How to convert a PAL DVD to a NTSC DVD using TMPGEnc Plus 2.5x

[FulciLives]

I am having problems with my bitrate size. It seems that when I use a smaller file (i.e. a one hour video, instead of a two hour video) my bitrate is larger. Following your guide, I used the bitrate calculator. When I entered the time of my video (55 minutes) the bitrate jumped to 9800. With a longer time, the bitrate was less (in other videos I encoded).

Since maximum bitrate in TMPG Enc is 8000, how should I proceed? Why would a smaller video file have a larger bitrate? Thank you.

Bitrate is related to the length ... the running time ... of the video.

Once you get to around 60 minutes or less you are hitting the MAX video bitrate of the DVD format. Be it 1 minute or 60 minutes either way you can't go past a certain bitrate.

To be safe most encoders will lock you out at 8000kbps although in some instances you can go higher if you wish but if you don't know what you are doing then you may go over the bitrate level that the DVD format can handle.

So just use 8000kbps as your max although if you read my guide it does have you using the UNLOCK.MCF file and once you do that step you can go back to the bitrate and it will allow you to increase it above 8000kbps. I suggest going no higher than 9000kbps and even then only if your audio is AC-3 or MP2 format. If you are using LPCM WAV audio then you definately do not want to go over 8000kbps for the video bitrate.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[kds2012]

Just some info. I noticed the following post from August: (Platinum911911)

"Hey I have a Problem here with TMPGEnc. When I go to the second screen, where you're suppose to chose the Video File, I load the d2v file and I get a message that says 'Can't open, or unsupported.' I've tried to do this 4 times already and I get stuck there. Any ideas?"

I think I might have one explanation for this error message:
After dgIndex does its thing & creates the .D2V file, If you then immediately move this file to another dir, and then try to load it into tMPGenc, you might get the above error. You can probably correct it simply by moving the .D2V back to its original/create dir & reloading into tMPGenc.

I'm not %100 on this, but I'll test the theory soon & follow up.

[juanito]

Have tried with TMPGEnc DVD author and the guide and I get vob files as output but with no audio. The AC3 file I got from using your system is still there unused. Do I put the audio and video files together before using TMPGEnc DVD author or after, and how?

[FulciLives]

Have tried with TMPGEnc DVD author and the guide and I get vob files as output but with no audio. The AC3 file I got from using your system is still there unused. Do I put the audio and video files together before using TMPGEnc DVD author or after, and how?

When you input the video file into TMPGEnc DVD Author the audio file will only auto-load if it is in the same DIRECTORY as the video file and is the same name (the extention will be different but the name must be the same).

When the above is not the case then you need to manually load the audio file and this is done on the same screen in TMGPEnc DVD Author as the screen where you load the video.

First you load the video file and then you load the audio file.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[cunhamr]

Hi,

I have a question:

After following all steps of your guide, the final video became smaller than the audio (considering that we didn't alter the audio during the process), causing sync problems.

What to do ?

thank you very much,


Marco.

[FulciLives]

Hi,

I have a question:

After following all steps of your guide, the final video became smaller than the audio (considering that we didn't alter the audio during the process), causing sync problems.

What to do ?

thank you very much,


Marco.

Do you mean that the running time of the video is now shorter than the running time of the audio? That should not happen. Granted they may be "off" by a very small amount ... usually less than 1 second.

But if the time is off a lot then you did something wrong when converting the video and need to re-read the guide carefully and ensure that you did all the steps and did them in order.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[sifa_dias]

Have tried with TMPGEnc DVD author and the guide and I get vob files as output but with no audio. The AC3 file I got from using your system is still there unused. Do I put the audio and video files together before using TMPGEnc DVD author or after, and how?

When you input the video file into TMPGEnc DVD Author the audio file will only auto-load if it is in the same DIRECTORY as the video file and is the same name (the extention will be different but the name must be the same).

When the above is not the case then you need to manually load the audio file and this is done on the same screen in TMGPEnc DVD Author as the screen where you load the video.

First you load the video file and then you load the audio file.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

Hey John,
First of all thanks a lot for the tutorial. It's excellent.

I do, however, also have a problem with this step.
I've got all my files and now I'm trying to useTMGPEnc DVD Author for the end step. But, when I manually try to load my audio, I get an error message saying:

Illegal audio format
For standard DVD you can only use the following audio formats.

Dolby Digital, MPEG-1 Audio Layer-2, or Linear PCM.

Any idea how this can be solved?

Thanks A lot!
Sifa

[manono]

Hi-

In what format is the audio now? And what's the sample rate?

[sifa_dias]

Hi-

In what format is the audio now? And what's the sample rate?

I did exactly what it said above in the tutorial. My dvd is a concert an only had digital stereo. The output says it's 48K 24bit 2ch PCM, rate is 2304 kbps. I didn't get accepted.

Right now I've converted it to Mpeg-1 audio and it seemed to take it. Now I just have to see if it worked. Authoring as we speak. But I would like it to work as above, without having to re-encode.

Thanks,
Sifa

[manono]

48K 24bit 2ch PCM, rate is 2304 kbps

Someone correct me please if I'm wrong here, but isn't PCM audio supposed to be 1536, or some such?

Audio:
48000 Hz
32 - 1536 kbps
Up to 8 audio tracks containing Dolby Digital, DTS, PCM(uncompressed audio), MPEG-1 Layer2. One audio track must have MPEG-1, DD or PCM Audio.

https://www.videohelp.com/dvd

How did you get the WAV audio? Perhaps in the demuxing process you "enhanced" it?

[sifa_dias]

How did you get the WAV audio? Perhaps in the demuxing process you "enhanced" it?

I just used the steps explained in the above tutorial. Used DGIndex and took the main movie vob files and saved it and demuxed the audio. The mentioned file is what I got from that.

By the way, my above experiment failed. The authoring program did take the converted audio file, but the output still plays without audio. It's also kind of jerky.

[manono]

I was just reading the guide. If you used DGIndex to get the WAV file, and if it's directly from the DVD, then it should be compliant. And if your max video bitrate isn't too high, then it should produce a compliant DVD. So, I don't know what the problem is with your WAV audio.

I do know that some NTSC DVD players don't play MP2 audio, since they're not required to. You might consider converting the WAV audio to DD 2.0 AC3 audio.

As for the jerky playback, could be any one of a number of things.

I'd suggest muxing with Muxman, to see if the results are any different. You'll know right away if the WAV audio is OK, as it'll instantly either accept it or reject it.

Sorry, not much help.

[FulciLives]

When you used DGIndex are you sure you had it set to DEMUX the audio instead of some other setting such as the DECODE setting?

That's one thing I can think of that might have "gone wrong" ... otherwise it makes no sense. I mean the original audio from the original DVD should be A-OK especially if it was a PCM WAV audio file.

The other option is to convert to a Stereo 48k Dolby Digital (AC-3) audio file. One freeware program that can do this is ffmpeggui. For "best" quality use 384kbps for the AC-3 audio file bitrate.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[sifa_dias]

When you used DGIndex are you sure you had it set to DEMUX the audio instead of some other setting such as the DECODE setting?

That's one thing I can think of that might have "gone wrong" ... otherwise it makes no sense. I mean the original audio from the original DVD should be A-OK especially if it was a PCM WAV audio file.

The other option is to convert to a Stereo 48k Dolby Digital (AC-3) audio file. One freeware program that can do this is ffmpeggui. For "best" quality use 384kbps for the AC-3 audio file bitrate.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

Thanks so far for all the help guys, it's appreciated.
I'm going to start from the beginning and see if I missed anything. I'm also going to select deinterlacing this time. I'm pretty sure though that it initially was set to Demux all.
I have a concert dvd, so the length is a bit longer then the above tutorial example , so I get a bigger audio file as well. But I just use the same calculation method as above, so it should be fine, I just end up with a lower bitrate and such. I'll give you the specs of what I do.

After DGIndex I end up with a 1.96GB (2007 MB) audio file. Same as before, 48k 24 bit 2ch PCM.

I'm doing this step by step and posting it here, so i'll wait before moving on to TMPEnc.

[FulciLives]

When you used DGIndex are you sure you had it set to DEMUX the audio instead of some other setting such as the DECODE setting?

That's one thing I can think of that might have "gone wrong" ... otherwise it makes no sense. I mean the original audio from the original DVD should be A-OK especially if it was a PCM WAV audio file.

The other option is to convert to a Stereo 48k Dolby Digital (AC-3) audio file. One freeware program that can do this is ffmpeggui. For "best" quality use 384kbps for the AC-3 audio file bitrate.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

Thanks so far for all the help guys, it's appreciated.
I'm going to start from the beginning and see if I missed anything. I'm also going to select deinterlacing this time. I'm pretty sure though that it initially was set to Demux all.
I have a concert dvd, so the length is a bit longer then the above tutorial example , so I get a bigger audio file as well. But I just use the same calculation method as above, so it should be fine, I just end up with a lower bitrate and such. I'll give you the specs of what I do.

After DGIndex I end up with a 1.96GB (2007 MB) audio file. Same as before, 48k 24 bit 2ch PCM.

I'm doing this step by step and posting it here, so i'll wait before moving on to TMPEnc.

The audio file that DGIndex spits out should be 48k 16 bit and it can be 2 channel PCM or 2 channel MP2 (aka MPA) or 1 channel + AC-3. So it doesn't matter if the audio is PCM, MP2 (aka MPA) or AC-3 ... all three MUST be 48k 16-bit.

I don't see how it could be anything else.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Oh well I did forget about DTS but still my point is valid. The PCM audio file has to be 48k 16-bit as far as I know yet you said it isn't so ... I'm confused.

[sifa_dias]

The audio file that DGIndex spits out should be 48k 16 bit and it can be 2 channel PCM or 2 channel MP2 (aka MPA) or 1 channel + AC-3. So it doesn't matter if the audio is PCM, MP2 (aka MPA) or AC-3 ... all three MUST be 48k 16-bit.

I don't see how it could be anything else.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Oh well I did forget about DTS but still my point is valid. The PCM audio file has to be 48k 16-bit as far as I know yet you said it isn't so ... I'm confused.

I'm equally confused . But it really is 24 bit. I don't know why. Could it have to do with how the dvd was made?

[FulciLives]

The audio file that DGIndex spits out should be 48k 16 bit and it can be 2 channel PCM or 2 channel MP2 (aka MPA) or 1 channel + AC-3. So it doesn't matter if the audio is PCM, MP2 (aka MPA) or AC-3 ... all three MUST be 48k 16-bit.

I don't see how it could be anything else.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Oh well I did forget about DTS but still my point is valid. The PCM audio file has to be 48k 16-bit as far as I know yet you said it isn't so ... I'm confused.

I'm equally confused . But it really is 24 bit. I don't know why. Could it have to do with how the dvd was made?

My suggestion.

Convert that to a Stereo 16-bit 48k PCM WAV audio file. This can be done with an audio program such as GOLDWAVE.

Once you convert it to that format you can use it "as is" or further convert it to AC-3 format using something like ffmpeggui.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[manono]

Hi-

Too late already? I was doing some reading at the DVD Demystified site, and came across this:

Linear PCM is uncompressed (lossless) digital audio, the same format used on CDs and most studio masters. It can be sampled at 48 or 96 kHz with 16, 20, or 24 bits/sample. (Audio CD is limited to 44.1 kHz at 16 bits.) There can be from 1 to 8 channels. The maximum bit rate is 6.144 Mbps, which limits sample rates and bit sizes when there are 5 or more channels. It's generally felt that the 120 dB dynamic range of 20 bits combined with a frequency response of around 22,000 Hz from 48 kHz sampling is adequate for high-fidelity sound reproduction. However, additional bits and higher sampling rates are useful in audiophile applications, studio work, noise shaping, advanced digital processing, and three-dimensional sound field reproduction. DVD players are required to support all the variations of LPCM, but many subsample 96 kHz down to 48 kHz, and some may not use all 20 or 24 bits. The signal provided on the digital output for external digital-to-analog converters may be limited to less than 96 kHz and less than 24 bits.

http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#3.6.2

This means that the "What Is DVD" link at this site I gave before is wrong, and it also means your PCM stream is perfectly "legal". Unless there's something else at work, that also means that TDA is wrong in not accepting it. So, one of the suggestions I gave before, to author using Muxman, is a good method, at least to make sure the audio is OK. In addition, converting to AC3 should also solve the problem, as FulciLives suggested. It'll also free up a heck of a lot more room to allow for better video quality.

[neo_74]

Hi, firstly thanks for the great guide. I am currently attempting my first convert (pal to ntsc), after ripping the movie with decrypter to my HD I end up with 4 .vob files all which belong to the movie only. I add these 4 .vobs and yet TMPGenc only recognizes the first 20 seconds of the movie during the Source Range segment of your guide. Could you tell me what may of gone wrong during this process. I end up with 3 AC3 files and 1 D2V file when adding them with DGIndex. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks again.

[FulciLives]

Hi, firstly thanks for the great guide. I am currently attempting my first convert (pal to ntsc), after ripping the movie with decrypter to my HD I end up with 4 .vob files all which belong to the movie only. I add these 4 .vobs and yet TMPGenc only recognizes the first 20 seconds of the movie during the Source Range segment of your guide. Could you tell me what may of gone wrong during this process. I end up with 3 AC3 files and 1 D2V file when adding them with DGIndex. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks again.

I don't understand your question or even what it is you are doing. You don't add the VOB file to TMPGEnc Plus you load the VOB files into DGIndex to create a D2V project file. Then you open the D2V project file with TMPGEnc Plus.

Is that what you are doing?

If so and if TMPGEnc Plus is having trouble then maybe you didn't RIP as well as you could have i.e., due to incorrect ripping method or software or the DVD maybe has copy protection that the RIPPER can't cope with etc.

Lately I've been using RipIt4Me and it seems to work well. It uses DVD Decrypter and FixVTS to bust any type of copy protection.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[neo_74]

Hi, sorry I misworded my procedure. I am doing as you stated imported .vobs to dgindex and then opening d2v in tmpgenc. There is no copyright protection on the vobs , the trouble I'm having is during the part of your guide which explains Source Range. I drag the slider to the end which should then indicate 48min. but it only reads 12min of the movie? The whole movie is 4 .vobs. Is it possible to join and create only 1 .vob . Is it typical to have a 48min movie spit into 4 .vobs?
thanks for your help

[FulciLives]

Hi, sorry I misworded my procedure. I am doing as you stated imported .vobs to dgindex and then opening d2v in tmpgenc. There is no copyright protection on the vobs , the trouble I'm having is during the part of your guide which explains Source Range. I drag the slider to the end which should then indicate 48min. but it only reads 12min of the movie? The whole movie is 4 .vobs. Is it possible to join and create only 1 .vob . Is it typical to have a 48min movie spit into 4 .vobs?
thanks for your help

Not sure what the problem could be without guessing ... you can set up DVD Decrypter for no file splitting so that you get a single extra large VOB file.

Maybe try making an AviSynth script to load the D2V and see how that goes. You can open it via the AviSynth script into VirtualDubMod.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[nev]

First off, thanks for the tutorial, it is clear, easy to follow, and has in the past given me great results when I needed to do just a transfer and burn an identical NTSC dvd.

This time I have a bit of a problem, created the m2v file as stated, have the ac3 and wav file versions, both run the exact time of 26:22:26. I created the 25->29.97 m2v. When I run the NTSC final m2v file in Windows media player it runs at 26:22 as it is supposed to. The problem is the video when it’s loaded into Adobe Premiere Pro. For some reason Premiere sees the file as a frame rate 23.976, and that gives it a running time of 27:30 which obviously puts the video and audio out of sync for any attempt at editing.

Any ideas why? Or what to do?
Should it maybe be done in 25->23.976, would that even work? And what would it do the quality of the video?

Just for test, loaded the video and audio into DVD Lab to see what it does, and DVDLab sees the video as 29.97 2:3 pulldown and running time syncs to the exact 26:22 with the audio. The problem is that that isn’t a place to edit the actual footage.

Side note just for testing interest, Nero ShowTime (that for some reason opened the same m2v file at one point) runs the video at 20:32 for some very very strange reason.

Off course I can do the Quick and Easy and in Premiere match the duration of the video to the audio, (which will speed it up to about 104.28% but somehow I think this will result in the quick, easy and dirty version, and I want to avoid that at all cost off course.


Thanks

[nev]

First off, thanks for the tutorial, it is clear, easy to follow, and has in the past given me great results when I needed to do just a transfer and burn an identical NTSC dvd.

This time I have a bit of a problem, created the m2v file as stated, have the ac3 and wav file versions, both run the exact time of 26:22:26. I created the 25->29.97 m2v. When I run the NTSC final m2v file in Windows media player it runs at 26:22 as it is supposed to. The problem is the video when it’s loaded into Adobe Premiere Pro. For some reason Premiere sees the file as a frame rate 23.976, and that gives it a running time of 27:30 which obviously puts the video and audio out of sync for any attempt at editing.

Any ideas why? Or what to do?
Should it maybe be done in 25->23.976, would that even work? And what would it do the quality of the video?

Just for test, loaded the video and audio into DVD Lab to see what it does, and DVDLab sees the video as 29.97 2:3 pulldown and running time syncs to the exact 26:22 with the audio. The problem is that that isn’t a place to edit the actual footage.

Side note just for testing interest, Nero ShowTime (that for some reason opened the same m2v file at one point) runs the video at 20:32 for some very very strange reason.

Off course I can do the Quick and Easy and in Premiere match the duration of the video to the audio, (which will speed it up to about 104.28% but somehow I think this will result in the quick, easy and dirty version, and I want to avoid that at all cost off course.


Thanks

[FulciLives]

Some programs have trouble dealing with the 25fps to 29.970fps pulldown. Please note I did say some but there are other programs that work fine.

Anyways from what you have said it sounds as though Adobe Premiere Pro is one of those programs.

My suggestion is to edit ahead of time (i.e., before doing the re-encode) and if you have a MPEG source then you will have to use a MPEG editor such as MPEG2VCR or VideoReDo Plus etc.

Another option ... I've used my DGPulldown PAL2NTSC files with TMPGEnc DVD Author and they have worked ... now I've never tried to edit them but TMPGEnc DVD Author does support editing so ... I imagine that would work.

Please note that I have discovered that TMPGEnc DVD Author 2.0 (not sure about the older versions) will "screw up" the last couple of seconds so I've been adding like 3 or 4 seconds of BLACK VIDEO to the end of each clip as a work-a-round.

See this link ---> CLICK HERE

In fact that link is to a post that is towards the end of a rather long though ultimately humorous (I suppose anyways) thread. You might want to read the entire thing sometime.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[nev]

Thanks for the reply.
Yeah I was afraid you would say something like that.

Here is the info on what I have. It’s a DVD created with a Sony DVD cam, so no protection to deal with, in PAL, so 25 fps, and DGIndex (as well as DVD2AVI) tells me its Interlaced. And if I understand correctly the distortion I get when playing the mpg file that was obtained when the vob was demuxed, is another show of this.

I have considered the options of edit first transfer after and vice versa. The “problem” is that there is a lot of editing to be done, and I’m unfortunately very short on raw footage. So animation, images and other effects are being added in the edit to compensate. The base designs were done in Photoshop and Illustrator so the animation and editing of it went to After Effects. Same for menu animation, intro, credits…

So taking this into consideration is there any way to adjust this method of transfer from PAL to NTSC to make it work in Premiere Pro?? Or is there another solution you might suggest that will give comparable quality results for the footage conversion that will work. (In which case should this then start another thread?)


Thanks

P.S. I think one of the too many Back clicks created a double post up there, sorry for that. I can’t seem to figure out how to delete it, or if it’s even possible for me to do it, the FAQ aren’t really clear on that. But I won’t be in any way shape or form offended if someone who can, zaps the double out of existence. ty

[FulciLives]

You have true 100% interlaced video which makes the DGPulldown method not the "best" method to use.

I would start a new thread on this and call it something like, "How to convert PAL camcorder footage to NTSC", or something like that.

You could still use DGPulldown but there are other options that may be better but I think it really is best if not almost necessary for you to do all editing and special effects in the native PAL format before converting to NTSC.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[manono]

Hi-

You can't use DGPulldown at all unless you make it progressive first, by deinterlacing. Better, perhaps, would be to use a variation of one of xesdeeni's scripts to convert it from 25fps interlaced to 29.97fps interlaced:

LoadPlugin("C:\Path\To\DGIndex.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\Path\To\LeakKernelDeint.dll")
MPEG2Source("C:\Path\To\Video.d2v")
LeakKernelBob(Order=1)#if TFF, (Order=0) if BFF
LanczosResize(720,480)
ChangeFPS(59.94)
SeparateFields()
SelectEvery(4,0,3)#if TFF, SelectEvery(4,1,2) if BFF
Weave()
ConvertToYUY2(Interlaced=True)#for CCE, ConvertToRGB24(Interlaced=True) for TMPGEnc

And encode for interlaced TFF. The audio doesn't have to be stretched, and no pulldown is needed. Test the script first in VDubMod to be sure it opens and to make sure movement is smooth.

http://www.geocities.com/xesdeeni2001/StandardsConversion/

[nev]

Thanks to both of you for the replies.

There is now a new thread in the Advanced Conversion for this.
How to convert PAL DVD camcorder footage to NTSC for editing

I guess that any replies to this last posting here should go to that thread there as well if possible.

You could still use DGPulldown but there are other options that may be better but I think it really is best if not almost necessary for you to do all editing and special effects in the native PAL format before converting to NTSC.

I did/am considering the option, I’m just concerned about the loss in quality from the conversion on the animations, when it seems like if they are created for NTSC from the beginning, this could be avoided. I’m working on animating vector art from Illustrator to fill in transitions and insufficient raw video footage compared to the audio. From what I have been reading getting animations to look somewhat smooth is a pain in the ... so not sure how that would react to being converted. I could be quite possibly wrong in this thinking.

Hi-
Better, perhaps, would be to use a variation of one of xesdeeni's scripts to convert it from 25fps interlaced to 29.97fps interlaced:

http://www.geocities.com/xesdeeni2001/StandardsConversion/

Did give this method (VI. PAL (Video) DVD (25i Fps) -> NTSC DVD (29.97i Fps)) an attempt (with the original script), but do have to admit I was working kinda on unshaky ground there). Got as far as the:
14. Load the AVS file into TMPGEnc as the "Video Source."

But I kept getting the message in TMPGEnc that the avs was an unsupported file.
So something somewhere I did wrong obviously. Probably in the installation of the AVISynth, ( I did make sure the .dll files were in the /system32 folder when I understood they are supposed to be) If you are willing to give me a hand with that to get it to work I would appreciate it, and definitely give it a another shot.

Thanks

[manono]

But I kept getting the message in TMPGEnc that the avs was an unsupported file.

What I said was:

Test the script first in VDubMod to be sure it opens and to make sure movement is smooth.

The reasons for testing the script in VDubMod before sendiing to the encoder are, 1) to make sure it opens, 2) to get a useful error message if it doesn't open, and 3) advance a frame at a time to make sure it plays smoothly (i. e., the field order is correct in the script).

To make sure your AviSynth is installed correctly, make a text file named as Version.txt and renamed as Version.avs. Inside have one line:

Version()

Open that in VDubMod. You also have to have the LeakKernelDeint.dll either loaded in your script or residing in your Plugins folder. Same with the DGIndex.dll. And finally, you have to have made a D2V project file with DGIndex so you can use the MPEG2Source line (assuming the source is some kind of an MPEG). For more information, read the QuickStart Guide included with the DGMPGDec package:

http://www.neuron2.net/dgmpgdec/QuickStart.html

...with the original script

Meaning you used the SmoothDeinterlacer? Then you have to load that. However, I modified his script for a reason.