PAL to NTSC?

richard-amirault wrote on 3/5/2010, 5:59 PM
I've downloaded a short program that I'd like to show on my local cable access TV station. (before anyone says something about copyright ... it is freely distributable and was intended to be shown in as many places as possible)

The problem is that it's from Europe and it's in PAL format (SD not HD)

I've loaded it up in Vegas Pro 9 and made a NTSC DVD with DVDA Pro 5 but there is a problem. I can see a wavering or shaking at the very top of the video (both in the Vegas preview and the finished DVD) .. and .. when there is text on screen I can see the wavering on the horizontal parts of the letters as well.

This is my first experience with PAL to NTSC. What am I doing wrong?

Comments

farss wrote on 3/5/2010, 7:05 PM
Did you render at Best and specify a De-interlace method in the Project Properties?
Did you start with a PAL Project?
How did you record the program in the first place?

Bob.
richard-amirault wrote on 3/5/2010, 10:51 PM
Did you render at Best and specify a De-interlace method in the Project Properties?

No, but there was a De-interlace method pre-selected. I re-did at Best .. with no difference.

Did you start with a PAL Project?

Don't understand the question. I started Vegas normally and imported a PAL video.

How did you record the program in the first place?

I didn't. I downloaded it off the web from a European site. It is a commercially produced video, but in PAL format.

Is what I'm seeing a result of the change from 25 fps to 29.97fps?

The project properties of the downloaded clip are

farss wrote on 3/5/2010, 11:16 PM
"Don't understand the question. I started Vegas normally and imported a PAL video."

When you start Vegas normally it can have any project properties, simply depends on what you've set as the default project properties.
The issue I'm trying to address is did your project properties match the clip that you're trying to convert.
From the screenshot it looks like they did.
If that's the case then your problem seems to be in the clip itself if you play it back on the timeline and see the problems you've mentioned.

Bob.

richard-amirault wrote on 3/7/2010, 8:48 PM
I've made some *very* short video clips (8 sec each) to illustrate the problem.

DVD mpg2 in PAL
http://n1jdu.org/temp/Sony_Forum_test_PAL_01.mpg

DVD mpg2 in NTSC
http://n1jdu.org/temp/Sony_Forum_test_NTSC_01.mpg

Note the top of the frame, and the bottom of the black letters on the end title in both. If this is something that is unavoidable, then I'll live with it, but I'd ilke to get rid of it if possible.
paige wrote on 3/7/2010, 10:05 PM
Hello
I'm used to working with PAL (not being in the US), but quite often need to convert to NTSC DVD.

I converted the pal clip you uploaded and it looks better - I cropped the top off the video file using pan crop. I also added 'reduce interlace flicker;.

When rendering to NTSC mpeg2 - if you check the 2-pass encoding it helps also when converting a PAL file.

Hope this helps
Paige.
farss wrote on 3/8/2010, 12:49 PM
The dancing pixels in the first line is in the source. It's only in one field and will become more noticeable during the frame rate conversion when fields are merged. Looking at the source it looks like data, probably Closed Caption data. You could simply mask the first line out. Most TVs would mask that line but then again it is wasting bandwidth if you're using mpeg-2.

The text becomes softer, no surprise there. You are going from 720x576 to 720x480, something has to give. I guess you could very carefully try adding some Unsharpen Mask to the output, it might make it look a little better or a lot worse so proceed with caution.

Bob.
richard-amirault wrote on 3/8/2010, 1:01 PM
The text becomes softer, no surprise there. You are going from 720x576 to 720x480, something has to give. I guess you could very carefully try adding some Unsharpen Mask to the output, it might make it look a little better or a lot worse so proceed with caution.

I'm really not concerned with the top line of "dancing pixels" (nice term) as it will very likely never been seen once it is transmitted over cable.

I didn't notice any "softer text" (but then I don't have a professional 'eye') .. what I did see (and what bothers me the most) is the same "dancing" as the top line, but at the bottom of the letters.
farss wrote on 3/8/2010, 1:52 PM
The text will dance because part of the letters are in one field and the other part in the other field.
You can see what's going on by droping the PAL source into a PAL 4:3 DV project and changing the project to 50fps and Field Order to None. Then each frame that you see is one field.

You might be able to address the text problem by adding Gaussian Blur to the source with 0 horizontal and 0.001 to 0.003 vertical. Alternatively try changing the project's de-interlace method to Blend.

Bob.
Laurence wrote on 3/8/2010, 2:50 PM
There is another way to convert from PAL to NTSC which you may prefer. It involves slowing down slightly from 25p to 24p, deinterlacing, then applying 3:2 pulldown like you would to put 24p film on video. It is also recommended to pitch correct the slowed down audio if you don't like the slightly deeper voices and lower pitched music. There is a program that automates this called http://dvfilm.com/atlantis/index.htmDV Film Atlantis[/link] Depending upon the source material sometimes this is preferable to doing the conversion in Vegas.