Pal to NTSC

AlistairLock wrote on 3/18/2003, 5:00 AM

Hi,
I've just finished creating a DVD of music I wrote for an animation project last year. I've taken the original artwork and created new animation sequences timed to the music. Each music track is a single file rendered in VEGAS. Before importing the final video into DVD-A, I reloaded these single rendered files into Vegas, and then rerendered the sixteen final tracks as one long file. This file was then imported into DVD-A and given chapter marks for each track. I live and work in the UK, so naturally the DVD is in the PAL format.
I'm wanting to send a copy to a friend in the States, so:

Do most NTSC machines happily play PAL discs, as (most) PAL machines in the UK play NTSC format discs?

If I were to render a DVD using the NTSC format, would this mean that my PAL MPGs would be magically rendered to the NTSC format, or would I have to go back into VEGAS and re-render each file as an NTSC format file, (then compile these tracks into one long file as before) before importing into DVD-A.

Also, in a not entirely unrelated query/observation:

When building the menus for this DVD, I had each scene selection page play a 5.1 surround version of the sound atmosphere I created for the location displayed on the screen. When I go into "Optimise" the program tells me I am over the 1 gig limit, and will not let me continue (the next button is greyed out). I know that this is a bug that is due to be fixed. BUT:

I go back into "Optimise" and tell the program the the menu screens are all AC3 stereo. The disk size drops, the program tells me the menu size is still over 1 gig, but the next button is no longer greyed out and I can render the project. BUT:!

If I now go back into the "Optimise" screen and tell the program that the menu screens are once again in surround, the program still protests that the menus are over 1 gig in size and (big AND...) the next button is still functional and I can render the project. Much too-ing and fro-ing, but I now have a DVD with all the animation and music and menu screens with surround sound. Hurrah! But what was happening, and how was I able to "confuse" the program?

In the meantime, I look forward to the patch/bug fix.

Thanks

Comments

SonySDB wrote on 3/18/2003, 7:41 AM

First, from your description, you're menus are likely over the 1 GB limit. (The calculation of the estimated menu size is only wrong when the audio is not being recompressed.)

There was a bug with the next button that it wasn't updated properly when the Optimize DVD dialog was launched from the Make DVD dialog. This has been fixed for the update. You should not have been able to prepare the DVD. (It's possible that it will not play properly in some DVD players.)

CrazyRussian wrote on 3/18/2003, 10:04 AM

Your PAL DVD most likely will not play in US. I was researching PAL<>NTSC a while back and if I remember correctly, DVD player will play and output WHATEVER disk you put into it (most recent ones anyway). It will be the TV job to process the signal, and 99.9% TVs in US are NTSC, where most of the TVs in EU are Multi system. So, if your US friend were to send you a NTSC DVD, your DVD player will read it and output NTSC to your TV, since TV is multi system it will most likely play the video. I think this applies to most of EU setups.
On the other hand, EU disk in US: DVD will read it and ouput PAL signal to the TV, but since almost all TVs in US are NTSC... it will not play. I have couple of DVDs set to me from Russia (PAL), if i play it, I can hear the audio but no video, installing inline PAL<>NTSC converter between DVD player and TV took care of the problem

AlistairLock wrote on 3/20/2003, 3:58 AM

Thanks for the info.
It turns out that the DVDs I burned while the menu was claiming it was over the limit are now expensive coasters.

Well, I went ahead and rendered from DVD-A an NTSC version of the DVD I've been working on. It took five hours, which is fine. It took this long before, when the program was re-rendering the 16:9 files due to the now fixed bug. I've burnt a test DVD on a re-writable disc. On my set top player it looks fine. It has the "look" of an NTSC video; there are indeed twenty nine frames per second instead of 25.
Will this work in an NTSC player? I suppose the only way to find out is to send a copy to my friend in America and hope.

The other option I tried (before aborting) was to re-render the video from Vegas, and it was going to take twelve hours!

Another inteesting thing I have noticed about the NTSC version is that when I freeze frame, whether on any of the menus or from a video iteslf, the freeze frame is totally "solid", it does not "jump" or lose resolution as the PAL version does.
Why should this be? Further to this, after releasing the freeze frame, I am unable to choose a menu item until after the menu loops again. This happens on either a PAL or NTSC disc. Is this something to do with the fact that on a commercial disc, you cannot freeze frame on a menu screen?

Thanks, and thank-you for providing such an interesting forum. I'm a newbie as far as video and DVD making is concerned; I jumped at the package mainly because of the surround sound and encoding software. I work in sound (and have done sound and music for a number of videos in the past), and saw this as an inexpensive way forward. I've not been disappointed so far. (fawning and grovelling mode off!)