PAL to NTSC and NTSC to PAL with Vegas

[erratic]

Converting PAL to NTSC or NTSC to PAL is very easy with Vegas.

PAL->NTSC

Start new NTSC project (only necessary if you'll be rendering with the Debugmode FrameServer).
Bring in PAL footage.
Right-click on the video track and select Switches -> Reduce Interlace Flicker for better quality.
Render as NTSC.

NTSC->PAL (rarely necessary because almost all PAL TVs and DVD players can play NTSC just fine).

Start new PAL project (only necessary if you'll be rendering with the Debugmode FrameServer).
Bring in NTSC footage.
Right-click on the video track and select Switches -> Reduce Interlace Flicker for better quality.
Render as PAL.

If your source video is interlaced you have to make sure Vegas is aware of the field order. No problem with DV obviously, but by default Vegas assumes that other formats (MJPEG, Huffyuv, etc.) are progressive. In that case select the media pool, right click on a file and select properties. Adjust the field order and pixel aspect ratio settings. Then click on the little disk icon to store these settings. From now on if you import similar video files Vegas will automatically remember the field order and pixel aspect ratio.

I've tested PAL->NTSC and I was very pleased with the result, but it was slow. I have an AMD XP1800+ CPU and converting a 30 second PAL AVI clip (704x576) to NTSC Cropped (704x480) took just over 2 minutes. Apparently NTSC->PAL is even slower because converting that NTSC clip back to PAL took almost 3 and a half minutes.

I'm sure there are faster ways with Avisynth but Vegas users who find Avisynth a bit daunting clearly have an extremely easy alternative.

[bode]

I'm about to test this myself soon, but I was planning on using Canopus ProCoder.

Is there any cropping or sync problems using this method in Vegas 4.0?

[erratic]

I didn't have any cropping or sync problems, but I only tested it with relatively short clips. My TV and DVD player can handle both PAL and NTSC so I don't really need conversions. Anyway, Vegas doesn't change the length of the video and audio tracks. It does a very good framerate conversion in my opinion. I don't think ProCoder could do a better job.

After converting a PAL clip to NTSC with Vegas, I made an NTSC miniDVD (interlaced) and it looked pretty smooth on my TV.