PAL VHS to NTSC DVD

[Kendo66]

Hi,
I have several mini VHS tapes recorded on a PAL analog camcorder. I live in Canada and would like to get all the video onto DVDs. Can I patch the analog camcorder into a digital camcorder and capture the video? Will a North American camcorder capture and convert this PAL video?
Thanks!

[hech54]

Long story short....you are screwed.

[guns1inger]

Capture as PAL, (carefully) deinterlace, resize to NTSC resolution and re-interlace at 25 fps. Encode at 720 x 480 @ 25 fps, use DGPulldown to get to 29.970 fps and author to DVD. Viola, PAL to NTSC.

Or just encode and author as PAL, and get a cheap player that does PAL playback.

[Deter]

As long as you have the play back device you can record anything to DVD....Just last week I took a PAL DVD played it on a region free player and recorded it back to my DVD recorder NTSC..It was fine....

The DVD recorder is recording what is being played back, it doesn't really matter what format it is....Than when the recorded DVD is done, it is NTSC....

I normally don't do this, I had a problem with the way the PAL DVD was recorded, so the easiest way to fix it was to just re-record it...

[hech54]

The DVD recorder is recording what is being played back, it doesn't really matter what format it is....Than when the recorded DVD is done, it is NTSC....

VERY misleading statement.
The only reason your DVD recorder recorded it as NTSC is because your player converted the PAL signal to NTSC on the fly. It has ZERO to do with "region free" since Video Format and Region Coding have ZERO to do with each other.

[2Bdecided]

Long story short....you are screwed.

That's a silly thing to say. There are plenty of professionals who offer this service, and plenty of people in this very forum with the equipment to do it!

If you've not done it before, and it's only a few tapes, pay someone else to do it.

Otherwise, get something that plays the tapes, capture in "PAL", convert in software (this part loses quality, and the better quality conversions are very slow), and burn an NTSC DVD.

If your TV can display PAL (unlikely), keep the content as PAL. Keep a backup in PAL anyway - it'll always play on a PC - and in higher quality than the NTSC conversion.

Cheers,
David.

[hech54]

Long story short....you are screwed.

That's a silly thing to say.

You need to re-read the original post. With what he has available to him....he's screwed. If you want to be a hero then tell him how to solve the problem with the tools he has available to him.

[victoriabears]

You need to explain what capture method you plan to use, are you familiar with computer capture, if so does your capture hardware have PAL input as an option.

As has been said, keep it PAL and get a dvd player that will enable you to watch it on your NTSC only (is it?) TV.

If you are looking to do it on a dvd recorder, thats more difficult , but not impossible, as you will be capturing in PAL but you would need a TV that can display PAL.

[lordsmurf]

Capture as PAL, (carefully) deinterlace, resize to NTSC resolution and re-interlace at 25 fps. Encode at 720 x 480 @ 25 fps, use DGPulldown to get to 29.970 fps and author to DVD. Viola, PAL to NTSC.

Eww.
That's not going to give you very good quality at all. Plus it's not fully DVD-Video compliant, and a lot of players would eject the discs. Most of them, actually.

Or just encode and author as PAL, and get a cheap player that does PAL playback.

Yep. That's the best answer. You can read more in the section called "Before You Begin" on the converting PAL to NTSC / NTSC to PAL video conversion guide.

There are plenty of professionals who offer this service, and plenty of people in this very forum with the equipment to do it! If you've not done it before, and it's only a few tapes, pay someone else to do it..

Indeed, another good idea. I do a good bit of conversions like this for my customers. It's slow, it costs a bit more than a standard conversion, but it is top quality. I don't use those piece-of-crap "converter boxes" either, avoid those like the plague, as those create deinterlaced jaggy crap.

[2Bdecided]

Long story short....you are screwed.

That's a silly thing to say.

You need to re-read the original post. With what he has available to him....he's screwed. If you want to be a hero then tell him how to solve the problem with the tools he has available to him.

I did - he has the tapes, Google, and (I hope) some money - pay someone else to do it!

[2Bdecided]

Capture as PAL, (carefully) deinterlace, resize to NTSC resolution and re-interlace at 25 fps. Encode at 720 x 480 @ 25 fps, use DGPulldown to get to 29.970 fps and author to DVD. Viola, PAL to NTSC.

Eww.
That's not going to give you very good quality at all. Plus it's not fully DVD-Video compliant, and a lot of players would eject the discs. Most of them, actually.

No, really, it's 100% DVD compliant - just like 24p with pulldown flags to 60i.

The procedure isn't quite right though - if you're going to use DGpulldown, you need to use it to bump 25p up to 60i. It won't work bumping 50i to 60i as (I think) is being suggested here.

From 25p it won't look bad - it'll look like the content has been "filmised" (which IMO is undesirable, but YMMV), but other than that it'll be fine. Slightly juddery to "PAL" eyes, but almost normal to "NTSC" eyes!

Cheers,
David.

[Deter]

hech54,

I really want to know what is wrong with my method. Currently have 1000's of hours of PAL stuff. Converted like 50 PAL DVD's to NTSC, have no problems with any of them. I am very much in to the details in viewing the picture on the TV, they all run perfect. They are pretty much clone copies in quality.

My recorders are not region free they are NTSC.

Think about it? If you play back something and run it through something that records, it is going to record the picture you are playing back. As long as your playback device can play the recording with out problems you are not going to have any issues.

[victoriabears]

If it works then there is nothing wrong with playing a PAL DVD on a suitable player which outputs NTSC and recording that on a dvd recorder, in theory a lot of the techies here have problems, but in practice alot works that in theory should not.

The OP needs to tell us what capture equipment he has and how he would record a PAL signal, some dvd recorders do take in a PAL signal, record it as such but outputs a NTSC to view, the older Philips did as did the Dayteks.

I have many years experience of playing around with stuff, if it works thats great.

[hech54]

hech54,My recorders are not region free they are NTSC.

If you are in America and you are able to view PAL material from your DVD player....then your DVD player
is outputting an NTSC signal....IE....converting the PAL DVD to American NTSC standards ON THE FLY.
Plain and simple. Your recorder IS recording what it is receiving....because it is receiving an NTSC signal.
Very few recorders will record both an NTSC and PAL signal....and even fewer still can record a quasi signal.

If your recorder is capable of choosing which format to record in(like you say it is choosing to record PAL in NTSC format)....record an American TV show for me in PAL format straight from the cable or antenna.

[2Bdecided]

There are a few US TVs that will display PAL though - especially through component or HDMI inputs.

Not many, but some - maybe Deter has one of these?

I can't imagine a DVD player's on-the-fly conversion of PAL>NTSC (or NTSC>PAL) is going to be great. "Great" costs about $50,000 for real time processing!

Cheers,
David.

[victoriabears]

You'd be amazed, as amazed as I am at the methods folks use to convert, I have tried the dvd player output method, and use software costing around $100 or even free as a version of TMPG is, it is not the complex issue that is portrayed , at least in my experience.
Hech54 is "right" when he says most store bought dvd recorder do not record pal and ntsc, but they are easilly available from B&H Photo in New York.

[Deter]

Here is a clip that I just ripped to the PC it was PAL than convert to NTSC, using the method above. I cut a short clip from MovieEdit Pro15 and saved the file as windows media, it wouldn't let me upload the mpeg2 file.

[hech54]

Here is a clip that I just ripped to the PC it was PAL than convert to NTSC, using the method above. I cut a short clip from MovieEdit Pro15 and saved the file as windows media, it wouldn't let me upload the mpeg2 file.

It doesn't matter....this:

The DVD recorder is recording what is being played back, it doesn't really matter what format it is....Than when the recorded DVD is done, it is NTSC....

...is still a false(dare I say bullshit) statement.
Your DVD player converted the signal from PAL to NTSC....NOT your DVD recorder.
Nobody....including me...is doubting what you have done. I've done that myself with an old JVC
converting DVD player.....into my old Philips DVDR985 DVD recorder(which by the way is one of the few
that CAN record in both NTSC and PAL to a virgin disc)....but you are sadly mistaken if you think for one second
that your DVD recorder converted that signal.

[Deter]

hech54,

I really don't know what to tell you. Like I said before the copies turn out very good.

[victoriabears]

I think you guys are at cross purposes, all deter is saying is the his dvd player is converting the signal to ntsc and the dvd recorder is recording it, you are both saying the same thing in different ways, no problem.

[hech54]

My DVD recorder is not converting that signal to NTSC

Correct....but that is NOT what you have been saying all day.

I really don't think my cheap DVD player has a conversion chip to convert PAL to NTSC or NTSC to PAL.

Think again. The cheapo players were the most common "converting" players. Nowadays it is the cheapo Philips players leading the pack in both "hackable" and "converting" DVD players. The big boys like Sony(especially Sony) not only don't convert....they are not even hackable to region free.

[hech54]

all deter is saying is the his dvd player is converting the signal to ntsc and the dvd recorder is recording it

No. Deter thought that since his DVD recorder is NTSC....anything he records with it will turn out NTSC...and that is completely false and misleading to the original poster who is trying to capture/record PAL(videotape) material in an NTSC environment. Like I said in the first place to the original poster....in his scenario....he is screwed. Deter's scenario has ZERO bearing on the case....NONE.

[Deter]

How is what I said False......If I play the PAL VHS tape, I can record it on my NTSC DVD recorder. If I play a PAL DVD, I can record it on my NTSC DVD recorder....Everything turns out ok.....Why don't you try it, instead of being a doubting Thomas.

If people want this service done, I'll do it for them.....It is not that hard....You are the one who said point blank to Kendo66 , that he is screwed. I am telling you he or she is not.....

You want me to upload reverse clips of NTSC to PAL.....

[victoriabears]

Hi Deter, what model of dvd recorder are you using, I have tried so much equipment over the last 6 years I forget which one, but there was a dvd recorder I had that did take a pal input and record it as NTSC, believe or not Hech54. I think it was either a RJ Tech or Daytek

[Deter]

victoriabears,

Well one of my recorders (I have like 5) is a Panasonic DMR-EZ27, it has a digital turner. It also has inputs & outputs, I run everything in to it through s-video, even HD. The HD recordings come out letterbox wide screen. Granted it is not in HD, but it is better than normal TV.

The sound is ran to the amp on fiber optics and the picture is sent to the TV via HDMI

[hech54]

How is what I said False......If I play the PAL VHS tape, I can record it on my NTSC DVD recorder

Does it turn out PAL or NTSC on the DVD?

Just last week I took a PAL DVD played it on a region free player and recorded it back to my DVD recorder NTSC..It was fine....

The DVD recorder is recording what is being played back, it doesn't really matter what format it is....Than when the recorded DVD is done, it is NTSC....

This thread is about converting videotape material from PAL to NTSC(see the original post again if you doubt it).

[Deter]

I convert PAL to NTSC.....It can't do PAL with this recorder...

My guy in England however can do NTSC to PAL

[victoriabears]

ah.............................now ,,,,is the ez27 aNorth American sourced machine, tell you why, European Panasonic dvd recorders are switachble ntsc/pal and may well record a pal signal incoming as NTSC.

[Deter]

Yea it was purchased in the states....

hech54

PAL to NTSC is something I deal with a lot, many of the tapes I get are from overseas.

With the PAL format, I sometimes have problems and need to convert them to NTSC.

Overall we try to leave the formats the same.....

[hech54]

YPAL to NTSC is something I deal with a lot, many of the tapes I get are from overseas.

I don't care. You are not the only one who deals with conversion between PAL and NTSC.
Your DVD recorder is still NOT converting an incoming PAL signal to NTSC....which is what you have said throughout this entire thread. You cannot.....and the original poster cannot....play a PAL VCR or Videorecorder into your DVD recorder and have it magically turn out as an NTSC DVD....period. It's not going to happen and it does not happen on your machine. All you are doing now is diversionary tactics to cover your error.