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  1. Member
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    Wow, it should not be this hard! Maybe I am making it harder than need be...

    Here's the story - I would appreciate any follow-up and suggestions.

    I am in Australia - , so we're a PAL country. I have an LG RC195 VCR, but I want to capture NTSC VHS onto my PC and then edit the MPG (?) file so I can output the finished product on NTSC DVD. Make sense? I hope so...

    I am using a Kaiser Baas Video to DVD maker or something like that, to capture the VHS content (via USB connection) onto my PC, through a program called Cyberlink PowerDirector. As much as I try, the resulting capture is always PAL, no matter what I do. When I change the device settings of the Video to DVD maker, the capture (or what will be captured) is played back in black and white, or way beyond size of the screen, or some other variation - it only lets me capture to PAL...

    I have been (so far), importing the captured MPG file (PAL) into Premiere Elements 8 and creating a new project where I want the output DVD to be NTSC format. I can do all this, but when I play back the finished product, it just doesn't quite look "right" - I know that's not a great description, but it seems a little choppy, or not fluent in movement. Basically, the VHS captures are always going to be basketball (Michael Jordan) games, so there is up and down the court movement all the time. When the camera (when you watch back the finished disc) pans from one end of court to the other, on a fast break for example, it just doesn't look normal, kind of "just-off"...

    How can I please fix this?! Do I need to convert the MPG file to NTSC standards first, then import the amended file into PE8 to make the NTSC DVD? Do I import the PAL MPG file into PE8 and create the DVD as a PAL project first, then create a NTSC DVD from that? Something else? I am going insane and would just love to get this project working with success, every time...

    I would be indebted to anyone who can please assist me here. Thanks in advance, I look forward to someone a lot smarter than me, being able to offer a solution.

    Kind regards,

    rairjordan
    Last edited by rairjordan; 19th Jan 2011 at 04:46.
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  2. Member hech54's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by rairjordan View Post
    Wow, it should not be this hard!
    But it is. I've been doing this for many years and I've yet to find a way to get NTSC captured in a PAL environment.
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  3. Australia "technically" is a PAL country, but in reality it is very much a dual-format country. Your VCR (the LG RC195) is dual-format, so it should play NTSC tapes fine. And that Kaiser Baas device is dual-format too. Is your VCR set to NTSC playback?

    EDIT: Isn't the LG RC195 a VCR/DVD recorder dual-deck? Why not just dub from VCR straight to DVD, and bypass your computer altogether?
    Last edited by chowmein; 19th Jan 2011 at 05:15.
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    Originally Posted by hech54 View Post
    Originally Posted by rairjordan View Post
    Wow, it should not be this hard!
    But it is. I've been doing this for many years and I've yet to find a way to get NTSC captured in a PAL environment.
    Thanks for the reply - I can capture the VHS onto my PC fine, but yes, the captured file is still PAL, even though the source is an NTSC VHS tape.

    If anyone knows a way that lets me at least get the finished product NTSC DVD to be nice and smooth and just look "normal" (rather than slightly choppy, etc) I would be indebted to them forever! Thanks...
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    Originally Posted by chowmein View Post
    Australia "technically" is a PAL country, but in reality it is very much a dual-format country. Your VCR (the LG RC195) is dual-format, so it should play NTSC tapes fine. And that Kaiser Baas device is dual-format too. Is your VCR set to NTSC playback?
    Good question - I don't have the manual anymore, no idea how I can work that bit out? I have used a crack / region setting adjustment on this site somewhere, to make it multi-format...it plays the NTSC VHS tapes fine, but the end capture always is PAL onto my PC, no matter what I try!
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  6. I edited my last post. Isn't that deck a VCR/DVD-recorder combo? Why not just dub straight from VHS to DVD?
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    Originally Posted by chowmein View Post
    I edited my last post. Isn't that deck a VCR/DVD-recorder combo? Why not just dub straight from VHS to DVD?
    That's a great question, however, I just assume it will be PAL DVD when finished. I have a Panasonic (VHS to DVD) recorder and it outputs as PAL DVD, even when source is NTSC VHS...I still wish to edit the captured VHS on PC to then output on DVD anyhow, but I will try it and see what happens.
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  8. Well I've been looking for the manual for you, but no luck. I found the manual here, but although I have the djvu browser plug-in it still won't open. Maybe it will open for you?

    As for editing, you can edit a DVD on your PC with something like Mpg2Cut2 (free), or VideoReDo (payware, which is what I use & love!)
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    Originally Posted by chowmein View Post
    Well I've been looking for the manual for you, but no luck. I found the manual here, but although I have the djvu browser plug-in it still won't open. Maybe it will open for you?

    As for editing, you can edit a DVD on your PC with something like Mpg2Cut2 (free), or VideoReDo (payware, which is what I use & love!)
    I too found that manual, thanks for looking it up for me all the same, but could not open it either, even after installing the program that goes with it...

    I have a trial of VideoReDo, but purchased Premiere Elements 8 a year or so ago and have been happy with that thus far. Thanks again...my main issue (assuming I can't get NTSC capture from VHS) is converting the capture to NTSC so it looks natural, not choppy or slightly 'off' when watching it back. It's hard to explain, but basically you watch it and can tell it is not rolling smoothly, it hurts the eyes a little, sort of anyhow...
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  10. So you have NTSC video tapes, are capturing as PAL with a real time converter, and want to convert that back to NTSC DVD?

    Live sporting events are normally fully interlaced video. That means your NTSC tapes have 60 different half-pictures (fields) every second. If captured as PAL that's reduced to 50 different fields every second. That is done by throwing away 10 of the fields, or blending some of them together (like double exposures). Either way you will get 10 little jerks every second. Conversely, going back to 60 fields requires adding 10 fields. Again, that can be done by duplicating 10 of fields or creating half way in between fields by blending two adjacent fields. Again, this will create 10 little jerks per second. No matter what you do, the final result will be jerky. Finding some way to record the NTSC source directly as NTSC DVD will give you much better results.

    You also mentioned black-and-white captures with some settings. That is very common with PAL60 signals. A PAL60 signal is a hybrid of PAL and NTSC. It has the timing of NTSC, 60 fields per second, with PAL chroma encoding. PAL TVs are designed to understand that signal and display it properly. NTSC capture devices will be able to capture the luma channel (black-and-white) but won't be able to figure the PAL color. So you're left with a black-and-white video. There are some capture devices that can capture PAL60 with the correct colors (search for "EasyCap DC60+" for example). If you get one of those you should be able to make NTSC DVDs with smooth motion and correct colors.

    If you upload small sample captures I can verify that is what's going on.
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    Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    So you have NTSC video tapes, are capturing as PAL with a real time converter, and want to convert that back to NTSC DVD?
    Yes, I am...

    Finding some way to record the NTSC source directly as NTSC DVD will give you much better results.
    I can record the NTSC source from NTSC VHS (see attachments), but I don't get the whole screen captured; anything in the bottom portion (maybe 1/6) of the screen is not there, as you'll see from the files I have attached.

    If you upload small sample captures I can verify that is what's going on.
    I have attached a number of samples, each video file is named as per the method used to record that sample.

    Currently, I can only get the capture to work 100% as a PAL capture, which would be the PAL_B sample you see here...

    Thanks for the assistance, hopefully these attachments may assist matters?
    Image Attached Files
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  12. Member hech54's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by rairjordan View Post
    Thanks for the reply - I can capture the VHS onto my PC fine, but yes, the captured file is still PAL, even though the source is an NTSC VHS tape.
    What make and model capture card do you have?

    Originally Posted by chowmein View Post
    Australia "technically" is a PAL country....
    Yes.....it is a PAL country just like all of Europe. PAL VHS decks throw out a "quasi" signal(with an NTSC tape) which is neither PAL or NTSC....but the televisions there understand this signal perfectly.....just like here in Europe.
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  13. Originally Posted by hech54 View Post
    Yes.....it is a PAL country just like all of Europe. PAL VHS decks throw out a "quasi" signal(with an NTSC tape) which is neither PAL or NTSC....but the televisions there understand this signal perfectly.....just like here in Europe.
    Oz equipment usually has both NTSC 4.43 (quasi) and 3.58 (real NTSC). Dunno about Europe??
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  14. Your standards converter (the VCR?) is putting out a true PAL signal. It looks like it's bob deinterlacing the NTSC source (60 fields per second to 60 frames per second), resizing from 720x480 to 720x576, throwing away every 6th frame (60 frames per second to 50 frames per second), then pulling fields out of the frames at 50 per second. This leads to 10 little jerks per second and some up and down bounce (the latter is most noticeable on the top red line of the NBA logo). You can convert this back to NTSC but you'll get even more jerkiness from duplicating fields to get back to 60 fields per second.

    All the other caps are screwed up because they are expecting different formats. The NTSC caps are missing the bottom of each frame (or maybe a little at the top and a little at the bottom? In any case 480 lines are captured instead of 576) and have a duplicate frame every 5 frames (5 frames become 6 frames, 50 fields become 60 fields) leading to back and forth jump 10 times a second (when viewed as fields).

    I took your PAL_B.MPG file and converted to NTSC with the following AviSynth script:

    Mpeg2Source("C:\Documents and Settings\John\Desktop\temp\PAL_B.d2v", CPU=2)
    AssumeTFF()
    Bob() #fields to frames
    BicubicResize(720,480) #720x576 to 720x480
    ChangeFPS(59.94) #50 fps to 59.94 fps
    SeparateFields() #59.94 fps to 119.88 fields per second
    SelectEvery(4,0,3) #119.88 fields to 59.94 fields per second
    Weave() #59.94 fields per second to 29.97 interlaced frames per second

    The result of that is attached. I didn't pay any attention as to which fields were repeated vs where the missing fields were in the PAL cap. You might get slightly smoother playback by duplicating a field next to the missing field. But it will probably be hard to do that over a long recording.

    Is there a way to force the VHS deck to output a true NTSC signal? You should then be able to capture with the NTSC settings. The only other solution I see is to find a true NTSC player (Japanese, or North American) and capture as NTSC (NTSC M J, NTSC M respectively).
    Image Attached Files
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  15. Originally Posted by hech54 View Post
    What make and model capture card do you have?
    He said in 1st post - Kaiser Baas VHS to DVD USB gizmo thing. I looked it up, it accepts PAL & NTSC signals.

    I can only think that he hasn't specifically enabled NTSC playback on the VCR side of the combo?

    There are methods of converting PAL to NTSC (and vice versa) real smoothly nowadays using avisynth and MFlowFPS function from the MVTools2 package, but I don't think this is your issue. You should be able to capture a NTSC signal with your equipment. I'm not sure however why you aren't able to?

    Have you tried just using the LG to dub from VHS straight to DVD yet?

    (EDIT: Here is a VCR still being sold by LG in Australia, 6-head with "Optimum Picture response" ("soft" and "sharp" settings), and true NTSC 3.58 playback.)
    Last edited by chowmein; 19th Jan 2011 at 09:38.
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  16. Member hech54's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by chowmein View Post
    Originally Posted by hech54 View Post
    What make and model capture card do you have?
    He said in 1st post - Kaiser Baas VHS to DVD USB gizmo thing. I looked it up, it accepts PAL & NTSC signals.
    Funny.....I Googled "DVD USB gizmo thing" and came up empty handed.
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  17. I didn't mention the MVTools method of conversion because it will be hard to get it to synthesize only the missing frame (field, really) from the two surrounding frames. Simply using SmoothFPS(59.94) will leave the video jerky because it will assume the existing frames are all at equal time intervals, which they are not (four of the intervals are 1/60 second, the fifth 2/60 second).
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    [QUOTE=hech54;2049714]
    Originally Posted by rairjordan View Post
    Thanks for the reply - I can capture the VHS onto my PC fine, but yes, the captured file is still PAL, even though the source is an NTSC VHS tape.
    What make and model capture card do you have?

    Kaiser Baas Video to DVD Maker - KB401-1B
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    Thanks for the suggestions and work you have put in, to help me out - I am investigating the availability of the NTSC playback VCR's, will reply with an update soon...again, thanks so much for your assistance!
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    (EDIT: Here is a VCR still being sold by LG in Australia, 6-head with "Optimum Picture response" ("soft" and "sharp" settings), and true NTSC 3.58 playback.)
    Would anyone know (I won't hold you to it!) what my chances would be, if I did get this VCR (or similar, eBay has a 990W model, presumably a later release?), in relation to being able to playback NTSC to my PC and capture the VHS as NTSC source? I would only be connecting it to my PC, as the main HDD Recorder in our lounge room is only PAL.

    If there is a fair chance that the Kaiser Baas Video to DVD Maker would capture in pure NTSC, I would buy the VCR. I guess I just change the device settings to be NTSC_M or NTSC_M_J etc, when playing the VHS tapes in the new player?

    In the meantime, I will try and record from VHS to DVD using my current LG VCR / DVD combo.

    Thanks...
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  21. I have used TMPG express for years to convert pal<>ntsc , no problem, I just donlt want to bother when you can easilly get a dvd player that will convert for you, if this is a one tape project my australian freind,,why not get a professional service to do it for you ?

    Or send the damn thing to me and I will do it--free in the cause of international relations
    PAL/NTSC problem solver.
    USED TO BE A UK Equipment owner., NOW FINISHED WITH VHS CONVERSIONS-THANKS
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    Originally Posted by victoriabears View Post
    I have used TMPG express for years to convert pal<>ntsc , no problem, I just donlt want to bother when you can easilly get a dvd player that will convert for you, if this is a one tape project my australian freind,,why not get a professional service to do it for you ?

    Or send the damn thing to me and I will do it--free in the cause of international relations
    Thanks for the info, but I have hundreds of VHS tapes, that is why I want this done right, if possible...I am going to buy that LG VCR (thanks for the tip chowmein!) off eBay, for only $30 including postage, as new - so, that's not a bad deal at all, I'll have it in a few days and then update how I am going. I just got home from shopping downtown, the LG VCR sells for $139 new...

    When you PAL to NTSC with TMPG, what exact program is that you use, and how are the end results, in relation to choppy looking motion / movement and these frame differences etc?
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  23. TMPGEnc Plus is a poor PAL to NTSC converter. It duplicates frames to increase the frame rate, even if they are interlaced. It uses a poor resizing algorithm too.
    Last edited by jagabo; 20th Jan 2011 at 07:58.
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  24. Always looks fine to me, ona 46 inch lcd tv
    PAL/NTSC problem solver.
    USED TO BE A UK Equipment owner., NOW FINISHED WITH VHS CONVERSIONS-THANKS
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  25. Member hech54's Avatar
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    I've used TMPGEnc Plus a few times for conversion bewteen PAL and NTSC....look pretty good.
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  26. Originally Posted by rairjordan View Post
    Thanks for the info, but I have hundreds of VHS tapes, that is why I want this done right, if possible...I am going to buy that LG VCR (thanks for the tip chowmein!) off eBay,
    Good luck with this LG vcr. I have a high end vcr JVC and it's a mess to have right colors so i can only imagine the results you'll get. I remember once i bought two new standard vcr (pal with ntsc playback capability) and both delivered some kind of green bar vertically which was clearly a color convertion glitch.

    For best results you necessarily want a high end vcr (jvc/panasonic) and a good Proc Amp to fix hue shifts, and levels mainly.

    Result with high end vcr (no proc amp) (ntsc tape >pal60)

    Right colors,blacks,whites should be:
    *** DIGITIZING VHS / ANALOG VIDEOS SINCE 2001**** GEAR: JVC HR-S7700MS, TOSHIBA V733EF AND MORE
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  27. Here's what TMPGEnc Plus does when it converts PAL to NTSC. Note the five jerks every second in what should be a smooth pan.
    Image Attached Files
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    Originally Posted by themaster1 View Post
    Originally Posted by rairjordan View Post
    Thanks for the info, but I have hundreds of VHS tapes, that is why I want this done right, if possible...I am going to buy that LG VCR (thanks for the tip chowmein!) off eBay,
    Good luck with this LG vcr. I have a high end vcr JVC and it's a mess to have right colors so i can only imagine the results you'll get. I remember once i bought two new standard vcr (pal with ntsc playback capability) and both delivered some kind of green bar vertically which was clearly a color convertion glitch.

    For best results you necessarily want a high end vcr (jvc/panasonic) and a good Proc Amp to fix hue shifts, and levels mainly.

    Result with high end vcr (no proc amp) (ntsc tape >pal60)

    Right colors,blacks,whites should be:
    I have no idea what that even means....haha

    Anyhow, I am just after NTSC playback so I can capture as NTSC and then edit using Premeire Elements or similar, to create a DVD from it...it doesn't need to be perfect, these are old VHS tapes after all...
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  29. is australia 110 volt, if so then get a NTSC only VCR from ebay?

    I have no wish to enter into the debate about how to convert ntsc<>pal, but all I can say is my files always look fine, so I do not know if that is my philips 5990 or pioneer 420 dvd player or my tv. I am also prepared to accept it is my 58 year old eyes or brain.

    I have only ever had any problems when I try to use the computer during the conversion, and that was on a amd turon 2800 with 4 gb ram.
    Last edited by victoriabears; 20th Jan 2011 at 20:16.
    PAL/NTSC problem solver.
    USED TO BE A UK Equipment owner., NOW FINISHED WITH VHS CONVERSIONS-THANKS
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