Converting NTSC TV to NTSC Film

[stshipley]

Hello all,

Sorry if this is a repeat question. I record TV shows using the EyeTV 200, which produces 29.97 fps Mpeg2 or Mpeg4 files. When squeezing the files down to Xvid/Divx, I would really like to convert the 29.97 fps files to 23.98 fps material, so that I can get the file size smaller, but this tends to create some jitter in the playback.

Are there any codecs and/or strategies that I can employ to ditch the jitter and succesfully convert the material from NTSC TV to NTSC film?

Thanks in advance,

-STS

[major]

The jitter is the logical consequence of erasing about 6 frames per second.

[edDV]

exactly,

Why do people assume all TV is shot on 24fps film when 90%+ is shot with a TV camera or CGI device running 29.97fps NTSC?

[junkmalle]

I would really like to convert the 29.97 fps files to 23.98 fps

That's only possible for telecined films. You can inverse telecine with VirtualDub (regular, MPEG2, or Mod), TMPGEnc, Avisynth, etc. It can be difficult to do perfectly unless you have a film that has been perfectly telecined, never edited as video, no commercial breaks, and a perfect capture. Otherwise you'll have to split the recording at each break in the telecine pattern and work on segments.

By the way, I've done quite a lot of it with VirtualDubMPEG2 and digital cable recordings. I'd say about 1 film in 10 has converted in a single IVTC segment. Another 8 in 10 had to be done in 2 or more (dozens) segments. The last 1 in 10 required so many segments it just wasn't practical.

Made-for-tv dramas are often shot on film, telecined, then edited as video. They generally have telecine pattern breaks with every shot change.

[edDV]

Are there any codecs and/or strategies that I can employ to ditch the jitter and succesfully convert the material from NTSC TV to NTSC film?

-STS

stshipley,

Are you saying you want to transfer 29.97 fps NTSC to 24fps film?

The process is very similar to converting NTSC to 25fps PAL without the rescale. Deinterlace and interpolate a new framerate. The results will be moderately ugly.

[stshipley]

edTV,

Yes, that is what I want to do. 29.97 -> 24 (or 23.98)

JunkMalle above proved that it can be done in Windows using the tools he mentioned. I'm wondering if there's any tools for doing this on the Mac.

To be real honest, If I could convert this to PAL 25 fps, that would be fine. Do you have a procedure that you would care to share?

-STS

[edDV]

Search "NTSC to PAL"

Why may I ask do you want this?

[stshipley]

edDV,

If you have, say, 45 minutes of video, a file with 29.97 fps will be significantly larger than one with a lower frame rate. I'm just trying to conserve space. If it isn't possible on the Mac (or ffmpegX), I understand, but I am sure that is possible on other platforms.

Thanks,

-STS

[edDV]

edDV,

If you have, say, 45 minutes of video, a file with 29.97 fps will be significantly larger than one with a lower frame rate. I'm just trying to conserve space. If it isn't possible on the Mac (or ffmpegX), I understand, but I am sure that is possible on other platforms.

Thanks,

-STS

Is this for a CDR? I would compress it further with sample rate before deinterlacing and frame interpolation. This depends on how it will be viewed.

DVD is cheap and much better.