NTSC -> PAL = stutter !?

[Wizeman]

I remember in the early days; having Toast do a VCD from a DivX of a backupped DVD (made w PC). The original was NTSC, the VCD was PAL. Noticed a stuttering sensation; every second, the video would freeze for a nano-second, then continue. Easy to notice when the video was slow-moving (pans etc), pretty much impossible to spot in set shots. Anyway, I learned quickly enough to set the Toast output to NTSC too, and the problem was no more.

Yesterday I backupped Equus (great film that), a region 1 NTSC DVD, and had ffmpegx turn it into a PAL SVCD. I'd forgotten all about the above. But there it is again, that annoying little video hiccup. Is this impossible to get away from? I was so full of myself too, waiting for the "QT Decode" and everything to get the audio sync right. It is dead on, and truth be told Equus is in many ways a slow-moving film as it were (not many scenes where the stutter makes its presence known) but it's the principle of the whole thing.

Is there any way of going NTSC -> PAL with audio sync and fluent video? If so, how?

/Wizeman

P.S.
Backupping a foreign region DVD is dead easy using the VLC trick. I'm sure most of you know about it, but maybe it's news to someone: insert the foreign region DVD. Fire up VLC, choose Open Disc and play a few seconds. The DVD is now "approved", and can be accessed using Finder-friendly programs. (Pity OSex isn't one of them.) I had Toast make a Disc Image of the whole thing, spit the DVD out, mounted the Image and had OSex rip *that*, feeding the VOB straight to ffmpegx. Not the most fluent situation conceivable, but hey - it worked

[Pix]

Hi Wizeman,

it seems you are bringing an answer to my previous post where I had the video "jerking" while going from a divX to PAL VCD. When I meant "jerking", I meant exactly what you describe (me stupid !)

I named this a "workaround" : in fact it's nothing but the most natural solution : a NTSC frame/sec based divx should be reencoded into NTSC VCD, same for PAL.

I tested many options in ffmepgX, also I was doubting about QT or the divX codecs I was using, so I tried many combinations : always this regular "freeze" in the picture, exept when not switching the standard from NTSC to PAL and vice-versa. Simple thing, isn't it ? Believe it or not, I searched for the explanation for many weeks now... and it's so easy : nothing but "don't switch the standards"

One thing I started and it made the movie smooth (on my computer, not on the DVD because I did not finalize the encoding and burning) was to set the PAL presets and then change the framerate to NTSC... Strange, eh ?
But I got a 352x288 sized movie and no more freeze. Anyhow, not sure about the audio sync... Also, not sure if a DVD player will recognize this alien format. I should try... If you have the opportunity to do so, I'll be grateful for your conclusions.