pal format conversion

electricfarmer wrote on 2/11/2009, 9:45 AM
I am selling ntsc dvds in america. I am now advertizing in australia and we want to deliver the highest possible quality in pal standard dvd format.

Since the video originated in standard ntsc form, should I render the video to an avi pal standard in vegas and then make a pal dvd in dvd architect. What is the path for the highest possible quality conversion? Should I convert to widescreen so that those with hd tvs can see it without distortion?

Comments

farss wrote on 2/11/2009, 12:33 PM
If you shot SD NTSC you really face an uphill battle getting it to 16:9 PAL.
PAL is 720x576, NTSC is 720x480. Just in 4:3 you've already at 30% less vertical resolution. If you letterbox to 16:9 you throw away vertical resolution. So by the end of the process you'd end up with less than half the vertical resolution of something shot in PAL.

You could consider upscaling tools such as Topaz Enhance but you need a host such as After Effects to use them. You could consider having a post house that has the right magic black box doing the conversion. They'd hand you back a PAL tape of your content and you could take it from there. Certainly we watch a certainly amount of content that's live feeds from NTSC however that is taken with broadcast quality NTSC cameras with better chroma sampling etc.

Simplest thing to consider is almost all home systems down here can play NTSC.

Bob.
ushere wrote on 2/11/2009, 6:37 PM
echo bob's comment -

"Simplest thing to consider is almost all home systems down here can play NTSC."

i've seen some sd ntsc to pal conversions side by side with the original ntsc - amazing how bad they've been!

leslie