NTSC to PAL / Framerate conversions for a newbie

[Jah]

Hey fellas

I've got a load of NTSC avis that i want to convert to PAL avis, Ive read through the guides and yet again they are less than newb friendly.

What is the easiest and dare i say most straightforward way of converting NTSC to PAL?

The methods in the guides are over complicated and offer little in the way of explanation of the steps that you need to take.

As I understand things I would need to strip the sound from teh AVI in the first instance and then converst them seperately, is that right?

Is there any program besides Besweet which can convert the audio? as i find Besweet to be one of the most user-UNfriendly applications I've ever seen.

Basically i want to know what steps YOU take to convert from NTSC to PAL and a "simple" walkthrough would be much appreciated.

also am i right in saying that the resolution of the movie is critical? if so what can be done about it?

cheers chaps,

[bugster]

It depends on wether the NTSC material is NTSC film at 23.97fps or true NTSC at 29.97fps. NTSC film is easiest.

Open the avi in virtualdub.
Select:
Audio->full processing mode
Audio->Compression = None (PCM)
Audio->conversion (set to 44.1 or 48 depending on destination format and if req'd)
File->save wav.

Now we have our audio file, lets deal with that later.

Still in virtualdub, now set audio->none.

Video->Direct stream copy
Video->Frame Rate - Change to 25fps.

Now Either save out a new copy of the avi (File->Save avi) OR frameserve to your favourtite encoder.

Audio.

We previously saved a copy of the audio in uncompressed wav format. Open that in goldwave (www.goldwave.com, shareware). Use the 'timewarp' function (I think thats what its called, at work at the mo so working from memory), to shorten the audio by approx 4%. For most accurate results you can enter a target time, use the exact length of the shortened video.

Now encode the audio (and video if you havn't yet) and all should be OK.

Hope this helps.

[Jah]

Ok, thanks bugster,

Using your guide I successfully stripped the sound from the avi, and now have a WAV (48k 2h16m) and an AVI (25 fps 2h16m)

heres the details from avicodec:-
Video : 736 MB, 754 Kbps, 25.0 fps, res. 512*272 (16:9), DIV3 = DivX v3 MPEG-4 (Low-Motion).

I use the DVD PAL template in tmpegenc and when i go to encode the sound is a good ten seconds earlier than the corresponding frame

Am i missing something fundamental here? (except a brain)

btw just to check i ran it as an NTSC DVD and it worked perfectly - however it still aint PAL

[bugster]

Ok, thanks bugster,

Using your guide I successfully stripped the sound from the avi, and now have a WAV (48k 2h16m) and an AVI (25 fps 2h16m)

What was the length of the original video, the new one should be about 4% shorter.

10secs out is a long time, the original audio is not Ac3 by anychance is it?

[Jah]

aha!!!

I unchecked "do not frame rate convert" in advanced setting of tmepgenc and all seems fine now.

Thanks for the help bugster - i'm all sorted now mate

[Cecilio]

you can also use DVD2SVCD as it has an option NTSC TO PAL