A sort of NTSC -> PAL SVCD creation guide (as requested)

[DRP]

@DRP

I've been passing on dealing with mpg (ntsc) > PAL as I can never get rid of the jerkyness. Could you post exactly what you've done & tools used to the SVCD forum?

What follows is a brief description of the method & tools I've used to convert downloaded (TV captured) NTSC MPEG1 files into PAL SVCD for playing on a DVD to PAL only TV.

As most will know, most popular TV shows are made in America. America is NTSC. They are made available for download through various methods on the internet. Most often they are in MPEG1 (VCD) format at 29.97fps (NTSC).

If you don't live in NA, then there's the usual NTSC vs PAL complication. If you don't have a TV which accepts NTSC input like me then you need to rely on the ability of the DVD player software to do the format conversion on the fly as it plays the disc you make.

In my case, this wasn't done very well. The result was watchable but not very good. The picture was jerky and the sound would not stay in perfect sync all the time.

I started looking for a way to do the conversion to PAL myself thus freeing the DVD player from performing this extra task (which it was obviously having trouble doing). Here is what I now do which results in a perfectly smooth playing PAL SVCD.

Input is 352x240 MPEG1 file @ 29.97fps (standard NTSC VCD file)

1) Open mpg file in TMPGEnc Plus MPEG Tools and perform a Simple De-Multiplex to get the MP2 audio file out.

2) Open MP2 file in GoldWave. Perform a Time Warp of 104.2709% to it. 104.2709% is 25/23.976 => NTSC to PAL conversion.

3) Maximise the Volume while it's in GoldWave at the same time. Usually these TV show files are quite badly captured/compressed, so it's a good idea to do this. Most of them have clipped audio tracks (too loud) and the Maximise function in GoldWave will allow you repair this. Save audio track out as WAV format.

3) Discard the m1v file that was created during the Simple De-Multiplex. You don't need it. Open the original mpg file in TMPGEnc as the video source. Use the WAV as the audio source.

4) Stream Type: MPEG-2 of course
Size: Well I like to use the smallest possible size that is at least as large as the source size. I also take into account my TV overscan as well during the encode. This is up to you really, but for me and my example I used 480x288 (it needs to be a PAL legal size of course).
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Frame Rate: 25fps
Video Format: PAL
Encode Mode: Interlace

The other settings you can choose for yourself.

5) On the Advanced Tab...
Video Arrange Method: Centre (custom size) - this is where I compensate for the TV overscan so I don't lose any more of the picture.
Custom size: 448x272
Inverse telecine checked - I still don't know which setting is best here (I just leave it as TMPGEnc wants it which means "Non-interlaced source"
Clip frame checked - clip off the black borders on the original mpg
Do not frame rate conversion checked

From there everything else is pretty well straight forward. Burn the resulting MPEG2 file to a non-standard PAL SVCD with Nero and she plays perfectly. No jerky motion and no audio sync problems.

I know that theoretically, this should be no different to playing the original mpg as an NTSC disc and having the DVD player do the converting, but in my case at least it does make a huge difference - probably because of my DVD player's inability to do the IVTC correctly or fast enough in real-time.

HTH someone

[aramo]

@DRP

Thanks for the post, aside from using BeSweet rather than GoldWeave my (jerky) method is close to yours - the 'Encode Mode: Interlace' is new though so I'm going to try that.

Like you said "... theoretically, this should be no different to playing the original mpg as an NTSC disc and having the DVD player do the converting, but in my case at least it does make a huge difference" - I've seen this a few times depending on the DVD player and I think it justifies the whole film/ntsc > PAL effort ... I find myself counting the seconds one repeated frame at a time