At What Stage Do I Convert NTSC DV to Burn PAL DVD?

[Dubinvero]

I realize from searching the forum that many members do not think it is necessary to convert from NTSC to burn a PAL DVD for viewing on DVD players in Ireland or England. However, if it needed to be done, at what stage of the process from camcorder to DVD would be the best?

My source is 720x480 DV. I have Sony Vegas 8 Pro, TMPGenc 4 encoding and authoring software and Nero 9 for burning. I intend to edit the video using Vegas. Should I convert at the Rendering, Encoding or subsequent stage in the process. I of course would like to maintain the best quality possible.

I would greatly appreciate any advice on this conversion question.

Derek

[filmboss80]

Derek, those forum members who say stick with NTSC are correct. Although PAL discs are unplayable on most US DVD players, that is not the case with NTSC discs in Europe. I have shipped many, many NTSC DVDs across the Atlantic without a single problem. Doing an NTSC-to-PAL conversion is a nightmare to get right (unless you have expensive hardware) and it's almost always unnecessary.

[redwudz]

I'd agree with filmboss80 on that. But if you absolutely have to convert to PAL, I would change the audio/video at a early stage, probably after editing. That would preserve the quality till the resize/re-encode. You will take a quality hit with that. And I wouldn't use Nero for burning, especially for DL DVD media. ImgBurn is much better. (And free.)

Try a re-encode to PAL specifications and compare the quality to the NTSC version and make up your own mind if it's worth it.

[guns1inger]

You have two big problems with this conversion, and neither of them will be fixed nicely by Vegas. The first issue is interlaced footage. You have to use interlace aware resizing methods or you will get major artifacts. The next issue is the fact that you aren't speeding up your footage to get to PAL framerates. NTSC DV is 29.970 fps, which means you have to throw away or blend almost 5 frames every second to get down to PAL speeds. Not pretty. Personally I would do all my editing in Vegas in NTSC and output NTSC DV at the end, then use avisynth to do the resizing and framerate changes. Vegas does have a pretty good, pitch neutral time stretch filter which you could use to convert the audio.

But I would only do this if I had no other choice. Multi-format players are so cheap that unless I am actually trying to edit footage from multiple formats, I would simple keep it NTSC from start to finish.

[Dubinvero]

I would like to thank filmboss80, redwudz and guns1inger for their very helpful feedback. Based upon their advice, I am going to stay in NTSC and if necessary my relatives in Ireland and England can purchase an inexpensive multiformat player.

Thanks again,

Derek