DVD Authoring for Scotland

[Dj Petro]

I am putting together a wedding video for a friend and she has relatives in Scotland. She would like to send them a copy of the DVD I am making. If I make a NTSC (US) DVD, will it play in Scotland, or will I have to make separate PAL video files and DVD for the people in Scotland? I haven't had to deal with this before so I am not sure how to go about this.

One more question...
If I need to make PAL files... will I be able to just export PAL files from the captured video I have? I don't know if there will be anything special I need to do beforehand to the footage. I know that they are a different framerate and resolution so I wasn't sure if the encoder will make it that way if I tell it to.

Thanks

_

[guns1inger]

The good news is that it is highly likely that they will be able to watch ntsc DVDs in Scotland. Most PAL players can play NTSC material, even if they are playing on a PAL only TV.

The bad news is that there are no guarantees. The simplest way is to ask first, because the effort required to get good results from software format conversion is not trivial, no matter that you may read here in the forums. The simplest methods are usualy fakes of some kind, and while they may work for some, they are not true conversions, and may not work for you.

So, short answer, make a phone call or send an email and find out if all that work is really required, before you head too far into it. I suspect you may not have to do it after all.

[Dj Petro]

Thanks for the advice. I will have my friend investigate to see if they would be able to use the NTSC DVDs.

_

[Richard_G]

ALL European DVD players will play NTSC as well as PAL. Europe is Region 2 and uses PAL, Japan is Region 2 and uses NTSC. NTSC DVDs will play no problem even in Scotland....

[Dj Petro]

More good news... thanks.

_

[parman]

Someone correct me if i am mistaken but what i have found is that while there is no problem playing the discs in a dvd player, the only problem i have come across is that with ntsc the television is sometimes the problem. Although all the newer tvs are ntsc compatible there are some quite old tvs that are not ntsc compliant, therefor on playback the resulting picture comes thru in black & white. I dont know if there was a specific year that the tvs in Europe were made to be ntsc compatible so cannot comment on how old or new the tv needs to be to play them, Hope this is of help and if someone can confirm im correct please do.

[guns1inger]

Again, it depends also on the player. Some PAL players can output native NTSC (I know my Pioneer does), in which case you do need to have a multi-format TV as well. But most can also output NTSC as a PAL sgnal (usually PAL60, or 60 fields per second PAL interlace) which most PAL TVs can handle (some older TVs might not keep up).