It's getting to the point where most PAL players do play NTSC discs just fine. I would just send her an NTSC disc.

If you decide to make a PAL disc it really isn't that hard. Just render to PAL mpeg2 and author the PAL project in DVDA.
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Thanks Laurence.

Do you know if there is any quality loss in the conversion when rendering to PAL Mpeg 2 from timeline with footage shot on a non-PAL camera as compared to the NTSC Mpeg 2 I am using for the rest of the discs?

In other words, will there be a difference in the quality if I decide to make a PAL version for her to send? I have actually already rendered the PAL Mpeg 2.

John

Craftech, if did not know PAL is 576 vs NTSC 480, there will some resampling to stretch 480 to 576. If there is a lot of graphics and specialized imagery, you will be better off adding blank lines, letterbox, top and bottom, if you don't want to re-edit all the scenes.

If you want to make it really idiot-proof, just use the VASST DVDPrep script and click the PAL option when you do the render:

http://www.vasst.com/product.aspx?id=30de2ba2-0bca-4a0b-9564-951b88a127b1

Thanks for the tips Apit and Laurence. There are no graphics or specialized imagery. Only a graphic on the DVD menu.

Maybe I will re-render with that script. Pretty neat.

Thanks again,

John

John,

You are heading down the right path.

I am Australian which is a PAL country. I have one client whose head office is in the US so I incorporate their NTSC material into our other PAL content which is played at live events. Vegas/DVDA does a surprisingly good job of the conversion and it is a much better solution than playing a NTSC disc on a machine primarily designed for PAL. So much so that I now always re-render NTSC material to PAL for any show that I do because that way I know that it will work at every venue on the roadshow.

Regards,

DJ

Another Australian here and it's been a long time since I've seen any domestic gear that will not handle NTSC. In fact it has to. Many DVD players output their menus as NTSC. I only realised this as I have a Sony monitor with a set of LEDs that tell me if it's getting PAL, NTSC, NTSC 4.43 or SECAM. With the DVD player hooked upto it it indicates NTSC until I load a PAL DVD. Our livingroom entire setup handles PAL or NTSC without problem too.
As noted above, no big drama going from NTSC to PAL in Vegas although the other way around is better as you're going down in res rather than trying to upscale. You'd almost certainly be safe just sending them NTSC DVDs though. Sending PAL DVDs to an NTSC country isn't such a good idea, very little NTSC region kit will play PAL it seems.

Bob.

Here in Denmark I think my first set top DVD-player years back could handle NTSC too. A lot of people buy DVD's on-line all over the world and most is NTSC.

/Ulf

By way of background, my "real occupation" is a technical director for live corporate and government events. I spend at least 120 days per year on the road doing events with lot's of different suppliers. I have learned from experience that it is much easier to bring PAL versions.

Most DVD players are capable of NTSC however what is it plugged into? In a show environment, the input stage of your switcher or projector often needs to be told to accept NTSC which in turn means you may not be able to play PAL without an ugly pause, or glitch or some work around. That may be acceptable however in an environment where other material is played to an audience, it probably isn't. In some rare cases switchers will only accept PAL, especially if you are seamlessly mixing other PAL sources such as cameras.

Regards,

DJ

Thanks for everything guys. This has been really helpful and very informative.

I have decided to give the client an NTSC version and a PAL version to send to her relatives in Italy. That way, she can't go wrong.

Thanks,

John

UPDATE:

DVDA wants to re-compress the audio. I changed the properties of the project to PAL from the NTSC version I created and replaced the media with the PAL Mpeg 2 video.
The Mpeg 2 PAL video was accepted without DVDA saying it wanted to re-compress it, but the AC3 audio was not. When I rendered the AC3 audio in Vegas, it didn't give me a PAL option as with the video, only the same AC3 options as with any of them so I assumed the AC3 audio was the same for both.

Is there a way to render the AC3 so that DVDA will not want to re-compress it, or should I let DVDA do it?

John

Good point Dave!

We had one client rent a MX50 to switch the output from 3 cameras he owned. Yes he'd checked, all camera worked fine with his video wall. The NTSC one was a no show through the MX50 though. Took a lot to convince him the MX50 wasn't broken.

Bob.

John,

>Is there a way to render the AC3 so that DVDA will not want to re-compress it, or should I let DVDA do it?

You are correct. It shouldn't need to re-render the audio if it is properly setup. The AC3 you have made from Vegas is properly configured? (48khz, stereo etc)

I'd be highly suspect of allowing DVDA to re-render the existing AC3.

DJ

John,
You are correct. It shouldn't need to re-render the audio if it is properly setup. The AC3 you have made from Vegas is properly configured? (48khz, stereo etc)

I'd be highly suspect of allowing DVDA to re-render the existing AC3.

DJ
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Dave,
The AC3 is the same file for the NTSC and the PAL version. Rendered the video on the Vegas timeline to NTSC Mpeg 2 and then to PAL Mpeg 2 using the DVDA templates.

Then rendered the AC3 audio the normal way to use with both.

I started an NTSC project in DVDA importing the NTSC Mpeg 2 version with the AC3 - worked fine.

Started a PAL project in DVDA importing the PAL Mpeg 2 version with the same AC3 and DVDA says it has to recompress both the menu audio (an AC3 song created with Vegas from a wav file of the song) and the entire AC3 audio created in Vegas (same one used for the NTSC version).

Any ideas what's wrong? Is it an audio synch problem DVDA sees because of the change in the video frame rate? Did the properties of the video in Vegas have to be changed to PAL first before rendering to Mpeg 2 PAL. I left the project properties NTSC and then rendered the video to PAL Mpeg 2 because it is my understanding that rendering properties take priority over project properties. Or did I forget?

John

Did you check that the Audio format (in the project properties or optimized window) is set for AC-3.

Under recomoress - in the optimized/audio tab - what is the reason for recompress?

Udi

John,

Your workflow seems entirely sound (forgive the pun!) and it does work. As a matter of fact, I just tried your workflow on my system and it worked fine (NB - I'm still using V7 and DVDA 4. I bought V8....but I just can't bring myself to installing it yet)

I'm starting to think that DVDA is trying to make the PAL version with for example PCM or 5.1 audio instead of stereo AC3. IE, it may have nothing to do with NTSC/PAL at all. It might be an audio setting somewhere else in the system. Actually....come to think of it, you haven't got embedded audio within your PAL video stream have you? That will want to recompress within DVDA.

DJ

No embedded audio. I also took a wav file for the menu sound loop and converted it to AC3 in Vegas and DVDA wants to re-compress it for the PAL version as well, but not for the NTSC version.

??????

I could just ignore the Optomize request and just go ahead and author it. The only thing is I won't know if it worked until it ends up in Italy. I have no way to test it that I am aware of.

John

I have no way to test it that I am aware of.

Since it's a region-free DVD, it'll play back on your computer.
Several of the new cheap DVD players are apparently capable of playing PAL discs.
You could also take it to a local big box store, find a machine with PAL playback and try it.

Mike