Total newbie question about Xilisoft Video Converter - PAL to NTSC

[boe]

Hello,

I'm brand new to this forum and Xilisoft so sorry for the complete newbie question. I've noticed a lot of my avi's that I convert to DVDs work great using Nero7 Vision. I live in the US and my DVD player (not on my PC) is an older sony that plays back most fine. Many of the AVI's that were originally PAL it converts OK to a standard DVD format as well.

I do notice some PAL Avi files are recored at 23FPS seem to have problems converting to NTSC DVDs that will play on DVD player (works on my PC though). The 23 FPS may just be a related but item but not the issue. I was able to convert one avi file that wouldn't play after it was converted to a standard dvd format using Xilisoft to re-encode it before converting but I forgot all the settings I used.

Are there settings I should make the default for converting these in Xilisoft to make better NTSC encodings for Nero to switch to DVD- e.g. 720x480 or 25 FPS or 30FPS, etc? Should I use AVI as the output or something else.

Thanks

[FulciLives]

Downloaded AVI files with 25fps are easy to convert to NTSC.

Basically you have two options.

1.) You resize to a NTSC DVD resolution and change the frame rate from 25fps to 23.976fps ... this also means you have to adjust the length of the audio by approximately 4%

2.) You resize to a NTSC DVD resolution but leave the frame rate at 25fps ... after you do the AVI to MPEG-2 conversion you run the MPEG-2 file through a program called DGPulldown selecting the option 25fps ---> 29.970fps and you now have a compliant NTSC MPEG-2 DVD spec video ... audio will match ... no need to adjust the length of the audio.

Both of these processes work best when the PAL video source is PROGRESSIVE video. A downloaded AVI is usually a DivX or XviD and these formats are PROGRESSIVE video like 99.99% of the time.

Anyways that is the basics of what you do but how you do it with software depends on what you use. NERO is not considered worthwhile for doing video conversions. Yes it "can" do it but not well at all and has no real control. You need something that is more suited to the task and that allows some control over various functions. Like TMPGEnc Plus or CCE (aka Cinema Craft Encoder).

I have no idea what Xilsoft is ... never heard of it.

So I can't go into details with that software. Now if you have TMPGEnc Plus or CCE then that's different ...

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[FulciLives]

Here is a guide I wrote on how to do PAL to NTSC conversion.

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=300144

Now the guide is geared towards a PAL DVD source but it is easy enough to adapt it to a PAL AVI source.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
The guide uses TMPGEnc Plus as the MPEG-2 encoder.

[boe]

Thanks - I'll try out tmpenc. Xilisoft is a software package that let's you conver any format e.g. avi to any other format e.g. avi or mpg etc. It is kind of like soundforge for video but the main function is just converting - not editing. I don't really need to edit so that is fine.

It let's you change the playback size - e.g. 640x480 etc. FPS, audio format.

I appreciate the help. Basically I want to know what format an AVI file should be in for it to be ntsc - e.g. size - 720 x 480? FPS - 23.976fps? I'm not sure what makes something PAL vs. NTSC so if making those changes would make it NTSC I don't think I'd have to encode it twice, I could go straight to mpg or avi and then to Nero.

[boe]

Thanks - I read your topic.

Turns out I was being more of an idiot than usual. I started exploring Xilisoft some more and one of the options was VOB/DVD and it even gives the option of what to set it for. I just didn't notice it among the many MP* and AVI formats. I set it for NTSC and it properly converted the AVI I wasn't able to get to work with standard NTSC conversions using Nero.

I appreciate the help.

[FulciLives]

Thanks - I read your topic.

Turns out I was being more of an idiot than usual. I started exploring Xilisoft some more and one of the options was VOB/DVD and it even gives the option of what to set it for. I just didn't notice it among the many MP* and AVI formats. I set it for NTSC and it properly converted the AVI I wasn't able to get to work with standard NTSC conversions using Nero.

I appreciate the help.

The key term or phrase here is "properly covnerted" ...

Most programs that allow for PAL <---> NTSC conversions do so improperly which usually results in the end with either having blended frames (which can look ugly) and/or missing/duplicate frames which can cause a slight "stutter" or "jerkyness" in playback.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman