NTSC vs. PAL: telling the difference, help?

[Septum]

I am a media studies production major, i go through many files, and so far I have had to pretty much intelligently guess what format the original file is in and see the output... but I would realy appreciate knowing the method or a program that can exactly tell me if the file is NTSC or PAL and prefferably the aspect ratio... my old method of just checking the FPS of 29.5 or 23.9 has not prooven the most effective, as i've gotten some NTSC files that I believe my encoding program detected were 23.9 FPS...

the reason why this is an issue now is that now I just got a DVD burner and I need to lock aspect ratios and formats to record to DVD... while I normaly went from Premier to DV or Premier to VHS...

tell me please what I can do

[teegee420]

Read about DVD resolutions and frame rates for each video system here. And it's NTSC, not NTFS. NTFS is a hard drive file system for Windows.

[Septum]

sorry, my brain is wired on hard drive instalation mode... fixed the previous post

so what you're saying is to match resolutions and FPS speeds to tell the difference, using the table on the page you have provided.... right? ... or are is my assumption incorrect

edit: ok, the resolutions are impossible to match as I have different ones than in that entire list... but could the assumption be made from that list that everything with a 23.976 FPS (w/ 3:2 Pulldown) or 29.97 FPS can ONLY be NTSC ... and that PAL can ONLY be 25.00 FPS ?

the editing room computers play both PAL and NTSC files fine and they encode onto both DV and VHS tape thats showable everywhere... I just wish I knew more about DVDs... that page has helped a lot, I'm just genneraly confused as i'm new to this

[Solarjetman]

computer files do not need to be either PAL or NTSC. A computer can play any resolution at any framerate. In fact most web videos are not either. For instance a video off the web could be 320x240 and 20fps. That way the filesize can be reduced for downloading.

What you may have to do is actually make your video into a NTSC or PAL compatable video.

[teegee420]

edit: ok, the resolutions are impossible to match as I have different ones than in that entire list... but could the assumption be made from that list that everything with a 23.976 FPS (w/ 3:2 Pulldown) or 29.97 FPS can ONLY be NTSC ... and that PAL can ONLY be 25.00 FPS ?

That's a fair assessment. You should know that PAL DVD players are much more tolerant of NTSC discs and can usually play them without a problem. There are some NTSC players that can handle PAL but most cannot. As for the source files not matching either spec, that's not really important. You can always convert them to the desired spec.

[DereX888]

@Septum
Are you sure you havent made mistake in your post in what you have major either? somehow I cant believe that a media production major could mistake NTSC with NTFS and mistaken NTSC framerate of 29.97 with 29.5 twice - all in a single post, and then need an advice is 23.976 and 29.97 always a NTSC format... Not that Im picking on you, but aren't these informations just simplest basics which you should have known already?

Aspect ratio, bitrate, format, and other info can be easily checked with 1 click on any mpeg file if you install simple shell extension called MPEGinfo.
You can see preview window of this program in my other post here:
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=222509&highlight=

I don't have any link for downloading this file, but Im sure google search will give you plenty of them.

[Septum]

my media studies concentrations is 3D animation and graphics programing... C++ and Python, and Maya / 3DS Max ... the video part of my courses is simply them increasing my requirements to graduate... I realy dont work with it... so I'm taking the abridged version over the summer

as for the name mixup, I just installed my Samsung SP1213N, 7200rpm, 120gb, 8mb cache, ATA133 HD last night (to hold all my new DVD conversions mind you) and was deciding to convert it to NTFS under WinXp, so I mixed up saying NTFS and NTSC :P and I fixed myself before you even saw this post it bet :P ... as for the numbers, I got the primaries right and he knew what I meant, so whats the prob...

last but not least... my only beef with the source files not matching either spec is that I'd realy like to know what size the video is suppose to be on the screen... I hate making a video and then finding out that something thats suppose to be a sphere shape looks like an egg while I play it because it stretched, and I only notice after I burn... (this has happened)

[Roderz]

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/userguides/174200.php

[Septum]

ok, i give up, i followed all of those guides and the video i'm trying to convert to DVD is simply just coming out a different size on my full-screen monitor every time... from the size it comes out when playing the original .avi on full-screen...

video is 23.976 FPS res: 576*240 (2.21:1) XVID Mpeg-4 Codec (the black edges are cut off, its in a letterbox), and according to the graph calculations from the pages given to me here, its 2.4:1, not 2.21:1, I dont know why the prog I use to check says that.

info from: AVICodec program I use to identify

the program i'm using to encode is TMPGEnc 3.0 Xpress Trial Version

I set source of it to Progressive, Top Field First, and every possible resolution setup: Pixel 1:1, Pixel 40:33 (16:9 NTSC), Image 2.21:1, Pixel 16:11 (PAL 16:9)... and it has not come out right...

output has allways been set to NTSC, Image 16:9, Res: 720*480, VBR, DC Component precision 9bit, Video Mode (I have tried both Progressive and 3:2 PullDown in Video Mode).. results were different, but neither fit the full-screen picture size of the first...

ok, you got the info, could anyone tell me why every time I encode the video does not come out the same size on full-screen as the original? ...

oh, and when I play the original it has no black borders, its a letterbox, while all the encodes come with their own borders... i'm not sure if thats whats causing it, if its natural, or if I have ability to remove it...

please help, i've been encoding this video for 4 days on different settings, leaving it overnight and when i go to work, and nothing seems to have worked...

[teegee420]

Your source avi is NOT letterboxed. It only looks that way when you play it back. If you open the avi in Virtualdub you should not see any black bars at all. What you need to do is change the video arrange in TMPGEnc to "full screen(keep aspect ratio)" and change the source aspect ratio to 1:1. You can find both of these options on the advanced tab of "setting" or "other settings", depending on whether you are using the project wizard or not.

[Roderz]

info from: AVICodec program I use to identify

its 2.4:1, not 2.21:1,

As stated in my guide AVICodec is not very accurate as at the calculations!
But it does report the correct size's

video arrange in TMPGEnc to "full screen(keep aspect ratio)" and change the source aspect ratio to 1:1.

Ditto - that WILL do the trick if using TMPGEnc