Settings that will look good on PAL and NTSC...conversion?

Zendorf wrote on 1/17/2003, 3:46 AM

I have finished off a music video shot in PAL miniDV, shot on an XM2(GL2 equivalent). Now my client wants this to be broadcast in Brazil (on MTV no less) and I have never had my stuff converted to NTSC before as I live in Australia(PAL).Because I am rendering out a PAL DV master I won't know till I get the converted tape(NTSC digital betacam) back. Bottom line is that the same video needs to look good on PAL and NTSC...is that possible?

Was wondering if anyone with this sort of experience could give me any pointers on conversion....what sort of parameters are good for NTSC(as well as PAL) in the Broadcast colors filter? Will my 25fps footage look choppy when converted to NTSC? Especially if I have lots of shots that I have changed the frame rate of in Vegas (ie lots of .5 and .3 footage) and a few fx shots (mainly shatter 3d and light rays). Also I have color corrected, added grain , slight gaussian blur and Saturation down 25% on the master video output ...it looks great , but how it will look when converted is an unknown factor for me....If anyone could help I would be most appreciative :)

Comments

mikkie wrote on 1/17/2003, 7:45 AM

Going from 25 fps to NTSC 29.97 drop frame should smooth things out, us folks used to NTSC often think PAL looks choppy. Shouldn't be a problem but it relies on the quality & method of processing adding the extra frames.

I would be more concerned about the differing frame sizes as NTSC is noticeably smaller. From an artistic standpoint, you might want to take a more pan & scan approach, or that may just be me. More practical advice would be to decrease your safe area for anything critical.

You "might" notice a difference in the color space - PAL has a nicer picture - but I think this would be more an artistic pride issue, trying to get things to look as nice as your master on a PAL monitor.

mike

Ritchie wrote on 1/17/2003, 10:06 AM

Unfortunately with a music video you need to be a little careful to maintain sound quality. The easiest way is to slow the video down to 23.976 fps per second from 25 fps. This will make the audio drop slightly in pitch, but may not be significant enough to worry you, it is less than 5%. You can always time stretch the audio while maintaining pitch in an audio editor, but this can cause sync problems.

Finally, you telecine (3:2 Pulldown) the video as if it were a film source. This is always done for film source on NTSC. If you are playing it on a DVD, this is simply done using a flag in the video.

Good luck.