NTSC or PAL

[gthorley]

Using Nero 6.0 ultra and was burning a DVD from an avi file. A message box came up saying video was mostly PAL and encode settings were for NTSC asked whether to change to PAL or continue with NTSC. Usually I have had it encode as NTSC. I tried a test piece in PAL and my DVD (A cheap Walmart special) played it ok.

What is the best thing to do keep as PAL or encode as NTSC? Does it take longer if NERO has to change it to NTSC? Quality issues?

[jman98]

Using Nero 6.0 ultra and was burning a DVD from an avi file. A message box came up saying video was mostly PAL and encode settings were for NTSC asked whether to change to PAL or continue with NTSC. Usually I have had it encode as NTSC. I tried a test piece in PAL and my DVD (A cheap Walmart special) played it ok.

What is the best thing to do keep as PAL or encode as NTSC? Does it take longer if NERO has to change it to NTSC? Quality issues?

Good questions. If and only if your DVD can play PAL DVDs (you'll need to test it to see), my recommendation would be to keep the DVD as PAL. PAL-> NTSC conversions aren't worth the effort if your DVD player can play PAL discs. Your profile doesn't say where you are from. If you live in the USA, most, but NOT all, DVD players can play PAL discs and convert the output to NTSC. You'll need to check the output video setting on your DVD player. Many players default to something like "multi", which won't be right for you. This setting sends exactly the same output signal as input to your TV and only works on multistandard TVs, which are very very difficult to find in the USA. You need to change this setting to NTSC, which will force all input video to go out to the TV as NTSC. Yes, it will take longer for Nero to encode PAL to NTSC. Nero isn't known for the quality of its DVD encodes, by the way, but it is a very easy solution for less experienced users.

[MOVIEGEEK]

This is a known bug in Nero 6 and AFAIK still hasn't been resolved,go to Custom and select NTSC.
If you are in NTSC land and the source is NTSC then use NTSC.

[mats.hogberg]

What I'd like to know, is how a video can be mostly PAL? I guess it takes the Ahead gurus to answer that one...

/Mats

[GeorgeW]

What I'd like to know, is how a video can be mostly PAL? I guess it takes the Ahead gurus to answer that one...

/Mats

The only thing I can think of is when your source videos are all over the place. Say you have some odd source resolutions and frame rates. Maybe the software sees that mixed in with the bunch are several PAL videos, so it says the project contains mostly PAL videos, and asks if you want to change it to PAL.

Just a guess as to what reason there could be to throw out that sort of message

Regards,
George

[mats.hogberg]

Yes, that'd be one explanation if not

burning a DVD from an avi file

/Mats

[GeorgeW]

Yes, that'd be one explanation if not

burning a DVD from an avi file

/Mats

Suppose you had a bunch of .avi files that had different resolutions and frame rates. But most of them had PAL specs. I'm not saying that's the reason, just guessing on my part...

Regards,
George

[ark]

Why don't you check your AVI using MediaInfo or some such program to find out independently what the TV format for the file is? Then you could decide better what is the next step.

[gthorley]

What I'd like to know, is how a video can be mostly PAL? I guess it takes the Ahead gurus to answer that one...

/Mats

Yes the file is only .avi and the box that comes up is obviously just to ask whether you still want to encode as per your settings ie: NTSC when the file is PAL. Aheads wording could have been better but the same warning comes up I am sure if I was stringing an NTSC and Pal file together and then the wording would be correct. You can click the box to eliminate futur warnings.

I am strictly a novice at this and have also tried VSO Divxtodvd and winavi but don't seem to get any better results other than faster results. One problem I find is voices are frequently slightly out of sync with all of these programs. Any suggestions as which of the 3 is best.

[SCDVD]

If you have to convert to NTSC from PAL, you will have a certain anount of screen stutter on camera Pans and fast motion. You won't notice it where there is less motion or Pans. This is because one out of six frames is thrown out or added (depending on whether your are converting from PAL to NTSC or NTSC to PAL). This can be bothersome if you have a lot of motion or Pans.

[mats.hogberg]

...so, better stick to the source format all the way, and get playback gear (DVD player and/or TV) that supports both standards.

/Mats

[gthorley]

Using Nero 6.0 ultra and was burning a DVD from an avi file. A message box came up saying video was mostly PAL and encode settings were for NTSC asked whether to change to PAL or continue with NTSC. Usually I have had it encode as NTSC. I tried a test piece in PAL and my DVD (A cheap Walmart special) played it ok.

What is the best thing to do keep as PAL or encode as NTSC? Does it take longer if NERO has to change it to NTSC? Quality issues?

Good questions. If and only if your DVD can play PAL DVDs (you'll need to test it to see), my recommendation would be to keep the DVD as PAL. PAL-> NTSC conversions aren't worth the effort if your DVD player can play PAL discs. Your profile doesn't say where you are from. If you live in the USA, most, but NOT all, DVD players can play PAL discs and convert the output to NTSC. You'll need to check the output video setting on your DVD player. Many players default to something like "multi", which won't be right for you. This setting sends exactly the same output signal as input to your TV and only works on multistandard TVs, which are very very difficult to find in the USA. You need to change this setting to NTSC, which will force all input video to go out to the TV as NTSC. Yes, it will take longer for Nero to encode PAL to NTSC. Nero isn't known for the quality of its DVD encodes, by the way, but it is a very easy solution for less experienced users.

As I stated I burned a test video in PAL format and my crummy cheap Apex played it fine. Not sure if I understand your post but should I be going into my DVD settings and changing the output to PAL? Would a North American TV play that output? Does the DVD take the PAL video and convert to NTSC on the fly?