PAL DVD - NTSC conversion please help!

[LuckMan212]

hi forgive my noob-ness but I have been pulling my hair out (what little is left ) reading guide after outdated guide and I am still more or less in the dark.

what I am trying to do is 2 basic things:

(1) I have a bunch of old corporate promotion DVDs (educational videos, marketing info, etc) that are in PAL format. These need to be converted to NTSC, preferably with the subtitles still intact. There are multiple languages on some of them and these should ideally be preserved as independednt audio tracks as well. What I did was use AviSynth and some assorted tools (eclCCE, FitCD, pulldown.exe etc) to resize and do 3:2 pulldown on the original video after it had been processed with DVD2AVI (now apparently called DGindex??) I then created new menus with DVD-lab and it came out "OK". but not great I am pretty sure I hosed something having to do with field/frame/ZigZag/Alternate/progressive/interlaced etc etc in the CCE settings there are so many places to go wrong its unbelievable!! The resulting video was playable but a bit jerky at times.

Please can someone point the way to a clear guide on doing PAL->NTSC DVD conversions? it would really save the day.


(2) the 2nd part of this is I have to take the videos and compress them for internet download, which will either be in QuickTime or WMV format. Let's just focus on the QuickTime since that is more important. I am again somewhat at a loss as to what needs to be done to get a VOB converted to QuickTime (or any other format for that matter!) Here's what I tried which sort of worked but again I'm sure its not the "right" way and I'm sure theres a better/faster way.

a) open DVD2AVI and demux the audio,
b) run that through BeSweet to convert to .WAV.
c) Then import the VOB into Vegas (?) and the wav, and
d) render using whatever compression (Xvid, Quicktime, etc) you want.

Here's the question......... is opening the VOB directly the best way? it seems like these should be converted first to .m2v (mpeg2) files.. but how do I do this? I tried using DVDdecrypter in IFO mode and clicking DeMux on the stream processing but the resulting file was unplayable and could not be imported into Vegas. Can someone please point me on the right track here?

thanks so much, sincerely!

[lenti_75]

the bad news is that you can't convert PAL-NTSC dvd's and keep the menus, sub, and everything else intact (unless you have a professional studio and have professional soft).

you have 2 options:

1. buy a player that can be hacked to play pal and do the conversion on the fly....philips, cyberhome....

2. rip the movie file only and sub, using DVDdecryptor or other soft on hard and then convert it into what you want...go to TOOLS <<<<<<<<<

whatever option you use, the conversion is more or less jerky, that is the price for multiple system.......

this is pretty much the idea.....

[adam]

I completely disagree. PAL is simply sped up from film. Assuming its progressive, which it usually is, it is the PERFECT source for an NTSC DVD...much better then even typical NTSC content. You can do a perfect conversion using totally freeware tools and the results are no different then what you'd buy in a store. I use to work in a studio where we did mostly regional format conversions. What we did there was no different then what I do at home. Slow it down, crop/lower resolution, enable pulldown flags...your done. There is no reason why there should ever be jerkiness, audio sync problems, or anything else. That's the beauty of PAL, its basically just a slightly faster version of FILM...which everything originates at anyway.

As for converting menu's and subs, again this can all be done completely with freeware tools, but its not easy. You'd need to re-encode the menu assets to NTSC resolutions and you'd need to reauthor the button highlights. I know that NuMenu automates all this but I don't know if it has regional format options. If so, this would be as easy as hitting one button. But you've already reauthored the menus so it seems like you've already perfected this part as much as possible. As for subs, you'd have to resize them to NTSC compatible resolutions as well. You can literally do this in about 5 seconds with IrfanViewer. Just use its batch conversion option. You will have to adjust the time stamps though, and I'm not positive on how to do that short of manually changing the text file. I think SubRip might be able to do this for you somehow. Try ripping the subs and then saving it as NTSC output.

As for the specific encoding process...well make sure that in Avisynth you use the assumefps command not the changefps command. In the encoder, output should be set to progressiveand ziggzagg scan order. That's about it really. Personally, I don't know that I trust CCE's 3:2 pulldown options. I prefer to just not use them and then use pulldown.exe after encoding.

I've converted PAL DVDs to NTSC DVDs plenty of times and the results are great. The results are no different then if you just converted a regular NTSC DVD9 to DVD5.

[pijetro]

adam wrote:

You will have to adjust the time stamps though, and I'm not positive on how to do that short of manually changing the text file. I think SubRip might be able to do this for you somehow. Try ripping the subs and then saving it as NTSC output.

This is the sticky part for me...It's simple enough to grab indivdual .Vob sets, and use DVD2AVI to frameserve and encode motion menus, but I think the only way to properly link all the menus, is to do it manually..Just a guess..

One way or the other..You're (i should say "I") forced to use an authouring app that supports multiple VTS, since it seems that most PAL disks are done professionally nowadays...
Counts me out

[mazinz]

sometimes that jerkiness occurs from converting a 24-25fps rate to the ntsc 29.97. The best way would have been to convert it over to an ntsc film rate of 23.97

[adam]

Yes you have to re-author the menu's, there's no way around that. But there are ways of doing it very simply. You can just throw in all of your subpictures and then draw your highlights over them. This is the easy part of authoring and only takes a few seconds. Then you can just compile it absent any commands. Then open up the original movie in MenuEdit and click on a button to see the command associated with it. Right click and hit copy, open up the vobs that you compiled, click on the corresponding button and hit paste. Do this for each button. I admit it sounds complicated but its literally about a 2 min process, and after doing it once its very easy.

[pijetro]

Alrighty Adam, i'll take your word for it...The next PAL to NTSC project that comes up, i'll give it a try...
If we can learn AviSynth scripting, DVD2AVI frameserving, and .AC3 framerate adjuments, theoretically, the stuff you mentioned should be a piece of cake..

[Gillies]

don't american tv's have PAL playback? if so, that's gay... oh but i get it... PAL resolution is higher than NTSC, but u'd think they'd all have the same tubes

[LuckMan212]

hey thanks for the replies guys but I am still scratching my head.. What I am looking for is a link to an actual Guide that walks thru this process using AviSynth. Does such a beast exist?

also, what about #(2) -- the DVD->QuickTime conversion.. .any tips on that?

[adam]

Its really very simple. For progressive footage you simply need to put these two lines into your script.

AssumeFPS(23.976, true)
BicubicResize(720,480)

If you want a more optimized script then use FitCD. Simply load your source (it should detect it as PAL) and set your output to NTSC. It will do all of the proper cropping and resizing for you, and add the Assumefps command too. That's it, its fullproof. Simply tell FitCD what you want and it will give you the script to get you there.

If your source is interlaced then its best to just do your own telecine directly to 29.97fps. Follow this guide to find out how.

As for converting the video to something easier to download...well you've really got lots of options. Quicktime is fine, as is divx or even real media if you really need to make them small. There are automation tools that can help you squeeze more quality out of your encode, but for streaming type stuff I usually just do the same as you...simply select my desired codec as my output and hit go. Some things to keep in mind though... there is no need to do a regional format conversion if its only going to be played on the pc, it makes no difference either way. Also, if your source is interlaced you need to deinterlace it. If you don't it will just be deinterlaced during playback anyway, and you can get much better quality doing it yourself manually.

Gillies: No, NTSC equipment cannot display a PAL signlal. They run at different frequencies. If you try to play PAL encoded video on our equipment you lose color or get scrolling...or both. There are, however, a decent number of dvd players and 3rd party adapters that can convert the PAL signal to NTSC in real time.... the quality of the conversion varies though.
http://www.geocities.com/xesdeeni2001/StandardsConversion/index.html

[LuckMan212]

Thanks for the link to xesdeeni's guides , they look good I will have to read them further.

"If your source is interlaced then its best to just do your own telecine directly to 29.97fps. Follow this guide to find out how. "

coupla more questions:

1) how do I find out if my source is interlaced? does DGindex (DVD2AVI) tell me this?

2) you say "follow this guide" but there is no link there. And I didnt see anything about telecine on xesdeeni's page.

thanks again

[adam]

Sorry, I moved things around a bit when I posted. When I said "this guide" I was talking about the link at the bottom of my post, to xesdeeni's site. When you use his script to go from interlaced PAL to 29.97fps you are performing a telecine.

As for determining whether your source is interlaced or not, no I wouldn't use dvd2avi, though that would probably work ok. Just use any software that gives you a preview function. You could load it in TMPGenc and use its preview function, or you could load your avisynth script into virtual dub...anything like that. Scroll through it and look for interlacing. It will look like horizontal lines running through it. If you see nothing but one whole frame after the next, then its progressive.