SatStorm 's Advices: A 12 step NTSC to PAL conversion guide

[SatStorm]

Each forum present the same subject from a different aspect

[duhmez]

No, it is not about film capture...
You capture at 29.97, and you end up at 25fps.
Virtualdub 23.97 > 25 method, add field and frames to succeed the convertion.

I must digress. It is film you are talking about. This guide is for converting a video whose source was 23.976 film, which captured @ 29.970. the IVTC will break truly interlaced/NTSC content. that is why I said NTSC/film conversion.

[duhmez]

Putting these back to back

SeparateFields()
Weave()

Won't accomplish anything, there is absolutely no reason to separatefields and weave back to back.........

/me shakes head

[FulciLives]

Now that I look at it closer I think that is a mistake in Xesdeeni's script but it is a harmless mistake.

I notice that his other similiar script (which I've actually used) for PAL to NTSC does not have the first SeperateFields() then Weave() part in it.

But anyways it is a harmless thing that can be removed.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[SatStorm]

@duhmez:
First of all, my guide says: A 12 step NTSC to PAL convertion guide. And that is what it does.

now read again the open credits:

What this guide Covers
This guide covers NTSC to PAL conversion, if the source is a DVB, an mpeg 1/2 or a TV / (S)VHS / LD avi capture from a tuner card. It works excellent with movies, cartoons and music videos, but seems to have issues when you convert true interlace TV material, like sport transmissions or news.
This guide doesn't cover the capture process and doesn't cover how to set up your mpeg 1/2 encoder.


Now, let me ask you: What a newbie, would understand more? That paragraph, or your definition:

"This guide is for converting a video whose source was 23.976 film, which captured @ 29.970. the IVTC will break truly interlaced/NTSC content"

I bet my paragraph is far more newbie friendly...

It is exactly the same thing we talking about, with other words.

The difference? In my definition, nobody needs a dictionary and everybody understands. Yours, are more technical accurate, but a newbie who search a fast "how to" wouldn't even read it.
I know, because I don't forget how it was, when I was a newbie... (lots of years ago)

With your definition, except the fact that someone must know advance technical english, must also know what is 23.976 film, what is IVTC, what is interlace and what is the difference between 29.97 NTSC and 23.97 NTSC.

Also, keep in mind that this guide is not for the NTSC users.... It is for the PAL users who rarelly need to convert to PAL a NTSC source (mostly foreign VHS). So why a PAL user must learn about NTSC in detail? Expecially if he gonna use this guide only rarelly?
The profs and the advance enthousiasts, gonna switch soon or later to avisynth. But they are the minority. I don't cover them, I cover the other ones

My guides are popular because I dump down to stupid english that anyone worldwide understand, things about this hobby that noone else explain that way...

Everyone in this scene, teach college lessons about our hobby, but noone kidergarden ones! Not even high school ones!
Well, I try to fil this gap. And I believe that I do a good job on this...

[Mattsensei]

Hi SatStorm, your guide looks really good and I want to try it. I just have a few (newbie) queries.

I want to convert Lost in Translation (R1/NTSC/widescreen) to PAL. In Step 1, it says to load the files into Virtualdub. Does that mean the vob files? At the moment, I've used DVD Shrink (uncompressed) to make an ISO (which I mount) of just the movie in English, as I don't want the other features. So I've mounted this as an unencrypted source to use. Do I have to convert the vobs to another format before loading them into VD?

Also, the movie is widescreen, does that change the settings I have to put in (step 2)?

Re: Step 12, do I have to choose a template in TMPGenc to do the encoding?

I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Thanks if you can help.

[SatStorm]

If you wish to turn a whole DVD from NTSC to PAL, there are far better ways to do it than this method.
This guide is basicly for analogue captures from tuner cards or cards with video in.

For your case, search for the tool called DVD2SVCD or a new one I think it is called DVD2DVDR. It does what you wish to do much faster, better and almost automatic.

[Mattsensei]

Cheers mate, I'll try that. 8)

Ohh, am back to square one now as the author of that prog has said it will not do that conversion

http://wayned1985.proboards17.com/index.cgi?board=DVDChat&action=display&num=1079355657

[Edster]

Hi
I am having a nightmare with a NTSC to PAL conversion, i have followed SatStorm's guide step by step but still no joy!!
My problem is with the audio-visual sync. I am trying to convert a Friends Episode from NTSC to PAL. The actual conversion works and i have watched the episode on a PAL standalone player, the only problem is the audio goes out of sync.
I have extracted the audio and visual using Veedub p4, then converted the .avi to PAL using Avifrate, i then used Soundforge to shorten the .wav to the same length as the .avi i used the time stretch option. I then open the .avi and the .wav in Veedub and hit play, the sync seems okay to start with but then goes out after ten minutes.
I went back to my original NTSC .avi and looked at the file info in Veedub i noticed that the audio and the visual lengths were different by 1.78 seconds. I took this into account and altered the .wav's length in Soundforge accordingly, still not right.
Any suggestions would be great,
Thanks

[Mattsensei]

Hi
Any suggestions would be great,
Thanks

Good luck with it. I'm sure if you persevere you'll eventually sort it. Personally, I've given up on NTSC to PAL conversion now, it's just too fiddly.

[SatStorm]

No solution on this...
It seems that the clock of your soundcard and the clock of your video capture card don't match.
You have to capture the file first, and have no audio issues before you try to convert it to anything..
Did you tick lock video stream to audio" in virtualdub? - (capture mode - capture - settings)

Anyway, discuss your problem in the capture section of this forum.

[anglia]

hello sat or anyone else who can help!!

i have an mpeg 4 film with 48khz and ac3 surround with a framerate of 23.976fps . I want to make a pal vcd with 25fps with audio 44.1khz 25fps. how do i go about converting this file ? until now there has only been a mention of wav files for the audio.

i have extracted the audio and renamed the film.ac3.wav . Where do i go from here? do i use avifrate ? and how do i convert from 48khz to 44.1khz

i also want to convert the video to 25fps - do i do this in virtual dub?



thx

[SatStorm]

You need to use virtualdub mpeg 2 and the ac3 plug in for your project.

The steps for the convertion remains the same that way.

The only extra step you need, is to resample the audio to 44100
You can do this with TMPGenc or other programs.
Keep in mind that for VCD, any WAV or AC3 or whateven will end up mp2 @ 224kb/s.

[Roderz]

Nice usefull guide - and it works

Great for downloaded avi stuff thats 23.97 just did steps 6,7+8 and encoded to dvd as norm

only needed to do this beacuse sisters tv won't display ntsc (dvd player works fine)

Thanks again.

[Jorizzz]

I have a suggestion about the speeding up of the audio. Can't you just use the timestretch functionin your wav editor? It doesn't make the voices higer or lower but just, as it's name says, stretches the time...

[digital_frog]

Satstorm,

Great guide, I've already used it with several successful conversions... but I have one question:

I have a space problem on my drive and even with Huffyuv the resulting file from Virtualdub is too big. If my source is 23.976 to begin with can I patch directly with avifrate, then resize in Virtualdub and frameserve directly to Tmpgenc instead of saving as avi? That way I could bypass the process of saving a 33 GB file to my drive. What do you think?

Also, it would be great if you could post a separate PAL to NTSC guide or give a little more detail on the steps you mention in this guide. That would be very helpful.

Regards,

DF

[SatStorm]

Try it, I don't see any problem with that.
Saving to a new avi is not neccessary at all. Patch the avi to 25 fps, load it to virtualdub and resize it. Then frameserve it to your encoder. You can also add filters that way. But it's going to frameserve slow that way.
For simply resizing / frameserving, use "Fast decompress" on virtualdub for faster results

[digital_frog]

Thanks Satstorm, I tried it over the weekend, it works fine. I didn't even resize the avi before frameserving from Virtualdub, I just used a Tmpgenc PAL 720x576 template and used "Center-Keep aspect ratio" so that it would just add black borders.

One more question: You mentioned the process of going from PAL to NTSC briefly in your guide. If you have time could you just confirm that this is the correct order?:

Load PAL avi in Vdub -> Save wav-> Resize to NTSC and save -> Patch with avifrate -> Time compress wav to 23.976 (or length of new avi) -> Load new avi in Vdub and add new wav as source -> Frameserve to Tmpgenc with NTSC film template (23.976 as 29.970) Is this correct or am I missing any steps?

Thanks for your help.

DF

[Roderz]

Hi again
One quick question,

What is the best method of converting ac3(ntsc) to ac3(pal)?

I currently use Ac3Machine/Besweet to convert the ac3 file directly from 23.976 -> 25 but this actually converts the file again (time consuming)
Is there another way? (quicker)

Current project is 23.976 -> 25, has ac3 + subs. (both of which I want to keep & convert)

[SatStorm]

Without re-encoding I don't thing is possible

One alternative, works on PCs only, is to apply samplerate change only. So something 44100 > 48000 sound faster. But this is an anorthodox way to speed up the audio and also out of standards for optical media.

[duffman72]

Execellent guide mate. THis is just what I've been looking for, a way to speed up my movies so that they are like the PAL format.

I have some problems though. I used GOLDWAVE to edit my wav file (it's good because you can just enter the length of the track and it will edit the sound to that speed) However, my wav file is now HUGE. When i save the wav file from Virtual dub it was saved as a 124mb file 44.1khz,16bit,stereo,mpeglayer3 192kbps. But GOLDWAVE changes it to 1411kbps PCM and it won't let me save it as its original format. it displays messages about codecs. I want to save it as a wav file not mp3.

So now that my wav file is 877mb and when i save it to virtualdub, I save it as an avi and my 679mb file is 1.33gb (probably becuase of the large sound file)

Can you tell me ways to tackle this problem?

[SatStorm]

I use an ancient version of soundforge myself. I never have to deal with that issue you have.
It must be a Goldwave setting, I'm sure...
Why you don't try the experts at our audio forum? https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=33&sid=d8bb2e5d33adcaca29f797442464be08

[FulciLives]

Execellent guide mate. THis is just what I've been looking for, a way to speed up my movies so that they are like the PAL format.

I have some problems though. I used GOLDWAVE to edit my wav file (it's good because you can just enter the length of the track and it will edit the sound to that speed) However, my wav file is now HUGE. When i save the wav file from Virtual dub it was saved as a 124mb file 44.1khz,16bit,stereo,mpeglayer3 192kbps. But GOLDWAVE changes it to 1411kbps PCM and it won't let me save it as its original format. it displays messages about codecs. I want to save it as a wav file not mp3.

So now that my wav file is 877mb and when i save it to virtualdub, I save it as an avi and my 679mb file is 1.33gb (probably becuase of the large sound file)

Can you tell me ways to tackle this problem?

Just save it as a PCM WAV file then you can use another program such as BeSweet to convert that PCM WAV format to whatever you want such as MP2 or MP3 or AC-3 etc.

Then after you convert the PCM WAV file to your format of choice just delete it.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[duffman72]

Ok, I've downloaded SoundForce 7.0a. How do I use it to convert an NTSC sound? It doesn't seem to have the same time warp option as Goldwave. Also, what file format did you save it as? This one doesn't have the wav as Mpeg layer 3 wav 441000 16 bit stereo 192kbps.

Virtualdub won't accept anything other than a wav file

[KevMull]

HELP, I'm stuck at the Frame Server stage. TMPGenc (2.521.58.169) keeps giving me an error 'My Path.vdr File not supported'.

I can't serve to TMPG...why?

Any alternatives?

Do I have to frameserve, can't I just load teh avi and wav files seperatley?

Thanks

[SatStorm]

Ask this question at the newbie convertion section please.

[KevMull]

Did my first conversion, a 10 minute clip.

Seemed to come out OK apart from some horizontal lines every few secs.
The source was a commercial NTSC DVD.
Won't this be interlaced and is this the cause of the problem?
If so then aren't all commercial DVDs interlaced?

[skullfullomagots]

Well, someone finally discover my guide! For a moment, I thought it wasn't uploaded for a reason

Sure you can, no problems! If your framerate is 23.97 the first place, you simply save audio to a seperate wave file, "Patch" the avi from 23.97 to 25fps, load it to virtualdub, see the new leght, adjust the audio to that lenght, and you encode.

Man, been around the e-world and this was a simple solution in stead of using the cra%¤ss BeSweet. I must say thank you!

Just for the sake of sharing best practices, I am writing how this helped me.
I wanted to convert a NTSC Film AVI source to PAL SVCD. By directly using TMpegEnc it would result in a jerky picture on viewing it on my stand along DVD player. I tried it with two different AVI sources but I got the same result. But there was no Audio synch problem.

So I thought of converting the 23.976 FPS to 25 FPS on VDub but I had a lot of problems with Audio wrapping. And now it is done! I used VDub (Like SatStorm said) to find out the new length of the 25 FPS AVI and then I used to Time Wrap function in Goldwave to reduce the length and used TmpgEnc to encode the new PAL AVI (using new wrapped audio and 25 FPS video sources, of course) to PAL SVCD and it worked! Fantastic!

Thanks again

[SaSi]

Satstorm,

I am messing around for almost a week now trying to do just this. Every different VOB demux tool I used gave me audio/video sync problems.

To avoid repeating myself, this is a link to my relevant posting:
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=254125.

I have read this guide and I guess there is a fine point I missed originally.

In steps 1~4, the original 29.97 NTSC video is IVTCed along with the audio stream. Is the IVTC process doing anything to the audio?

I have taken the original VOB and converted the video only, both by speeding up from 23.976 to 25 (ignoring VDub saying it is a 29.97 video) and also doing IVTC - but only to the video. I handled the audio separately, doing a 29.97 --> 25fps conversion with BeSweet. All these efforts have failed.

What is the significance of taking the audio inside the IVTC loop ?

BTW I am trying your guide as I am writing this posting.

[FulciLives]

I have taken the original VOB and converted the video only, both by speeding up from 23.976 to 25 (ignoring VDub saying it is a 29.97 video) and also doing IVTC - but only to the video. I handled the audio separately, doing a 29.97 --> 25fps conversion with BeSweet. All these efforts have failed.

BINGO !!!

The problem is the audio conversion.

You need to use NTSC (23.976fps) to PAL (25fps)

You are using 29.970fps instead of 23.976fps ... hence the problem.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman