PAL clip in NTSC project

RexA wrote on 7/12/2003, 5:32 PM
I have a short PAL clip at 25 fps that I would like to use in an NTSC project. If I just place the clip in the timeline, the frame rate conversion gives me some frames with double images.

The actual speed for this clip is not important and I don't care about audio. Is there a way I can convert the clip frame-for-frame so it is 30 fps but every frame matches 1 for 1 the PAL source? I guess vertical resolution is another issue. Croping the PAL frame during conversion would not be a problem if that makes a cleaner image.

Hoping there is an easy way to do this.

-Rex

Comments

farss wrote on 7/12/2003, 6:09 PM
You will have to have some frames duplicated, much the same as happens with 2:3 pulldown going from film to NTSC video. It doesn't look right when you go through it frame by frame but played back at full speed it looks fine.

VV will also handle the minor ARC as well. I've converted quite a bit from PAL to NTSC as I live in PAL land and the results out of VV look excellent.

If you project is going to be entirely NTSC and so is most of the footage going into it I'd suggest rendering the PAL footage to a new file first and bringing that into your NTSC project. Render times are very long when VV has to change frame rate and aspect ratio.
Chienworks wrote on 7/12/2003, 6:17 PM
If the speed isn't important, you can always play it faster to get the frame rate to match. Right-mouse-button click on the clip, open properites, and set the playback rate to 1.199. This will make the clip play at 29.975fps, which is pretty close. If you have Vegas 4 then setting it to Disable Resample will help too.

If the speed is critical and must remain normal then using Vegas 4's Disable Resample will avoid the ghosty frames. Playback may be sharper, but it may look a little stuttery as some of the frames are repeated to fill in the extras needed for the higher frame rate.
RexA wrote on 7/12/2003, 6:31 PM
"If the speed isn't important, you can always play it faster to get the frame rate to match. Right-mouse-button click on the clip, open properites, and set the playback rate to 1.199. This will make the clip play at 29.975fps, which is pretty close. If you have Vegas 4 then setting it to Disable Resample will help too."

Excellent! I didn't know about the option of changing properties for a clip. Setting playback rate to 1.199 and no resample is doing exactly what I was looking for.

I knew I could count on this group for the answer I needed. I had tried to stretch it to make things align, but suspected there was a more direct and proper way.

-Rex
SonyDennis wrote on 7/14/2003, 3:46 PM
Actually, you're only seeing repeated frames when in Preview quality. If you switch to Good or Best, and if resample is enabled for that clip, Vegas will do frame blending when converting PAL to NTSC. It looks fairly good; the only way to get it better is to use a very expensive convertor that does motion estimation.
///d@
RexA wrote on 7/14/2003, 4:00 PM
Yes, I had looked at the clip in Best preview. I know the conversion is pretty good, but I was seeing some frames that looked like a double exposure.

In this case the playback speed was less important than image quality, so chienworks suggestion about changing playback speed and no resample was exactly what I was looking for.

-Rex
mikkie wrote on 7/14/2003, 6:05 PM
IF you wanted to play with it, and Kelly's (Chienworks) suggestion didn't do it...

If the source in 25i, V/DUB has a filter or three that will create an individual frame from each field, giving you 50p. Drop that to 29.97 in Vegas or V/Dub by decimating or dropping uneeded frames. Render interlaced as nec.