OT: Dilemma... Release my DVD in PAL or NTSC?

NickHope wrote on 1/18/2005, 4:14 AM
I'm about to release a DVD and I just can't decide which format to go for. I'm English and I work in Thailand so all the footage is shot in PAL.

I have Procoder 2 so I can convert to NTSC if I want, but it doesn't look quite as good as the PAL version, and flickers a bit. I also understand that Vegas makes a reasonable job of PAL > NTSC but of course some quality will be lost. I'm burning discs myself to start with so I can run both formats if I have to.

The DVD will be sold mainly online and in diving shops here in Thailand, but my customer base will be truly international. Germany and UK at the top, but USA customers will be significant, and some Japanese too.

It seems to me that PAL DVD's will not display correctly on most TV's in the USA and Japan, but that NTSC DVD's will display on just about all TV's in the World these days, so the "safest" format to go for would be NTSC. However it would sadden me to have to accept the quality drop of PAL>NTSC just so that I can go with a single format. Naturally I want to avoid selling in 2 different formats if I can help it, particularly through the shops.

A recent browse through HMV's shelves in Hong Kong showed about 60% were NTSC and 40% were PAL, so presumably some USA customers would get a nasty surprise when they got home???

Can anyone help me with my dilemma? And what about the latest TV's in the USA? Are they still NTSC-only?

thanks!

Comments

farss wrote on 1/18/2005, 5:11 AM
If you compare how much DVDs cost to make against what you should be selling them for why not put one of each in a dual box?
That should add no more than $1 cost to the finished product and should halve your inventory.
Bob.
Laurence wrote on 1/18/2005, 7:21 AM
I know that most high end players here in the US will just flat out refuse to play PAL DVDs. My Philips DVP-642 will play PAL, but the playback quality is about VCD resolution. NTSC playback is really important if you have any American customers. The "both formats in the same box" idea is good, but having separately boxed PAL and NTSC versions available at the same store is my recommendation.
Mandk wrote on 1/18/2005, 7:27 AM
I recently purchased a product with PAL on one side and NTSC on the other of a two sided disk.

I thought this was a great marketing concept.
ScottW wrote on 1/18/2005, 8:14 AM
How did they identify which side was which? Commercially done stuff I've seen had a small area printed on near the hub, but the burnable stuff doesn't seem to have anything similar (at least not any printable area). I imagine it might be kindof frustrating for customers who typically aren't going to read directions about turning the disk over if it doesn't play.

Media cost might be a factor here as well; Meritline has this media for as low as $1.85 each; but when you consider that Ridata G05's are as cheap as 39 cents each and the price difference between a DVD case for a single disk vs. a double disk is only 7 cents....

Raw material cost for DVD case & 2 single sided DVD's: $0.99
Raw material cost for DVD case & 1 double sided DVD: $1.99
Laurence wrote on 1/18/2005, 10:41 AM
Just curious, could you make a dual format half hour video with both formats on the same disk if you did the menu in NTSC (since most PAL players will play back NTSC) and options options to play back NTSC and PAL versions available from that menu. It seems to me you could by simply adding both NTSC and PAL rendered mpeg2s to a DVDA project, but I'm not sure if DVDA would let you.
ScottW wrote on 1/18/2005, 11:28 AM
DVDA wouldn't, but DVD Lab Pro would.
scdragracing wrote on 1/18/2005, 1:24 PM
ntsc probably would have been a better choice to shoot with, in part because the ntsc to pal conversion probably would have looked better(??).

many ntsc players/tv's these days will play pal stuff, with just jittering and some frame loss, but it's unacceptable p.q., and the player problems you'll encounter aren't worth the hassle... i would go ahead and use procoder to convert, and sell both types to the correct markets, with the box clearly labeled as such.

farss wrote on 1/18/2005, 2:09 PM
If you're going to have to release in both formats the shooting PAL and converting to NTSC is a much better way to go as PAL is higher res to start with.
To be honest if it's a serious production it's worthwhile getting the conversion done on pro gear, it's not vastly better than what you can do in Vegas but if you've already spent serious money on the project a few 100 dollars more for a top shelf conversion shouldn't be too hard to fund. Just make certain you know what gear they're going to use for the conversion. I'd add that the conversion works best on clean video, a lot of noise will confuse the motion compensation logic.

Bob.
NickHope wrote on 1/18/2005, 9:32 PM
Fantastic discussion everyone. Thanks very much for all the input. I love the idea of giving customers both options from a setup menu on the same disk but the video is 1 hour 55 mins so the quality on a DVD5 is only just about OK as it is. Definitely no room for both formats on my first run of single sided DVD-R' burnt at home. But assuming later I go for a pressed run on DVD9, I may well go for this option and check out hardware encoding for the PAL > NTSC. For now however, I'll just provide 2 different versions.

DVD Lab Pro is new to me. I'll go check it out but how does it stand against DVDA for features and cost? Also does anyone know if Adobe Encore could handle a project with both PAL and NTSC?

Finally, can anyone recommend a good company for hardware PAL > NTSC conversion?
Laurence wrote on 1/18/2005, 9:48 PM
Nobody in this forum has agreed with me in the past on this point, but I still like the look of DVFilm Atlantis conversions between NTSC and PAL formats. That's what I use, though I am always going the other way: NTSC to PAL. It does the PAL to NTSC conversion by deinterlacing the footage to get 25p, then slowing it down 4%. Unlike other methods, this keeps pans and zooms pretty smooth.

http://dvfilm.com/atlantis/index.htm

One pretty important point: if you convert just the video, then render titles and animations in the end format, you'll get the best results. Converted footage looks pretty darned good, but converted titles and animations don't. If you don't want to redo your animations, sometimes a "blur fields" type of de-interlace is better on titles and animations than other types. It blurs them a little, but at least it doesn't introduce wierd artifacts.
ScottW wrote on 1/18/2005, 9:52 PM
DVD Lab Pro is significantly better than DVDA 2.0 in terms of features, but it does have a slightly steeper learning curve (different interface, more features). Download the trial copy for 30 days (fully functional).

The cost (IMO) is quite reasonable considering the features. The only major drawback to Lab Pro is the lack of an MPEG or AC3 encoder - they've addressed the MPEG issue by partnering with TMPGenc for encoding; burning is nicely handled by VSO (with CopyToDVD).
NickHope wrote on 1/18/2005, 10:34 PM
Hi Laurence, I tried DVFilm Atlantis a couple of year ago for PAL > NTSC and the results were awful. Worse than just doing it in TMPGenc with smoothing etc.. So I bought Procoder.
Coursedesign wrote on 1/19/2005, 10:21 AM
Many industry experts have told me there is nothing that competes with the Snell & Wilcox Alchemist hardware converter. It is really expensive, so most people are better off farming out the conversion to somebody who offers this as a service.

This site has lots of info on the subject: Standards Conversions.
scdragracing wrote on 1/19/2005, 11:25 AM
at 1 hr 55 mins, you will need the best mpeg2 encoder you can get your hands on... and since procoder also does a killer job of ntsc to pal conversions, it would be the first choice for looking at going from pal to ntsc... and the procoder mpeg2 encoder is better than the mainconcept encoder you get with vegas.

the problem with going from pal to ntsc is having to increase the framerate, resolution isn't the issue... please let us know how it comes out!
NickHope wrote on 1/20/2005, 5:17 AM
Did my PAL MPEG2 with CCE Basic at 2-pass VBR, average 4800kbps, minimum 1000kbps, maximum 8000kbps and it looks better than Vegas' Mainconcept running at 4900kbps average. I love CCE and it's served me well for hundreds of quick CBR jobs. I don't see the point in doing a Procoder comparison for the time being.

I've done my PAL > NTSC MPEG2 with Procoder at the same bitrates as my PAL MPEG2 file and it's very good but you can see small artefacts during high-motion scenes. It's not totally smooth. I don't think customers would even really notice though. I might get a price for a hardware conversion if I decide to press on DVD9 instead of burning at home on single-sided. I'm also going to try a Vegas-only PAL > NTSC to see how it compares to Procoder, unless someone can tell me for sure that it wouldn't be worth trying.