Can someone explain the 3:2 pulldown?

[Scav2003]

I know it's got something to do with converting from ntsc film to regular ntsc, but I haven't found a thread that explains it.

[junkmalle]

http://www.zerocut.com/tech/pulldown.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine

The critical thing to understand is that standard definition television never displays a complete frame. It only displays fields -- 59.94 fields every second. 3:2 pulldown is the process of creating 60 fields from 24 film frames. The rate is then slowed down by 1/10 percent to 59.94 fields per second.

[Scav2003]

so ...somehow this can be used to turn a ntsc film rate clip into ntsc?

From what I'm guessing, that's done by setting the frame rate on the video tab, using a mpeg2enc choice (vcd,scvd), then on the options tab, checking set 3:2...

Is that right?

(and if it is, can this be used for pal->ntsc conversion?)

[edDV]

I always liked this write up. I does a good job of explaining progressive DVD players.

WHAT THE HECK IS 3:2 PULLDOWN? by Dan Ramer
http://www.dvdfile.com/news/special_report/production_a_z/3_2_pulldown.htm