Convoluted PAL/NTSC w/ aspect ratio conversion issue

[Magoo]

Hi all,

I've tried to wade through all the guides but am having problems with my exact scenario.

I downloaded some PAL MPEGS some Glastonbury performances. The video is letterboxed.

I burned the MPEGS to DVD using TMPG DVD Authoring. They looked and sounded great so I wiped the source MPEGS off my HD. I then found out my standalone player doesn't support PAL.

I used DVD decrypter to extract the VOBs from my discs, but am having a devil of a time converting those VOBs to NTSC while keeping the same aspect ratio. TMPG wants to fill the screen or create a narrower image.

The stats on the VOB (I changed the .VOB suffix to .MPG so that TMPG would even open it) are: 720 x 576, 25.0 per sec.

Any suggestions on creating nice wide-screen, letterboxed NTSC chapters?

Thanks in advance!

[flaninacupboard]

Well NTSC will not support 720X576 so you'll have to re-encode to 720X480.

As for the frame rate issue, you can either slow the material down 4% to 23.976fps as NTSC Film, or use an AVIsynth script to perform a nice 25->29.97 FPS conversion.

When will the rest of the world learn? multi system is the way to go!