I have an NTSC MPEG2 source that was ripped from DVD, and I’m attempting to convert it to PAL.

I’ve found the best results for the video component is by using Procoder 2 -> AVI for the framerate conversion, then TMPGEnc -> MPEG2, and I’m very satisfied with that part of the conversion.

The problem is the audio, which is AC3/5.1.

If I include the audio stream when I attempt to do a direct NTSC to PAL conversion using Procoder2, it complains that “an unknown error occurred”, and if I try to do an NTSC MPEG2 to NTSC AVI conversion instead, it complains that there is “No audio filter found to perform required conversion”. Stream 0xbd80 of the AC3 is the English soundtrack, and stream 0xbd81 is French (2 channel). If I select the French stream, then the conversion proceeds without error, but that doesn’t really help me.

Another weird thing about Procoder2 is that if I open the source file using the Procoder2 Wizard, it identifies the video as “23.98” fps “Non-Interlaced”, but if I open that same source using just Procoder2, it identified the source as “29.970” fps and “Lower/Bottom Field First” interlaced and “Use Film Decode”.

I bought Nero 7 last year, and only recently discovered that it will do DVD re-authoring with framerate conversion, but all the results so far have been stuttery (something to do with the interlacing I believe). The one good thing about Nero Vision, is that it preserves multi-channel audio, whereas Procoder2 does not. Nero Vision will transcode this source, but like I said, the results are stuttery.

So I tried another method:

1. Demux the source using TMPGEnc
2. Use Procoder2 to do the framerate conversion on the m2v
3. Use TMPGEnc to transcode back to MPEG2
4. Use BeSweet (BeLight) to framerate convert the AC3
5. Mux the results back together

So now I only have one problem left, which is … do I convert the AC3 from 29.970 – 25, or from 23.98 – 25, since I have no idea whether the source is FILM or not?

AVICodec doesn’t help, BTW.

Is there a utility that will correctly and positively identify whether a source is really 29.970, or actually 23.98 FILM?

I just tried a 29 – 25 fps conversion with BeLight, and the audio was very slow, and stretched out about 25 minutes too long. I’ll try a 23 – 25 next, and let you know how it turns out.