of the conversion. If DVD-A does also do all that things - then I think there is absolutely no need to redo part of the work in Vegas. If not, I would prefer Vegas to do that job.

But what about an own comparison? I would suggest doing two tests using same NTSC footage. One in which the conversion is done inside Vegas and another one in which the conversion is done inside DVD-A. Then take both results onto the Vegas timeline of a Vegas PAL project. You can import the DVD .vob-file directly into Vegas. Now look at the differences. To value the quality do NOT select "Simulate Device Aspect Ratio".

Marco

Edited:

At least I found something about resizing in DVD-A. In Options/Preferences/Genernal-Tab there is a checkbox "Use best stretching algorithm during rendering". Maybe this means using bicubic rescaling. This would be very good.

Ufffff, now I'm bumped. The test I suggested above - I just did it. And though I can't find any DVD-A setting to resample the file I must say: The method of using DVD-A for the conversion worked better than doing the conversion in Vegas with Smart Resample turned on. The version I converted within DVD-A looks sharper in areas of movements. Even it does not look like there are jumps visible because of the loss of frames (NTSC 30 fps/PAL 25 fps).

I'm lucky to see an even better method but I do not understand it. Why can this method be better then a conversion done in Vegas with resampling? I understand why it seems to be better because resampling means adding something like a motion blur. This this might be why the image looks sharper. But why don't I get dropped frame now? Any hints?

Marco

Marco what was your render time for your project?

Hi marco
I posted the last question before reading your recent posts. I'm sorry to admit my lack of knowledge in this..I followed the advice of Sony SDB in the DVD Architect forum where I posted this same question. He is a sony rep and may have those answers for you. I am just glad between your advise and his I am able to move this project forward. I missed the checkbox for 'best stretching algorithm ' I hope it won't be a problem. My material is essentially "demo" and will be re done if the project is bought. I just wanted to give the best presentation possible. I'm looking at a 7 hour render for an hour project..does that seem acceptable or should I say normal to you?
Bryan

I think 'best stretching algorithm' is selected by default so it should be o.k. for your project.

Render time: To me it was just a quick test. The sequence I have is only a 15 seconds long NTSC MPEG file. This one took 75 seconds to render if I import that NTSC MPEG into a PAL DVD-A project and do the Prepare process (used a PC with 1.4 GHz CPU). So I think your render time is quite acceptable.

Thanks for the info about the DVD-forum. I'll take a look into it.

Your stuff isn't going to the Saarland (anywhere around Saarbrucken)? - That's where I live in Germany.

Marco