You can do this VERY easily.
While there are indeed better tools for upscaling, there is nothing I'm aware of in the cost bracket that competes. B_JM might know of something.
If you convert to 23.976, somewhere, pulldown will be inserted for playback on a television. Vegas will resample the framerate to 29.97 very well, if you plan on working with this in other formats later on.
You'll be better off going from 25 fps to 29.97 than if you go from 23.976 to 29.97 later on.

I've done a LOT of PAL to NTSC conversions using Vegas.
The way I do it is perhaps a little different to how SPOT and others do it but it works well for me.
Simply render to NTSC from a PAL project. I set Deinterlace Method to Merge Fields and turn on Reduce Interlace Flicker on the event(s).

The only downside to this is you will get some motion blur from the de-interlacing which is needed for the frame rate conversion. I've found this quite acceptable. To get better results you either need a hardware based converter (very expensive, send it to a good post house) or I think software such as Twixtor that uses motion compensation.

Bob.

Thanks for your help, Spot. Although these convertions seem to be easy, I disagree - they are not.
Sportwrote this:
....If you convert to 23.976, somewhere, pulldown will be inserted for playback on a television...
As you all can see, I guess this (what Spot has just remarked) would be the best way to convert PAL to NTSC (original file here has no sound so it's much easier).
PAL is at 25 fps. NTSC is 29.97 but 23.976 (the so-called film DVD) can also be NTSC compatible as far as when you encode the video source to MPEG2, you insert a 3:2 pulldown. As you can see here, 23.976 is much closer to 25 than 29.97 - so this must be the best way. Here I'm not converting directly from PAL AVI to NTSC MPEG2; before this last step, I'm converting PAL AVI to NTSC AVI. Example:

PAL AVI at 25>NTSC AVI at 23.976>NTSC MPEG2 at 24 with pulldown 3:2 (final format)

Now there's another possibility:
PAL AVi at 25>NTSC AVI at 29.97 - the result here is not perfect (at least when the framerate is simply changed, what I've tried with VirtualDub: The converted AVI is shorter and plays much faster - if the file has a soundtrack, this can be a big problem, unless you re-encode the audio with BeSweet ....or any other application that is able to do that (never tried it though).

Spot:
...Vegas will resample the framerate to 29.97 very well, if you plan on working with this in other formats later on....
- What kind of resample? Smart or Force Resample?

Spot:
....You'll be better off going from 25 fps to 29.97 than if you go from 23.976 to 29.97 later on....
- Yes, but what about the speed. File will paly much faster this way.

Farss:
Thanks for the input - but waht about the sound? Do you any problems with the sound as you go from PAL to NTSC?

Thanks in advance.

No problem with the sound at all, both PAL and NTSC DV audio is 16bit 48KHz, that doesn't change.

With regard to your other question regarding 24 fps into NTSC.

That isn't realy a NTSC standard as such, rather it's a standard way of getting films 24fps into NTSCs 60i scheme. Plenty of stuff on the web from the likes of Adam Wilt that explains how it's done. I can see no advantage in going down that path with what you're trying to achieve unless the PAL source is progressive. In that case you could slow it down to 24fps and then apply pulldown to convert to NTSC. The 4% speed difference you'll not notice, in PAL land film that's 24fps is run for television at 25fps.

To be honest if most of your source is PAL you might be better off doing the whole project in PAL and then rendering to NTSC. Simple reason being that PAL is higher resolution so if you need to do any pan/crop things better to apply that to the higher res source. You can even mix PAL and NTSC on the one Vegas T/L, and then render out to NTSC, it should cope just fine.

Best advice I can give you though, is try all of the suggestions with a few seconds of video, see which suits you best and gives the best result.

Bob.

......To be honest if most of your source is PAL you might be better off doing the whole project in PAL and then rendering to NTSC....
Does it realy work? In fact most videos are NTSC. Some AVi files (progressive) are PAL at 25. I've already tried to convert those real AVIs to NTSC with Vegas. From 25 to 29.97. Anyone can notice that the speed increases in the converted file. Pulldowning, or better yet, conveting from progressive PAL at 25 to NTSC 23.976 and then when encoding to MPEG2, pulldowning to 3:2 made the video look a lot better. Farss I really belive what you say about convertions. It's just that you seem to make everything so easy while other users totally disagree. By the way, those PAL videos are intended for motion menus and a short-video. I guess the DVD player won't have any problem playing both NTSC 29.97 and 23.976 on the same DVD...

C'mon folks....Anyone? Spot? Farss?
I need some more tips on how to do the job with Vegas. I'm getting crazy here....My DVD will have some intros and these are gonna be 23.976 while main movies 29.97. Is there any problem authoring a DVD half 23.976 and half 29.97?
Thanks in advance.

> Spot:
....You'll be better off going from 25 fps to 29.97 than if you go from 23.976 to 29.97 later on....
- Yes, but what about the speed. File will paly much faster this way.


No. If you do it with Vegas it will play at the correct speed. I have done this heaps of times. There are several ways as pointed out. I usually set the project to be NTSC, unlike farss I get best results with deinterlace = interpolate, video quality = best (because you are resizing the dimensions). I then put the PAL clips on the timeline and render. Thats all I do.

Mmm interpolate....Well thanks! I'll try that way (even though since my source is progressive PAL, I got better results going from 25 AVI to 23.976 AVI and then to MPEG2 29.97).

I' m very surprised since no one seems to have a definitive answer for this problem (PAL 25 to NTSC 29.97).
Spot said this:
You'll be better off going from 25 fps to 29.97 than if you go from 23.976 to 29.97 later on.

Hey Spot, could you please tell me how? C'mon folks, can anyone help me with this? - I have tried everything and the converted video 25 to 29.97 is jerky...
Thanks in advance. Jusat a tought here: Hope HDTV arrives soon because we won't have to try these convertions anymore - hope so ;)

Among the listed improvements in Vegas version 6 is "improved frame rate conversion". Is PAL to NTSC conversion better in version 6? It seems like it should be if frame rate conversion is indeed improved.

Anything else? Hey...where's everybody?

I've done a couple of PAL to NTSC conversions with Vegas (PAL DV and PAL DiVx), and in both cases, I just told Vegas to "render as" to the default NTSC DV AVI template. Looked great to my eye, even projected to fill a 7-foot screen. I did not notice the jerky motion you mention.

Where I've noticed jerky motion is on credit rolls and animations where the motion is smooth. I have also noticed this jerky motion to a lesser degree on pans and zooms.

Going the other way: from NTSC to PAL, I've noticed that rendering PAL from an NTSC project looks a whole lot better than rendering to NTSC and then converting the NTSC render with software like DVDFilm Atlantis because the animated titles and photo movements are rendered directly into the final PAL format.

On the other hand, if I want to convert a single avi file where the animations are already rendered into PAL format, or the other way around, DVDFilm Atlantis looks smoother to my eyes than Vegas on the animated titles and photo movements because the "slow down 4%, deinterlace and apply 3:2 pulldown" approach doesn't make the animations look jerky.

Vegas 6 has improved it's frame rate conversion algorythms which should affect things like slow motion, 24P conversion, and NTSC/PAL conversions, but I don't know exactly what the difference is. I would love to know more about how Vegas 6 handles frame rate conversions.

I would love to know more about how Vegas 6 handles frame rate conversions.
....Same here!
Anyone?
Thanks in advance

Cunhambebe,
Could you describe what it is you're seeing that you don't like?
I downloaded two of the vids you sent me the link to, and converted them just fine, using a couple recipes, including the one that Farss recommends. These aren't great shots to begin with, even though they say that the files are for television. Whether in PAL or NTSC (My monitor does both) they don't look all that awesome.

Glad to hearing from you Spot. Thanks for taking time to respond. Since those "AVI" files at ESA (European Space Agency) are free for non-commercial use, I'd like to author and burn an NTSC DVD presenting a series of those animations (rendered to MPEG2). The problem is, those animations are in PAL 25 and Brazil, where I live, is NTSC like the USA (Brazil is NTSC for DVD but for broadcasting it has an ingenious system called PAL-M, which is PAL at 30 fps and 525 lines as NTSC - that's why the "M", using PAL color palette, for correcting the famous "never the same color"; TVs here have these 2 systems nowadays) .
Since I must convert to NTSC becasue PAL is not compatible with PAL-M, this is what I've done: I have downloaded a file showing a moving starfiled (that one is really good to show what's happening). I've alredy changed the framerate with VirtualDub which is very simply and very good (>Direct Stream Copy>25>23.976). Then I dropped this AVI into Vegas and encoded to MPEG2 24 NTSC film/telecine, that means with 2:3 pulldown. I haven't watched the final MPEG2 on TV since I don't have a monitor here connected to my PC. On the other hand, I played the file with Power DVD and it was just perfect.
This step is OK. It seems to work. Now, I'd like to try converting directly from 25 to 29.97 as you've said it was possible. In fact this is the problem - going from 25 to 29.97 is not working here. Video is jerky and what Farss has said doesn't help at all since my source is not interlaced but progressive. I have tried everything (always encoding that moving starfiled) and the result is the same. A little blurred, weird, movement is not smooth, looks strange. So, since you've said this conversion can be easily done in Vegas, I'd like you to give me some detailed dexplanations on how you do that. I even thought about re-encoding the MPEG2 NTSC film to MPEG2 29...but I'm just guesing here, it won't take me anywhere...
BTW, I've found a very good article at doom9...Please check it out...

(....)
3. BAD PAL -> NTSC CONVERSiON
Bad PAL -> NTSC conversions are a real pain in the ass. This type of errors is much easier to
find then the types described in bad NTSC -> PAL conversion. To make a good conversion, PAL is
slowed down to FILM, which then is telecined to NTSC.

Good conversion:
- PAL -> FILM -> NTSC => The PAL source is slowed down by 1 fps. There will be a change in
running time by factor 25/23.97; the obtained FILM source (24 fps)
is then telecined to NTSC (30 fps). Tadaaaaa! Doesn't this sound just
soooooo easy? It's just the inverse of NTSC -> PAL! Indeed. This is
a perfect demonstration of why some DVD labels are utter shit and
some or not. If you buy DVD by labels as MGM, Fox or Warner, you are
safe. If you buy a DVD by NeWCuLTLABEL, well... read further

Now, how can this go wrong? Well, let's imagine we are lazy engineers with brains that fit into
the fruits of the Myristica fragrans. Our boss just gave us this überleet copy of The Invasion
Of The Rapist Martians, but it runs at 25 fps. My boss just bought it on the black market in
Napoli... Now how do I have to make this compatible to NTSC devices? Hey! I know! Let's add
5 frames every second, so I obtain NTSC compatible source. Indeed, you obtain a movie that is
running at 30 fps, but I wouldn't call it an achievement. I'd call it murder. By adding 5 fps,
the source will become ugly as fuck and display ghosting effects all over.

Bad conversion:
- PAL -> NTSC => Instead of slowing down the PAL source to 24 fps and then telecining to 30
fps, the PAL source is converted to NTSC by adding 5 fps. These 5 fps can
be duped frames or the interpolation of its adjacent frames.

And how are we going to solve this problem? Yet again, Decomb comes to our aid! Let's consider
we have the following NTSC DVD (0 = unique frame, 1 = dupe frame):

[NTSC SOURCE] - 001000 010000 100000 100000 001000 [30 frames/second]

The above mentioned NTSC source has been obtained by adding 1 frame in every 5 frame PAL sequence.
5 of those sequences will yield NTSC (since 5*(5+1)=30). Now, let's remove them again. 1 frame in
a 6 frame cyclus has to be removed. A typical avs with Decomb could be as follows:
(...continues)

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30709
(...)

So, what do you think?

Farss wrote this:
.."I set Deinterlace Method to Merge Fields and turn on Reduce Interlace Flicker on the event(s).".......

BTW, I like your way of converting PAL to NTSC (nevertheless, NTSC film look better), but I can't find the option for Merge Fields...
Where is that please? Project properties?

Thanks in advance
Mark ;)

> BTW, I like your way of converting PAL to NTSC (nevertheless, NTSC film look better), but I can't find the option for Merge Fields...
Where is that please? Project properties?


Yes it is in project properties.

I have interpolate fields in Vegas 5......Is that what you mean?

Interpolate means ditch every second line and interpolate from the remaining lines to create the now missing lines. Doing this avoids the problem of blurring of movement but reduces your vertical res by half.
If you want the best possible PAL to NTSC conversions as I said before get it done through a S&W box by a post house, we're not talking huge sums of money, gosh if I had your tape I could probably get it done as a favor.

Converting PALs 25fps to 24fps and then applying pulldown does work but really only makes sense IF the source material is progressive scan, i.e. most likely it originated on film. This makes sense in the context talked about on Doom9 that you are talking about as most Hollywood DVDs are from film. For PAL DVDs they just run the film at 25fps, you reverse the process by slowing it down to 24fps etc. This doesn't work with video which is 50i, when the fields are merged you've got a problem with interlace artifacts again.

The only way to get a good result is a system that realigns the fields and that's no simple matter. That's also the reason a lot of what goes to air originates on film. Two passes through a telecine and you've got both a PAL and NTSC source and it'll be as good as it gets.

Shoot NTSC and apart from anything else the res is way down by PAL standards, shoot PAL and you've got frame rate conversion issues although at least they can usually be better dealt with than the resolution issues.

I haven't seen the footage in question but if it's as SPOT says it is then all this could be a storm in a teacup, after all you're only editing this stuff in DV, if it was 10 bit 4:2:2 it might be worth the angst!

Bob.

Thanks for replying and many thanks for your help, Bob - but I can't find where this option <Merge Fields> is........
Thanks,
Mark

Blend fields=merge fields.
In your explanation above, I didn't see what you don't like about the conversion.
Could you describe only what you don't like about the conversion that you are doing? I'm getting a conversion that looks very much like the original. I'm viewing on two different monitors, both PAL and NTSC capable. The footage is highly compressed in original form, and it displays some macroblocks. As far as I can see, I'm not going to get anything better.

Spot,

Regarding the macroblocks... the "MSU deblocking filter" for VirtualDub (and Vegas via the WAX plugin) does a pretty decent job of removing/smoothing macroblocks.

MSU Filters

John