Thanks for the reply farss...I know it sounds like a case of "RTFM", but I was interested if anyone had other recommendations although I wasn't clear about the fact that I had indeed done some prior investigation and was looking to see if there was any need to go "outside of the box". Vegas may have the converter, but is it possible to get a "better result" while staying in the budget of about $150.

For example, the software converter by DVFIlms Atlantis makes some claims in its comparisons against Vegas, Premiere, etc. Apparently Canopus ProCoder is the best but it comes at a price. I didn't want to mention this in my original email to see if the same names pop up or if folks had entirely different suggestions.

Anyway, here's the blurb from Atlantis....has anyone used this (or its competitor aDVanced DV PAL/NTSC?

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START OF QUOTE: http://www.dvfilm.com/atlantis/compare.htm
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"How does Atlantis compare with other methods of converting PAL to NTSC?

Standards conversion (a service) or aDVanced PAL-NTSC Converter (Windows only)

A standards converter is a $100K+ machine which uses dedicated circuitry to analyze and blend video information to do the conversion from PAL to NTSC or vice-versa. (An example of this is the Snell & Wilcox Alchemist standards converter). The aDVanced PAL-NTSC converter software program uses the same principles. Motion is analyzed and each object on the screen is assigned a motion vector (like an arrow that points in the direction of motion) and this information is used to figure where the object should have been between two different fields in the video. This re-created "in-between" field is used to simulate what the NTSC camera would have seen at that point in time. The standards converter does a good job of this but it can be confused by erratic movement, rapid cutting, or objects passing behind or in front of other objects. The aDVanced converter software has this problem as well, but it has another problem which is that the motion vectors are computed for relatively large areas of the screen, and its "in-between" frames show crude, block-like artifacts resulting from moving parts of the image around like a jigsaw puzzle.
Either the standards converter or the aDVanced converter software can also be used to simply blend two fields together to create the in-between field. The block-like artifacts are gone, but replaced with double-images as a result of the blending. The double-images are most noticable when an object passes across the screen rapidly, and also results in twice as much motion blurring as compared to the original video.
In Atlantis, there are no block-like artifacts because motion vector processing is not used. There are also no double-image effects or excessive blurring, because fields or frames are never blended together. Instead, each frame of PAL is converted to a progressive-scan image (as if it were shot on 25 fps film) and then printed to either 2 or 3 NTSC fields as required to play back at the correct speed. The 2 field / 3 field method is the same method used to convert film to NTSC, so the results look very much like film converted to video.
Canopus Procoder (Windows only) - After Effects (Windows/Mac) - Final Cut Pro (Mac)

These software methods use the field-blending method exclusively. The comments in 2 and 3 above apply to these programs.

Vegas Video (Windows Only)

Vegas Video deinterlaces PAL and uses a field-repeat method to convert to NTSC. However their deinterlacing method reduces vertical resolution by 50%.

Premiere (Windows/Mac) and many other Non-Linear Editors

Frame-based non-linear editors can be used to convert PAL to NTSC, however they use a frame-skip method which results in very bad motion judder."

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Hi. I have used Procoder for this. It works OK, but for PAL-NTSC transcoding, where it has to find additional frames to insert, the results are a bit jerky when the video contains a lot of motion. I also tried the demo of DVFilm, but it was, if anything, not as good as Procoder.

I believe Twixtor is better, but the cost would be much higher than your budget when you factor in the price of After Effects (it is an AE plugin).

I would suggest you download the demo versions of the programs you mention, and try them out on short test clips that represent well the material you will be converting. It won't take long to decide which if any are suitable for you.

Richard Hunter

Well I'd asked this question of the SoFo guys (when they were SoFo!) and they said they'd looked at the results on a studio monitor comparing the job Vegas could do against the results of a $100K broadcast box and no-one could see any difference.
I think you've got to keep things in perspective. In Vegas you're only dealing with DV25, nothing wrong with that but it is what it is. I'd suggest the job that Vegas does is more than adequate for the task.
If you had pristine source material that was big dollars then maybe you could justify the expense of better gear BUT your material is probably going from 4:2:0 to 4:2:2 and then to 4:1:1. I'd imagine you'll loose more in that process than anything else.

Like I said I've done this quite a bit and so far no complaints. You might try various options in the Deinterlace Method to see how much if any difference it makes. I will say though there's some low end conversion boxes around that certainly do a much worse job than Vegas. I'd also imagine that going from PAL to NTSC is a better conversion than NTSC to PAL, simply because NTSC is lower res to start with.

Look here:
http://www.geocities.com/xesdeeni2001/StandardsConversion/
The cheapest way and produces (depends on the source) better results than Procoder.Tweak the settings to suit your needs and you're done.
Of course if you wanna get "best" results you'll have to buy dedicated conversion box, oh and the claims that SoFo could not see any difference between the conversion,hmm I don't think so.Also dont forget that you'll have to process the audio as well(Use BeSweet).
Farss is right, PAL->NTSC it's easy and gives better results bacause PAL gives you more video information(720x576).

AudioIvan

Why do you think a dedicated conversion box would do a better job?
These boxes have to do the conversion in real time, a software based solution doesn't. Doing anything in realtime means either outrageously expensive hardware (like around $150K) or many compromises have to be made.
Software can take it's time doing it's thing, if it needs to it can mull over the maths for days, assuming you've got the patience to wait that is.
I've only been able to compare the results of the Vegas conversion against a $6K Sony converter, if you want an independant evaluation I could do a test up against a Snell & Wilcox but by the time the footage is up converted to SDI and back down again I suspect possibly that Vegas will give a better result, not because it's better but because it's simply not a fair comparison with so much up and dwon sampling in the chain.