VideoHelp Forum
+ Reply to Thread
Results 1 to 6 of 6
Thread
  1. PAL (25) TO NTSC Film (23.976) Conversions

    This is my first guide here, bear with me. Most of it was piecemealed together from information in other guides avaialbe here. If you use the Virtualdub MPEG2 mod it will work with AVI as well as S/VCD sources.

    UPDATED 6/9/3 - Forgot a step.

    AUDIO FIRST


    STEP 1 – Open your source file in Virtualdub, and set Audio to “Full Processing Mode”.

    -For “Compression” select PCM


    -For “Conversion”, select the following.


    Under “File” select “Save as WAV”.

    STEP 2 – Use BeSweet GUI to convert your WAV file to MP2. We already changed the sample rate to 44.1 so make sure “Downconvert Sample Rate” is UNCHECKED. Use the “PAL->NTSC (25.000 to 23.976)” preset in the OTA section. After BeSweet converts your WAV to MP2 your audio is done.


    AUDIO NOTES

    -BeSweet setup – there’s about 2000 settings in BeSweet. If you don’t know what they mean don’t touch them. Make sure you set “tooLAME” to your desired “Encoding Mode” and “Bitrate”.


    -AC3 audio requires an extra step than described here. When you extract AC3 audio the sample rate remains the same ( 48 ). If you try to change the sample and frame rates at the same time with besweet, it won’t work. So you have to go from AC3 to wave (downconvert 48->44.1) and then WAV to MP2 (25->23.976).

    -VBR audio should have no impact on this process at all. Other than that there are some sources with VBR audio out there that just refuse to synch on conversion no matter what.


    VIDEO


    STEP 1 - Again, open your source file in Virtualdub. Under “Audio” select “No Audio”. Under “Video” select “Full Processing Mode”, then “Frame Rate” as follows.


    Under “Compression”, pick your favorite NON XVID compression (Divx 5.x or whatever – just make sure the bitrate is set to 2600 or higher).

    NOTE – Even if your source is XVID, you HAVE to change it to another compression scheme – XVID is problematic frameserving.


    If your source is letterboxed, also add a "Null Transform" filter and crop out the black bars - we'll put them back in later. NOTE **, see below

    The select “Save as AVI”. Your resulting AVI will have no sound (it would lose synch) and will be at the proper framerate. This can take some time.


    STEP 2 – Open FITCD and select your new AVI. Decide how many CD’s you want it to be on. Leave the Audio kbps at 224. Check blocks as you see below.



    STEP 3 – Open your new AVI with Virtualdub. Again, select “No Audio” under “Audio” and “Full Processing Mode” under “Video”


    Add a “Resize” filter under video and set the new height and width to what FITCD says. Make other settings as you see below.
    NOTE ** If you have a true PAL source @ 480x576 just resize here, 448x448, letterbox 480x480 - whether the source is FS or WS. This will provide the correct aspect ratio.


    Then crop out the black bars above and below.


    With that done. Start your Frame Server (under File).

    NOTE – You must have run “auxsetup” and enabled the frame server.


    STEP 4 – Launch your MPEG2 encoder (from here on directions are for CCE). Right click in the white area and select your VDR.


    Right click on it to edit. Set bitrate as per FITCD and determine how many passes you want to make (1 is sufficient). Set timecode to 00.


    Click “Video” and set “Luminence” to 0 to 255 and click “OK”.


    Now you’re ready to encode. So click “Encode”. Depending on the number of passes you picked, this could take a while.

    ****NEW***** STEP 5 - Use Pulldown.exe (GUI version if you like) on you newly encoded video file.

    NOTE - Your input video here will be .MPV unless you changed CCE’s defaults.

    MULTIPLEX AND CHOP

    STEP1 – Open BBMEG. If you’re using XP, you have to click “Load” then “Cancel” or the program will crash. Next click “Start Encoding”,


    then “Settings”


    Select your input and output files.
    NOTE Make sure your input video file is the output from pulldown.exe.




    Make these settings.


    Then these.

    NOTE – Max size – if you’re creating a 2 or more CD SVCD, you can play with the # here. Don’t raise it above 800ish. For one CD don’t even mess with it. You have to hit TAB after entering a value here to get the check boxes below to appear.


    BURNING

    Fire up Nero or whatever and burn away.
    Quote Quote  
  2. Member FulciLives's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2003
    Location
    Pittsburgh, PA in the USA
    Search Comp PM
    Hello

    I'm not trying to be overly critical of your method. However you are encoding twice which seems like a big waste of time. If you can extract the mpg file from the SVCD (I'm not familar with the process) then you can run that mpg file through DVD2AVI and get a D2V project file and an audio file. You can then either import the D2V directly into TMPGEnc or use an avisynth AVS script to read it into TMPGEnc (I think this works for CCE as well but I haven't used CCE in ages as I prefer to work in TMPGEnc especially for PAL to NTSC conversions).

    Thus you avoid the middle step of encoding it to an avi file which should result in better quality overall. In fact there is a way to convert the video so that you don't have to change the audio at all. This works best with an interlaced video source but can also work rather well with progressive although if the PAL SVCD is progressive then you can do the 25fps to 23.976fps method (which WILL require the audio to be processed).

    Check out this website on how to do conversions using TMPGEnc:
    http://www.geocities.com/xesdeeni2001/StandardsConversion/

    and this thread (which is on the forums here):
    https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=160433

    The thread above deals with PAL DVD to NTSC DVD but the process for SVCD would be very similar except of course the resolution differences between the two formats.

    - John "FulciLives" Coleman
    "The eyes are the first thing that you have to destroy ... because they have seen too many bad things" - Lucio Fulci
    EXPLORE THE FILMS OF LUCIO FULCI - THE MAESTRO OF GORE
    Quote Quote  
  3. I would like to make a few comments on this guide. Please try and view this as helpful criticism and not putting down your efforts.

    The guide as written seems to target (S)VCD. The same basics apply when targeting DVD with the exception that the audio should be 48K sample rate when finished.

    The encoder used is CCE, no problems there. However for TmpGenc users the vdub resize filter stage can be ommitted as Tmpgenc's resize (at least IMHO) is as good so can be used instead.

    If you are frameserving from vdub, no need to re-encode (be it from xvid or whatever). Just use the settings you describe for framerate and then frameserve. You can do the resize here too if you require.

    Anyway, just a few thoughts, hopefully helpful.

    EDIT, just one more comment.
    The same basic process will also work for NTSC to PAL, with the appropriate reversing of settings in besweet and vdub.
    Quote Quote  
  4. First and foremost - I forgot a step (pulldown.exe), when I posted this guide last night. I sincerely apologize for that.

    I haven't started playing with DVD authoring yet so I can't comment as to wether any of this will work.

    FulciLives,

    "Check out this website on how to do conversions using TMPGEnc:
    http://www.geocities.com/xesdeeni2001/StandardsConversion/ "

    The standards conversions detailed on this website only explain how to convert from PAL(25) to VCD(23.976) which is okay. It doesn't discuss SVCD conversion and the VCD process won't work without the step for pulldown (which I missed at first) which is necessary for the SVCD conversion. This was one of my source sites, I'd lost my link, thanks.

    Also, IMHO, BeSweet is a much better tool than WSOLA for audio conversions. In most (non AC3) cases, the audio can be converted from WAV to MP2 in one step.


    bugster,

    Thanks for the catch about frameserving to TMPG and not needing the resize filter. I do recommend that if you're going to frameserve to TMPG that you turn off pulldown in your template and use pulldown.exe afterwords.

    I've had multiple problems (mostly freezeups) trying to frameserve XVID. Thus my recommendation to convert codecs. My total time to convert with a framerate reduction and then frameserve to the encoder is about 30% less than throwing everything in Virtualdub at once and frameserving.

    Mike[/quote]
    Quote Quote  
  5. Hi, Mike. Thanks for the guide. I have one request and one suggestion.

    Request: Could you please say which settings you chose in Pulldown? I d/l'd it and it has some setting there I'm unfamiliar with. Thanks.

    Suggestion: For people without Nero, just having an mpeg to burn might or might not be the way they want to go. What I do after getting the mpeg is run it through VCDgear (click on the "video-cd" button - 2nd from the left, top row of buttons- then choose mpeg > cue/bin[cd image] from the "Video CD Creation Method drop down list, then click the "add track" button to load the new mpeg movie file, select the CD size, then use the save button to define the name/folder you want to assign to the file, then hit Start). In a short time (this isn't one of these forever and a day deals) you'll have a burnable image file (a bin and cue "set" of files, actually), which, unless I misunderstood, allows 800 MB to be burned to a 80 minute CD, whereas if you try to burn 800 MB worth of an MPEG file, a lot of burners will reject it. Also, burning bins vs mpegs allows chapters - if they were authored in - to remain intact.

    HIH.

    sk

    NOTE: I used to use EZCD Creator 5.1 for CD's, which I still like. I've used Nero in the past, but found it to be problematic at times. I then recently purchased NTI to be able to burn the SVCD's that EZCD Creator would not. And now I use free Burn At Once for these bin/image files. It works great on my system, and is free.
    Quote Quote  
  6. The default settings of pulldown.exe are fine, there's no need to change anything.

    I didn't get into VCD chapters and menus as there are several excellent guides available here already.

    Nero has no problem with an 800+ MB video file for a VCD or SVCD. I can't really comment on any other burning program.

    Mike
    Quote Quote  



Similar Threads

Visit our sponsor! Try DVDFab and backup Blu-rays!