Ntsc pal?

[akuswara]

Hi, I have read back and forth in this forum and others, but i get confused on what to do.

let me start from beginning: I have stacks of VHS tapes that I have to convert to DVD, the tapes are getting old and they certainly not last forever, so i was asked to convert them to DVD. So we purchased the hardware that connect the VCR Player to the computer (Dazzle DVD Recorder HD), and the software (Pinnacle Studio HD V.14).


When we completed the process, the result is black and white video, and not a very good one i must add. the original tapes are in color, if we plug the VCR directly to the TV, we can see it's playing okay, old but okay, in color.


I look around and someone suggest the problem is in due to the difference between NTSC and PAL; the tapes were produced in South Korea, which after searching the internet, has a NTSC standard for video. While the hardware and software were purchased here in Australia, and our standard here is PAL. Somehow the VCR can still play the tape without problem so it must has support NTSC.


My question is, how do i resolve this? can I capture from the tape (probably an NTSC tape) and convert it into DVD that can be played with normal DVD player (in PAL).






I searched back and forth and found several posting in about this e.g. https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/281623-Captured-video-is-in-black-and-white-(NTSC-vs-PAL-problem-) but i am still confused people seems to be talking about Regions and etc. All i want is just to produce DVD from these particular tapes.


Thanks for any advice, suggestion or help.
Cheers

[Cornucopia]

Your hardware is likely not TRULY playing the NTSC tapes as NTSC, but rather a fudged/compromised in-between hybrid, known as "PAL-60".
PAL-60 can be viewed nearly normally on PAL TVs (such as yours). It is "forgiving" of variations to the spec.
But...PAL-60 is not a real standard, and CAPTURE cards/boxes are only set to accept signals from one (NTSC) or the other (PAL) standard, not some compromise. It is not forgiving of variations to the spec.

What you can do:
1. Make sure your Dazzle supports NTSC, then buy a true NTSC VHS VCR and capture all the way through to your computer as NTSC, then convert in the PC to PAL. (Alternately cap them as NTSC and leave them that way, only watching via PC)
or
2. Get a true Standards-converting VHS VCR (much more expensive), output a true PAL signal, set your Dazzle to PAL input and capture as PAL.
or
3. Contact the source(s) of those tapes and get PAL copies, then capture those natively.
or
4. Enlist the services of a Post-production/Transfer house.
or
5. Give up and forget the project.

That's it. All your choices.
Best quality could be 3, then 4 or 1, depending on your level of understanding and painstaking effort and equipment layout, or on the tranfer house's.
Cheapest besides 5 would be 1 then 2.
Fastest would be 2, then 4 then 1, etc.

Scott

[hech54]

Aside from post-capture "processing via scripting with AviSynth"......what you are attempting to do is one of the most difficult and confusing things known to this little community/hobby of ours. As you can see by my join date I've been dabbling in capturing/recording for quite some time and have only recently (within the past few years) found the right combination of hardware and software to capture NTSC tapes in a PAL environment.

[jman98]

There is actually another choice, but it's not easy. There are a very limited number of video capture devices that can record a PAL-60 signal. Gamers sometimes have this issue and they need such devices to record their gameplay in PAL countries. If you do a search on the internet or our forums, you can eventually find a reference to what devices can actually capture PAL-60 video. So this involves you having to buy a new capture device and the additional expense associated with that. I don't care much about this subject so I don't remember what few devices can actually do this. That's why you'll have to search.

[jagabo]

There are a very limited number of video capture devices that can record a PAL-60 signal.

This is your cheapest and easiest solution.

PAL-60 uses NTSC timing (525 lines, 59.94 fields per second, vs. PAL's 625 lines, 50 fields per second) but shifts the chroma channels from the usual 3.58 MHz NTSC carrier wave to a 4.43 MHz PAL carrier wave. So NTSC capture devices, looking for the 3.58 MHz carrier don't see the color signal.

[netmask56]

Once you can play it back on a NTSC machine and capture it no need to do a NTSC conversion to PAL for the DVD, most Australian TV's quite happily play US DVD's assuming the DVD player is OK with foreign region codes. 90% of my DVD's are US sourced and both my Pioneer player and Samsung TV are fine with them. So it is one step you really don't need. You might be able to rent a US VHS player from one of the professional video hire companies to provide a genuine playback path.