Quick question on best FPS conversion.

[CJLevinsk22]

Hey everyone. My question should be simple enough. I have a file that's 480x576 (which I will expand and letterbox to fit my 4:3 TV) that is 25 FPS. My question is this. The original file is a PAL MPEG2/SVCD and I will be making an NTSC DVD. So, to make it compliant with my NTSC TV, I will need to do a frame rate conversion. I'm well familiar with the process, but would like some advice. As I'm making a DVD, should I stick with 23.976 or 29.97 FPS? Is one best suited over the other for a DVD?

In addition, when I do the actual conversion of the video, what frame size resolution should I use? 720x480 (which I assume I would be using) or 352x480. The original file itself is pretty good quality already.

I'd greatly appreciate any help you guys can offer! Thanks in advance!

-Chris
cjlevinsk22@comcast.net

[adam]

You should always try to encode to 23.976fps if possible. For a PAL source, you'd definitely go to 23.976fps. (even if you wanted to hard telecine it to 29.97fps, you'd still have to slow it down to 23.976fps first).

The vast majority of commercial NTSC DVDs are encoded at 23.976fps and soft telecined at playback to 29.97fps. Its significantly higher quality then actually hard telecining it to 29.97fps.

As for the resolution, the general rule is that you never want to increase resolution if you can help it. If I were you I'd encode to 352x480. You can experiment with 720x480 and 704x480, both compliant, but I think you'll find that 352x480 actually provides the best quality with a SVCD source converted to DVD.

[CJLevinsk22]

Excellent! Just what I needed to know. Thank you very much, adam!

-Chris
CJLevinsk22

[CJLevinsk22]

In the process of doing the acutal conversion, I've discovered that I have another question. When converting, the video size becomes stretched. If I would like to preserve the aspect ratio of the original film, what settings will I be using in TMPGEnc? Should I have the Video Arange Method set at Full Screen or Center (Custom Size). If so, what should the custom size be? I've read the whole guide about MPEG aspect ratios, but am still confused. Thanks everyone!

-Chris
CJLevinsk22

[VCDHunter]

In the process of doing the acutal conversion, I've discovered that I have another question. When converting, the video size becomes stretched. If I would like to preserve the aspect ratio of the original film, what settings will I be using in TMPGEnc? Should I have the Video Arange Method set at Full Screen or Center (Custom Size). If so, what should the custom size be? I've read the whole guide about MPEG aspect ratios, but am still confused. Thanks everyone!

-Chris
CJLevinsk22

Keep Aspect Ratio