PAL DVD to NTSC DVD... truly abandon hope?

[tsurikov]

Dear experts,

Before I say anything else, I just have to say... this site is absolutely fantastic! This is my first post on videohelp.com, but certainly not my first time here - I've turned to this site many, many a time, and it's never let me down. I am deeply impressed by how much information is here and how well it is organized. THIS IS A GREAT SITE

I hope you can advise me a bit. I'd like to convert a DVD in PAL format (dance video bought from a small theatre company in Europe) to NTSC. This DVD is single-sided and region-free - but it is in PAL, and it does have an extensive menu structure.

Now, I know this issue's been discussed in the forums before, and that this site has guides on format conversion. But, as somewhat of a newbie in DVD-land, I have gotten lost in the discussion - it feels like there are 40 people with 80 differing opinions. And none of the guides seem to address the issue I have - a complete DVD format conversion (not AVI, or MPEG, or even VOB, as source). The commercial software I have for DVD authoring - Pinnacle Studio 8 (international version) and 9 (US version)- has also been of no help. (In 8, I can't specify any output format, and 9 won't read PAL.)

I guess I'm hoping for insight on this:

1) Is it really as complicated as some threads have described - i.e., ripping, separating audio/video, independently processing each, recombining, rerendering, and converting to DVD video, with a different tool for each step?

2) Is it possible to preserve a DVD's menu structure in such a conversion, and if so, how?

3) If it really can't be done by mere mortals, is it physically possible? e.g., can it be done by a professional video production company?

And yes, I would like to have an actual NTSC DVD in hand - not hoping for luck with the patch method described in one of the guides. And buying a PAL DVD player is also not an option... on my suggestion, 40 of my friends bought the same DVD, and it wouldn't be nice to ask each of them to buy a second DVD player just to play this thing! (The theatre has no problems with us making converted copies - they just won't do it for us...)

I thank you all in advance for your patience and help!
Best wishes, Michael

[lordsmurf]

It will probably never be 100% perfect, no. It's probably a safe guess this is interlaced.

But go ahead and see if progressive, as that conversion has some hope.

Buy another player. Some of those 40 friends players will probably see the disc, just your doesn't. Not unless they all have the same player. (In which case, I would suggest everybody get out more.)

[willr666]

Won't the NeoDVD app do a conversion from PAL > NTSC? (if memory
serves, I will probably be corrected).

Thanks
Will

[lordsmurf]

No. It'll look like crap.

[dphirschler]

I've often wondered if DVDRebuilder could do it. It would require some script modification, but I believe it is possible that way. However, this is only theory. I have not tested it.

The script modification would simply be converting the video size and frame rate to NTSC spec. A perfect example of how to do that is within the AVIsynth docs under ConvertFPS.

If you try this, please report back and let us know how it went.


Darryl

[Gurm]

It is POSSIBLE that someone will at some point build an app that does it.

Something like DVD Rebuilder which processes virtually ALL of a DVD could in fact do it with some modification.

The issue is - WILL someone write that app? For each and every individual, the amount of agony involved in PAL->NTSC is greater than the agony involved in buying a $35 Cyberhome player from Best Buy.

[timekiller]

It is POSSIBLE that someone will at some point build an app that does it.

I have proven that it is "Possible" as you say, but for the time being it requires a good degree of knowledge and patience - and "Scenarist"

Could someone build an application that could compile the subset of things that "ScenAid" outputs for Scenarist scripts? I'm Hopeful...

See my post here

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=247221

[adam]

You can already do this with existing programs. The latest version of NuMenu4u will convert and author all of your menus to PAL specifications. That's the only difficult part. Converting your actual footage is trivial.

For the rest of your assets, just change the resize command in your AVS script and add the assumefps (23.976) command. This will take care of progressive footage. There is another set of commands that you can use for interlaced sources. Check the PAL->NTSC guides for it. I don't use DVD Rebuilder, but in Doitfast4u you can setup your AVS scripts from the settings, so you would only have to make these changes once and it would apply to all subsequent DVDs.

Its really not that big a deal.

[timekiller]

You can already do this with existing programs. The latest version of NuMenu4u will convert all of your menus to PAL specifications. That's the only difficult part. Converting your actual footage is trivial.

...

Its really not that big a deal.

I found that NuMenu4U changed the Menu, but looking at the resulting IFO files with IFOEdit, all the Movies were still labeled as PAL and the PGC's were all still showing 25 FPS. That's why I went through the full process in my link above.

How do you deal with the issue of the Movie and PGC references still saying PAL after running NuMenu4U?

[adam]

If the vobs are indeed now NTSC then you can just change the references in the IFO. Double click wherever it says PAL or 25fps and change it to the NTSC equivalent.

I don't know exactly what process you are using so I don't know why your IFO's aren't updated automatically. I'd think they would be following any of the conventional big3 or dvdrb methods. Are you modifying your menu's via NuMenu4u and then copying them back into your VIDEO_TS directory? If so you have to run IFOUpdate.

[timekiller]

If the vobs are indeed now NTSC then you can just change the references in the IFO. Double click wherever it says PAL or 25fps and change it to the NTSC equivalent.

I don't know exactly what process you are using so I don't know why your IFO's aren't updated automatically. I'd think they would be following any of the conventional big3 or dvdrb methods. Are you modifying your menu's via NuMenu4u and then copying them back into your VIDEO_TS directory? If so you have to run IFOUpdate.

Yes, this is all outlined in my post; (Batch)IFOUpdate and finally using IFOEdit to fix the Movie references that still say PAL.

I think we're essentially on the same page, the only outstanding issue is that of the Big3 process requiring Scenarist to create the new VOB's and IFO's in the same structure so that the original Menus will function and IFOUpdate can patch the original IFO's new offsets.

[adam]

Sorry, I got confused. I thought I was still talking to the original poster of this thread. Let me look over your other post a bit.

[adam]

Well I read it all but I don't understand what you are asking timekiller. Scenaid does all the authoriing for you. If IFOUpdate does not change the PAL settings to NTSC, after being run, then I guess that is just not one of the parameters that it updates so you will have to do it manually. It should only take a few seconds. Do the same for the menu's after running Newmenu4u. That's it. Its really no different than the normal Big 3 method you just have to add some commands to your avisynth script. The authoring part remains the same.

[timekiller]

Well I read it all but I don't understand what you are asking timekiller. Scenaid does all the authoriing for you.

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear on the question I was leaving outstanding.

Scenaid does the hard work of the "authoring", agreed. The remaining problem is the requirement to own Scenarist to execute the authoring script. Scenarist is a multi thousand dollar tool. The original author of the thread we are in now and the original poster where I wrote my conversion notes (and myself really) are all looking for a solution that's more economical.

The bottom line is that I can recommend a process that is minimally manually intensive using all non-commercial (or inexpensive) applications, with the exception of Scenarist. There is currently no way I can think of to eliminate Scenarist from the equation.

I'm happy you at least agree in concept with my process.

[adam]

Well if you know of another dvd authoring program that runs off of scripts than you can automate that process, otherwise there is no getting around authoring manually. Even if you could somehow modify Scenaid's scripts for another purpose, I don't know of any authoring programs that even support this kind of input.

Whatever structure your DVD has, you need authoring software that can duplicate it. That's the only way. For single PGC DVDs all you need is something as simple as TMPGenc DVD Author. But if there are multiple PGCs or titles you may need more, and if there are reused vobids then you need much more. There is no workaround solution to this, you've just got to buy software that supports this level of authoring and you've got to learn how to use it. As for how to do it, just match what is in the IFO.

I agree with more than just the concept of your process. I have used these methods to convert PAL DVDs to NTSC on more than one occasion. The process is really no different than my normal DVD backup process, I just add 2 lines to my AVS script, but yes I do have Scenarist so that makes things easier.

[timekiller]

Well if you know of another dvd authoring program that runs off of scripts than you can automate that process, otherwise there is no getting around authoring manually. Even if you could somehow modify Scenaid's scripts for another purpose, I don't know of any authoring programs that even support this kind of input.

My thought was that since it is just the script compilation part (and a subset of Scenarists script language at that I'm sure) that we need for this process, maybe someone would eventually write a script compiler to compliment the "Big 3" and then these sorts of things could be done without any commercial software requirement.

Am I being naive to think we are only using a very small part of Scenarist's features for what we're using it for here? (eg. we don't need any user interface stuff at all).

I agree with more than just the concept of your process. I have used these methods to convert PAL DVDs to NTSC on more than one occasion. The process is really no different than my normal DVD backup process, I just add 2 lines to my AVS script, but yes I do have Scenarist so that makes things easier.

[adam]

The scripts that Scenarist uses just tell Scenarist what the assets are and where they should be placed on the track and scenario tabs. It is a roadmap for how to author everything. You still need Scenarist to compile the project. By themselves the scripts do nothing, and in order to use them to author a DVD you'd have to create your own DVD authoring program that supports everything that Scenarist does. Basically, they are like templates for TMPGenc. They are a collection of settings that you would otherwise have to set manually. But you still need the primary application to complete the actual process.

If you don't have Scenarist then you will just have to manually author in some other program.

[tsurikov]

Hi everyone,

Thank you all for replying to my post and for giving me some insight. Being nowhere near the level of expertise of some of y'all (e.g., adam ), I'm still a bit overwhelmed, though!

For this reason I've decided I'll just try converting the video streams - i.e., forgetting the menus. I am trying to follow the conversion guide by xesdeeni2001 (https://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?link=328), found on the VideoHelp guide page, for PAL DVD video to NTSC DVD video. Bought TMpgEnc Plus 2.5 just to do this. Got all the way to the end. Now I have an M2V file with my video, which looks properly converted to NTSC, but doesn't have any audio, and a WMA file (produced by DVD2AVI) with the audio. However, the lengths of the audio and video don't match! and I don't know how to combine the two! and I don't know what to do for the final step for making the DVD itself from the two files.

If y'all could help me out with these last few steps, I'd appreciate it. Thanks lots!
Cheers, Michael

[djelimon]

Maybe BeSweet GUI would do the job on reformatting the audio stream.

To remux, I think TMPGEnc will do that.

[Zeul]

NuMenu4u will update the menu PGCs information and the vts map info. The actual Title PGcs and map info will not be altered. To do the title rebuild you are probably best to run scenaid using original assets setting, import the script then do asset -> placeholder -> to new converted asset. This should be fairly straightforward in scenarist except for the subs. Here (assuming you want them) i would remove the subtitle streams, then change the .idx file with subresynch (i think - been a while) and alter the fps. Now reimport the new sst file into scenarist. You will also need to change the chapter positions too. you are doing 25fps -> 29.97 fps (with drop frame) so your chapter points need to be adjusted accordingly. The actual scenario is unchanged its just the tracks that need adjusting. finally update with batchifoupdate. open up the ifo in ifoedit and make sure that all settings are set to ntsc. done
good luck
Zeul

[lordsmurf]

Just think .... this post was started a week ago. A player capable of playing PAL could have been bought for $25-40, and the OP could have been watching it that very night.