NTSC to PAL VHS Conversion

[Chest]

I live in the UK and I have 2 VCRs that have "NTSC playback".

I thought this would enable me to copy a video from a relative in the US onto blank tape.

Unfortunately this was not so and all I get is a flickering picture very few seconds.

What can I do? Please note that I am not copying something from a shop, it is a home video.

I think I should convert the video to PAL and then copy it. I know there are companies that do this, but they are expensive and I will probably need to do this in the future again, so I need a quick, efficient cheap method. - If that's possible.


Thanks in advance for any help.

[SatStorm]

Probably, your VCRs convert NTSC to PAL 60.
I don't know a good analogue solution!

If we speak digital, you have to grabb your source to 720 X 576 avi, then crop the bottom 96 lines and inverse telecine it, so to end up with 24 framerate. You save your proccesed source to a new avi and using a proggy called avifrate you change framerate to 25ftp/s. That speed ups a bit the source (like speeding a vinyl record from 33 1/3 to 34rpm). Now you encode PAL svcd/cvd/vcd or even DVD.
You can do all this with a card which has "TV in" connection. A dedicated card is better IMO (like the cheap hauppauge win tv fm)

Converting PAL 60 to PAL, is like convert NTSC to PAL, with the difference you don't need filters for the colours and you have to crop some lines. Also, you have to grabb @ 30fps (not 29.97) and your ITC ends up 24 ftp (not 23.97 as with NTSC)

[Spartaantje]

Maybe you should look at the following instruction at:

www.doom9.org/mpg/avi2svcd.htm

There's something about NTSC to PAL conversion.