See my site for PAL export settings http://www.sonyvegas.co.uk/render-templates-for-dvd/

I am new to video editing. Hopefully, I will understand what you are referring to. It is not yet time for me to render the video, but I thought it would be good to begin planning for it. Thank you for your help. I will look through your link.

The vast majority of Euro PAL players play ntsc just fine.

As long as the disks are region-free, there should be no problem.

+1 Musicvid. Just send them NTSC DVDs. They will almost certainly play. My DVDs are made by CreateSpace (part of Amazon) and ship all over the world. They only make NTSC. The quality will be better too, assuming the footage was shot at 29.97/59.94 fps.

NTSC DVD 720x480 vs PAL DVD 720x576. Which better quality are you referring to, Nick?

I'm in doubt too. I made a recording this week of a ceremony (XAVC 1920x1080p50 PAL) from which I should produce a NTSC DVD for relatives living in the USA. I think it's better to produce a 1920x1080p50.mp4 stream on a data disc instead of an NTSC DVD. I suppose nowadays everybody is able to play such a HD stream, either on a HDTV or on a PC. Downscaling to SD for a NTSC DVD is such a shame.

Everybody? Not even close. Still millions of older DVD players out there.

Probably also still millions of VCR's out there, that doesn't mean that you still have to produce VHS-tapes.

doesn't mean that you still have to produce VHS-tapes.

You do, if the recipients only have VHS equipment and you want them to be able to see your recording in their own sweet home.

It's not that I want them to be able to see my recording, it's that they want to see my recording. When I produce a video, I use the best techniques available today to produce something that meets the standards for now and for the (near) future and not for the past.

NTSC DVD 720x480 vs PAL DVD 720x576. Which better quality are you referring to, Nick?

Because of the temporal resampling,

29.97/59.94 fps footage > 720x480-29.97i DVD

= better quality than:

29.97/59.94 fps footage > 720x576-25i DVD

...perhaps with the exception of using something like a Snell & Wilcox standards converter.

This should make a better job than the standard resampling in Vegas.

Quality is, of course, a subjective issue.

Nick, would it make sense in my case with 1080p50 footage to produce a NTSC DVD with 23.976p instead of 29.97i? I mean I could stretch my footage on the the timeline to 95.9% and disable the resampling which throws away every second frame, my footage is than handled like 25p and slowed down to 23.976p.

Nick, would it make sense in my case with 1080p50 footage to produce a NTSC DVD with 23.976p instead of 29.97i? I mean I could stretch my footage on the the timeline to 95.9% and disable the resampling which throws away every second frame, my footage is than handled like 25p and slowed down to 23.976p.

That's a good question! If I remember correctly, players used to do a 2:3 pulldown to convert the 23.976p stream to 29.976i for TVs. But modern DVD players have a progressive scan mode, so the result of what you're proposing should be pretty clean if the equipment passes the signal through without conversion.

One consideration is that, if you're shooting 50p with a 1/100 shutter (i.e. standard 180 degrees "shutter angle") and throwing away half the frames, the result will be a bit "staccato" on moving footage because the effective shutter angle will then be 90 degrees.

Personally I would probably still go with 29.976i, using all of the 50fps, doing the conversion with MflowFps as per the link in my previous post. Yes, it's a bit of a pain to go through that workflow.

Some comparative testing of each method might be in order.

SavageAyape are you videoing in NTSC ?– if so I would process and render completely the format that the source material is recorded  that way you avoid any transcoding issues in production and you get the highest quality end video to work with. And then make an NTSC DVD.

Im pretty sure you can then use the same project and using Main Concept MPEG-2 select PAL widescreen DVD  , and it will make a good PAL DVD. ie zulqar-cheema's suggestion.

I guess you'll know the level of gear they have. Send them one of each DVD. Both discs should work fine if the TV/DVD is connected via HDMI or its being played on a computer. if its an old TV and DVD player connected via scart or the tv aerial socket, then the PAL DVD will be a fail-safe.  If there are slight occasional artifacts (and they would be slight) I suspect that your audience wouldn't be super-critical . Do a test run with one of the schools/orphanages before you send them to everyone. Best of luck

Tim-Frost, thank you for the advice. I am very new to this and easily become lost with the industry language. This is not beyond my ability to learn, though. I did not even know the original recording would be either NTSC or PAL. I thought that had to do with rendering to be played later. I am certain I was recording in NTSC, because I am from the USA. It would be good for me to find a good educational source to learn all of this considering, I intend to continue video-recording and editing. I really hope I am able to render and burn good dvd's for the kids to watch back at the schools and orphanages in Vietnam. I know they are looking forward to seeing all the places I visited as well as to see themselves on the television or computer. You would be surprised at how entertaining those kids were. A few put on choreographed dances with costumes, and almost all of them sang for me.

I know - my son has done something similar in a different country. Basically give it a try, send off the two versions and see what they say. My guess is that both will work but either way at least one will and, they will be delighted

Probably the easiest way is, to edit first your project with project settings set to the footage used. Than when it comes to rendering set the project settings to the format of your wished DVD, either DVD PAL (widescreen) or DVD NTSC (widescreen) and let the Make Movie Wizard do the rest.

Thank you everyone. Now, I just need to be happy enough with my editing to declare it completed. Then I will begin rendering it .

Big Hint Here:

"Happy enough with my editing" will never happen until you stop coming back to it.

At some point, declare it GOOD ENOUGH, commit the edits, produce, distribute, and put it down..

Come back in six months, see how well you really did, smile, and move on to your next big project.

This is not trivial advice; unless, of course, you are predisposed to remain a hobbyist forever...