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  1. Ok I know there are tons of discussions about converting pal to ntsc and vice versa, but my situation is slightly different. First of all before I start, I just want to say that I'm not a video nut and by all means don't much at all about video, so if I say something that is totally wrong, or remotely wrong, just politely correct me and I'll learn.

    I have successfully converted a pal dvd video to ntsc (following instructions from here), but the problem is that the NTSC output seems stretched, since pal widescreen is 720x576 and ntsc widescreen is 720x480. The original PAL dvd is widescreen, and I noticed that if I set it to 4:3 ratio in CCE, the video is more true to the original PAL size. The problem with that is that it automatically adds black space to the bottom of the video, it does not evenly distribute it between the top AND bottom. So my first question is: Is it possible to even distribute it?

    Now, to add to that, I have to add a logo to the bottom-right corner of the video. I figured that out, by using the ImageSequence plugin for AVISynth. Here is my AVISynth script:
    Code:
    LoadPlugin("DGDecode.dll")
    LoadPlugin("C:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\ImageSequence.dll")
    video = MPEG2Source("G:\VIDEO\arrex-3d.d2v")
    logo = ImageSource("G:\VIDEO\logo.bmp")
    logomask = ImageSource("G:\VIDEO\logomask.bmp")
    Overlay(video, logo, mask=logomask)
    ConvertToYUY2()
    LanczosResize(720,480)
    The logo seems to work fine, but as it is currently, it adds the logo to the bottom of the original video and not on the letterbox section, which is where I would ideally like it to go. Would I have to add the letterbox using the AVISynth script? If so, how would I do it?
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  2. Hi-

    Widescreen can be 4:3. If it looks more "normal" after being encoded for 4:3, it probably was 4:3 to begin with. To save yourself extra work you might figure out what you have before encoding.
    The problem with that is that it automatically adds black space to the bottom of the video, it does not evenly distribute it between the top AND bottom. So my first question is: Is it possible to even distribute it?
    It might help if you told us what encoder you're using. If CCE, uncheck the "For DVD" at the top right of the main screen. You don't want anything done that isn't explicit in the script.
    Would I have to add the letterbox using the AVISynth script? If so, how would I do it?
    Isn't there already letterboxing in the original source DVD? Anyway, you might play around with the X and Y variables of the Overlay filter:

    http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Overlay

    And it's usually suggested that you do all the filtering in the original YV12 before doing the colorspace conversion.
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    I can't help you as I don't do PAL<->NTSC conversion. Not worth it in my opinion as converting DVD players are pretty cheap these days.

    However, I do want to commend you for an excellent first post for newbie. Well done! Usually around here a new person with your problem would say "I'm trying to convert a PAL DVD to NTSC and it isn't working. Why?" and that would be all they would say. Unfortunately, this isn't really the right forum location for your post. Newbie Conversion would be better, although Advanced Conversion would be OK too as this is an advanced conversion topic. You may yet get help here, even though it's the wrong forum for what you are doing, but if not, please just post this again in one of the forums I suggested. I'm sure someone here can definitely help you with this as you told us exactly what you are doing and what your goal is and there are people here who do this kind of conversion.

    Since you actually posted a well documented question for a newbie, I want to encourage you to consider hanging around and if nothing else just reading the forums after you get helped. You can learn a lot just by reading, even if you never post another question. You seem like a good forum member potentially and it would be a shame to see you do what so many do which is post one question, get an answer, leave and then return 5 years later with an incredibly elementary question that you would have already known the answer to if you had only kept up with the forums since you first joined.
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    Originally Posted by atomicrabbit
    ...the problem is that the NTSC output seems stretched, since pal widescreen is 720x576 and ntsc widescreen is 720x480. The original PAL dvd is widescreen, and I noticed that if I set it to 4:3 ratio in CCE, the video is more true to the original PAL size. The problem with that is that it automatically adds black space to the bottom of the video...
    As manono said, the main problem may come from 'for DVD' setting.
    In more detail. You are encoding to 25fps with NTSC picture size. 'For DVD' means that for PAL framerate PAL frame size will be forced by CCE for making a PAL DVD compliant file. With internal resizing disabled this means that your 720x480 will be encoded within 720x576 with corresponding horizontal black borders and the original image will be horizontally stretched. If you see borders of different height after encoding, search for border(s) in original picture (if there were no borders, you'd see them added symmetrically). Possibly the source video is letterboxed (you say it looks more correct at 4:3). In this case you could centre it after resizing by cropping and adding fresh borders (totally as much as cropped in pixels) using AddBorders() command.
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  5. Originally Posted by manono
    Widescreen can be 4:3. If it looks more "normal" after being encoded for 4:3, it probably was 4:3 to begin with. To save yourself extra work you might figure out what you have before encoding.
    Well I opened the dvd in DGIndex as explained in the tutorial I linked to in my first post. It said that it was a 16:9 Progressive PAL dvd -- and it does not fit the full area of my 4:3 monitor without the dvd player adding letterbox strips. Therefore I doubt its 4:3, but is NTSC widescreen not thinner than PAL widescreen? Or should it be generally the same? From the straight conversion from PAL 16:9 to NTSC 16:9, the video looked noticeably skinnier (in terms of height).

    Originally Posted by manono
    It might help if you told us what encoder you're using. If CCE, uncheck the "For DVD" at the top right of the main screen. You don't want anything done that isn't explicit in the script.
    Would I have to add the letterbox using the AVISynth script? If so, how would I do it?
    Isn't there already letterboxing in the original source DVD? Anyway, you might play around with the X and Y variables of the Overlay filter:

    http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Overlay

    And it's usually suggested that you do all the filtering in the original YV12 before doing the colorspace conversion.
    Yes I am using CCE SP2. And No there is not already letterboxing in the original source DVD. Should there be? It's NOT a commercial movie -- it's a dvd video for a company. I'll check out the Overlay parameters

    Originally Posted by jman98
    I can't help you as I don't do PAL<->NTSC conversion. Not worth it in my opinion as converting DVD players are pretty cheap these days.

    However, I do want to commend you for an excellent first post for newbie. Well done! Usually around here a new person with your problem would say "I'm trying to convert a PAL DVD to NTSC and it isn't working. Why?" and that would be all they would say. Unfortunately, this isn't really the right forum location for your post. Newbie Conversion would be better, although Advanced Conversion would be OK too as this is an advanced conversion topic. You may yet get help here, even though it's the wrong forum for what you are doing, but if not, please just post this again in one of the forums I suggested. I'm sure someone here can definitely help you with this as you told us exactly what you are doing and what your goal is and there are people here who do this kind of conversion.

    Since you actually posted a well documented question for a newbie, I want to encourage you to consider hanging around and if nothing else just reading the forums after you get helped. You can learn a lot just by reading, even if you never post another question. You seem like a good forum member potentially and it would be a shame to see you do what so many do which is post one question, get an answer, leave and then return 5 years later with an incredibly elementary question that you would have already known the answer to if you had only kept up with the forums since you first joined.
    Well, first of all, my life revolves around computers. I am a graphic designer, programmer and I do general computer repair. So don't expect a newbie-formed question from me. Second, I frequent another forum (computer related) and I see enough questions like the one you mentioned (i.e. "My computer is broken. How do I fix it?"). Enough to know that it's really annoying when you get a really general open-ended question to a topic that is definitely not general. And lastly, I know a good amount about video conversion, and enough about computers to be able to research the net to learn about it more. And when I can't figure something out, I turn to the experts (which is where you and others on this forum come into play). Unfortunately, I see your issue about "leaving and return 5 yrs later asking a stupid question", although I do not do nearly enough video editing/converting on a constant basis to always need to read a forum strictly about it. But I will do my best to stay around and keep up with the forums. On top of that, I (personally) don't think this is a rudimentary question. I searched the forums and the net for an answer to which I found very little (if anything). Maybe I didn't find much because it's a specific question and also probably becauase I'm in the wrong forum. If I can't get an answer here, I will head on over to the Advanced Conversion.

    Now to answer your first comment. I don't think it's worth it either, although two things come to mind:

    1) I have to add a logo watermark to the video anyways, so I figured I might as well convert it to NTSC at the same time.

    2) The answer(s) to this question will also help me with another "project" I need to work on. my grandmother go a region-free PAL DVD from Italy about the Pope, and it does not play in her DVD player. Not sure if it's because it's an old dvd player, but it just doesn't play it. Regardless, I will probably have to convert it to NTSC so she can watch it on her DVD player.
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  6. Well I opened the dvd in DGIndex as explained in the tutorial I linked to in my first post. It said that it was a 16:9 Progressive PAL dvd
    OK, good. I'm not sure then why you said it looked more normal after encoding for 4:3. Maybe it looked more normal when looking at the unresized 720x480 M2V or VOB (as viewed in DGIndex, for example). You have to remember, though, that all DVDs get resized at playback time. What you see in the 720x480/576 image as stored on the DVD is not what you see when the DVD is played.
    And No there is not already letterboxing in the original source DVD. Should there be?
    If there's none in the source PAL DVD, then there shouldn't be any in the reencoded NTSC DVD. I was still going by what you said about the 4:3 image looking more normal, and all 4:3 widescreen DVDs have letterboxes encoded into the image.
    ...but is NTSC widescreen not thinner than PAL widescreen?
    That's a tricky one. A PAL 16:9 DVD gets resized to 1024x576 at playback time. An NTSC 16:9 DVD gets resized to roughly 854x480. In the sense that 480 is less than 576, I guess that you could say that the NTSC DVD is thinner. They both play with the same 16:9 (1.78:1) ratio, though.
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