NTSC to PAL MPEGs 1 for PAL VCD: Help needed

[AndroHumeda]

Greetings.
I am having troubles in converting NTSC (29.97 fps) AVIs to PAL MPEGs1 (25 fps). The resulting MPEGs are excellent, except that they are not playing smoothly enough: every one second I get a sort of freeze for a fraction of second (obviously this depends on the framerate, for what I can imagine). I tried Cleaner 5 which have tools like "Inverse Telecine" but it seems not to be working. In this field my ignorance is vast, and since I switched to ffmpeg for conversions of many kind (BTW, how about converting WMVs to MPEG1 WITH audio? I am having troubles in doing it, but I'll post another topic for that...), I am hoping to get some help posting in this forum.
Thank you to everyone.

[major]

Changing framerate is like cutting your favorite pet in 30 slices, putting 5 to the trash, and trying to make the 25 remaining looking like the original. It is clearly not possible. Why do you want to change the framerate?

[AndroHumeda]

Hi, Major.
Thanks for answering.
Well, the example you made is clear to me, and it was somehow even before your answer. Though, I thought it coud be possible to "resample" the whole second of movie and to recalculate using lower framerate, or something like this... Meaning, I thought it could be possible even with tools like ffmpegX.
I need to have MPEGs in PAL, as to burn VCDs that are PAL, otherwise my standalone DVD player (Samsung S224) cannot play them. It doe not recognise a NTSC VCD... Instead, it definitely works with NTSC DVDs, the whole working perfectly on my multi-standard TV set...
That's all.
Also, keep in mind that I am living in Italy - PAL is a standard here...!
Can you help me? Is there a trick to do the job with ffmpegX or shall I need a different tool? Anyway, is it possible on a Mac?
Thanks again.

[major]

It's surprising that your player doesn't handle NTSC, as todays DVD players sold in PAL countries are multi-standard and can convert NTSC to 60-Hz PAL.

Anyway, proper conversion from NTSC to PAL cannot be done easily. Specialized tools (often hardware) are needed to handle temporal conversion and object motion analysis.

This is because when you have 30 pictures and want to go to 25, or the opposite, you can only do it by deleting or duplicating frames or fields, which will result in a skip or pause effect, unless you're able to create totally new images - by blending the source images together.

[AndroHumeda]

Hello again.
It's surprising, yes, but it cannot handle NTSC VCDs only, since I've recently ripped two DVDs from the U.S. that my mom gave me (as to get rid of the regional code), and they played quite well (yes, my DVD reader uses 60Hz PAL for conversion)...
So, after all, your answer is that it cannot be done, can it?
Damn, I thought it could happen something like this, but, you know, "hope's the last thing that dies" (translated directly from an italian proverb - maybe it has sense for you also...!)
OK, thanks for yer help. At least, I will know that, after all my tests, there is nothing I can do more...

[AndroHumeda]

Another similar question, dear Major.
If it's possible to convert movies from the typical 24 fps movie to 30 fps NTSC and viceversa (using Telecine and Inverse Telecine, with some tools, or using 3:2 pulldown and/or 2:2 pulldown or whatsoever), why shouldn't it be possible the same conversion from 30 fps to 25 fpsusing similar methods? That's something I'd like to know...
Thanks again, and sorry for my persistence...

[major]

These methods suffer from the same problems (eg. any image pan from a film source in NTSC w/3:2 pulldown is not smooth), though they use interlaced images so as dropping or duplicating fields is less noticeable than dropping or duplicating frames. Also they're hardware implemented and the conversion take place at playback time. Check here for more insight, http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Contrib/WorldTV/conversion.html

[AndroHumeda]

Gosh, Major, thank you for the info. I simply encountered a problem that seems not to be solvable...
The link you provided is quite technical but interesting (with my limits to its comprehension).
Thanks again.
Bye,

[sufaca]

Hi, just wanted to let you know that I have managed to convert some of my files although not all with the new tmpge dvd source creator available as free download from the Pegasus site. Hope this helps.

Sufaca