Which software converts Mpeg2 NTSC to PAL / PAL to NTSC, WITH speed change?

[guy24s]

I want to convert some NTSC Mpeg2 files to PAL Mpeg2 files (as well as some PAL Mpeg2 files to NTSC Mpeg2 files). When converting, I want the framerate to change so that if I for example convert a NTSC Mpeg2 file to PAL, the resulting file should have a longer running time than the original file.
I've tried at least ten different softwares, but the conversions are always the same length as the originals. Why does the speed not change also?
I have googled how to achieve the speed change but all I find are tips telling me to manually slow the files down in different editing softwares. Is there not any software that is capable of changing the speed at the same time as it converts between NTSC and PAL?
I would like to hear suggestions on softwares to use and preferably easy and straight forward GUI-based softwares. If the software is complicated then I would love a step by step guide on how to do what I want.

[davexnet]

Most software will not do the frame rate change incoporating any speedup/slowdown, but do the conversion by repeating/
dropping frames keeping the speed the same.
How best to handle any situation depends on the source, for example you may have a 29.97 FPS NTSC of a Hollywood movie,
but the underlying frame rate is actually 23.976 (movies are shot at 24 FPS)
So in the case mentioned above, it's not actually 29.97 slowed to 25 (which is too big a jump anyway)
but 23.976 sped up to 25 (PAL) so run time is less.

The other cases are everything is progressive, or interlaced, and the processing must take this into account for best results.

What are your source types and what apps did you try?

Perhaps AVStoDVD may work as-is for most use cases, there are options to select speedup/slowdown.

[ProWo]

Use clever Ffmpeg-GUI.
Load your movie, click main, click encode video stream, click keep resolutiion, set the codec, set the target fps, click various, tick change length, click encode.
Done.

[guy24s]

The other cases are everything is progressive, or interlaced, and the processing must take this into account for best results.

What are your source types and what apps did you try?

Perhaps AVStoDVD may work as-is for most use cases, there are options to select speedup/slowdown.

Thanks for replying! Well, they're all animated movies and of varied sources. I'll just use one of them as an example:
It's 25 FPS / PAL. It says it's interlaced. Problem is, it's playing at the same speed as of NTSC mode. As if someone converted it to PAL without changing the speed. Basically what I need to do is change the speed so that it plays at proper PAL speed as I have the same film also in a real PAL version and I need to have them play at the exact same speed. I have no idea how to do it. Do you have any suggestions.

As for software I've used, can't remember them all as I uninstalled them as soon as I noticed they didn't change the speed. But I do remember trying MPEG Video Wizard and also AVStoDVD (which I still have installed on my computer). How would I go about changing the speed in AVStoDVD?

[guy24s]

Use clever Ffmpeg-GUI.
Load your movie, click main, click encode video stream, click keep resolutiion, set the codec, set the target fps, click various, tick change length, click encode.
Done.

Thanks for the instructions. I tried it like you said and it doesn't come out right. It plays way too fast. I'm sure I did it right. It must be my file that is messed up somehow. It's a PAL file but when I try to queue it up alongside another copy of the same film, that is also in PAL mode, they play at different speeds. So one of them must be playing in NTSC speed even though it's a PAL video (as if someone already converted it to PAL from NTSC but didn't change the speed). I have no idea how to get them to play at the same speed.

[ProWo]

Post a mediainfo (text mode) of both PAL files here.
And indicate which film plays faster.

If it's the same film, both are PAL 25 fps, and one film plays faster than the other, then one of the two films has been re-encoded incorrectly, consciously or unconsciously.

[manono]

So one of them must be playing in NTSC speed even though it's a PAL video (as if someone already converted it to PAL from NTSC but didn't change the speed).

Not uncommon. One was speeded up from film speed (24fps) to get to 25fps, while the other was converted by field-blending to get to 25fps, but the length and speed remains the same as the 24fps source. I doubt any of that means much to you, but both methods of converting film to PAL are commonly used. But it begs the question - why would you even want to convert the one that retains its film speed to PAL if you already have the speeded up version?

In any event, you'd need AviSynth for the job. First to unblend it back to 24fps film speed and then to speed it up to convert to PAL 25fps.

[TubeBar]

I load the file into Adobe Premier Pro and right click on it and select "interpret footage". If it's 25fps change it to 24 or 23.98 and it will play correctly and pitch will be fixed, just do the exact opposite to convert 23.98 to 25. Output the file. It usually deinterlaces pretty good but there are some interlacing issues it cannot overcome and you want to get into low-level ffmpeg stuff that takes a lot of time. You can get 30 day trial but that software is a big learning curve.

[guy24s]

Post a mediainfo (text mode) of both PAL files here.
And indicate which film plays faster.

If it's the same film, both are PAL 25 fps, and one film plays faster than the other, then one of the two films has been re-encoded incorrectly, consciously or unconsciously.

I'm sorry for the late reply, I haven't been able to be on the computer for a few days. So here goes:

FILE1.mpg plays slower than FILE2.mpg, although both files are PAL, 25 fps (ignore the files' total running times as they both contain additional frames both at the start and end but the main content is the same).
What I wish to accomplish, is to somehow reconvert FILE2 so that it plays at the same pace as FILE1.
I understand that FILE2 is playing at correct PAL speed and FILE1 was incorrectly converted and retains NTSC playing speed while it has PAL resolution, but I still need FILE2 to play like FILE1.
I don't care if any quality is sacrificed when reconverting FILE2 or if's going to look bad in some way, as I am not going to be using any of that footage for anything in the actual project, I just need it as a guideline while editing FILE1. But it must play at the same pace.

I thought if I would follow your instructions and convert FILE2 to NTSC in FFmpeg, it would play at the same speed as of FILE1 (it doesn't matter if the resolution is different, it just need to play at the same pace), but it didn't, it played way too fast.

I hope you can help me! Here is the MediaInfo text:

General
Complete name               : D:\vhs rips\FILE1.mpg
Format                      : MPEG-PS
File size                   : 5.94 GiB
Duration                    : 1 h 30 min
Overall bit rate mode       : Variable
Overall bit rate            : 9 412 kb/s

Video
ID                          : 224 (0xE0)
Format                      : MPEG Video
Format version              : Version 2
Format profile              : Main@Main
Format settings             : CustomMatrix / BVOP
Format settings, BVOP       : Yes
Format settings, Matrix     : Custom
Format settings, GOP        : M=3, N=12
Format settings, picture st : Frame
Duration                    : 1 h 30 min
Bit rate mode               : Variable
Bit rate                    : 8 841 kb/s
Maximum bit rate            : 9 263 kb/s
Width                       : 720 pixels
Height                      : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio        : 4:3
Frame rate                  : 25.000 FPS
Standard                    : PAL
Color space                 : YUV
Chroma subsampling          : 4:2:0
Bit depth                   : 8 bits
Scan type                   : Interlaced
Scan order                  : Top Field First
Compression mode            : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)          : 0.853
Time code of first frame    : 00:00:00:00
Time code source            : Group of pictures header
GOP, Open/Closed            : Open
GOP, Open/Closed of first f : Closed
Stream size                 : 5.57 GiB (94%)
Color primaries             : BT.601 PAL
Transfer characteristics    : BT.470 System B/G
Matrix coefficients         : BT.470 System B/G

Audio
ID                          : 189 (0xBD)-128 (0x80)
Format                      : AC-3
Format/Info                 : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name             : Dolby Digital
Muxing mode                 : DVD-Video
Duration                    : 1 h 30 min
Bit rate mode               : Constant
Bit rate                    : 384 kb/s
Channel(s)                  : 2 channels
Channel layout              : L R
Sampling rate               : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                  : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode            : Lossy
Stream size                 : 248 MiB (4%)
Service kind                : Complete Main

Menu

General
Complete name               : D:\vhs rips\FILE2.mpg
Format                      : MPEG-PS
File size                   : 3.62 GiB
Duration                    : 1 h 30 min
Overall bit rate mode       : Variable
Overall bit rate            : 5 751 kb/s
Writing library             : (dvd5: Oct 27 2015)

Video
ID                          : 224 (0xE0)
Format                      : MPEG Video
Format version              : Version 2
Format profile              : Main@Main
Format settings             : BVOP
Format settings, BVOP       : Yes
Format settings, Matrix     : Default
Format settings, GOP        : Variable
Format settings, picture st : Frame
Duration                    : 1 h 30 min
Bit rate mode               : Variable
Bit rate                    : 5 253 kb/s
Maximum bit rate            : 5 800 kb/s
Width                       : 720 pixels
Height                      : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio        : 4:3
Frame rate                  : 25.000 FPS
Standard                    : PAL
Color space                 : YUV
Chroma subsampling          : 4:2:0
Bit depth                   : 8 bits
Scan type                   : Interlaced
Scan order                  : Top Field First
Compression mode            : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)          : 0.507
Time code of first frame    : 00:00:00:00
Time code source            : Group of pictures header
GOP, Open/Closed            : Open
GOP, Open/Closed of first f : Closed
Stream size                 : 3.31 GiB (91%)
Writing library             : (dvd5: Oct 27 2015)
Color primaries             : BT.601 PAL
Transfer characteristics    : BT.470 System B/G
Matrix coefficients         : BT.470 System B/G

Audio
ID                          : 189 (0xBD)-129 (0x81)
Format                      : AC-3
Format/Info                 : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name             : Dolby Digital
Muxing mode                 : DVD-Video
Duration                    : 1 h 30 min
Bit rate mode               : Constant
Bit rate                    : 384 kb/s
Channel(s)                  : 6 channels
Channel layout              : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate               : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                  : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode            : Lossy
Stream size                 : 248 MiB (7%)
Service kind                : Complete Main

Menu

[guy24s]

So one of them must be playing in NTSC speed even though it's a PAL video (as if someone already converted it to PAL from NTSC but didn't change the speed).

Not uncommon. One was speeded up from film speed (24fps) to get to 25fps, while the other was converted by field-blending to get to 25fps, but the length and speed remains the same as the 24fps source. I doubt any of that means much to you, but both methods of converting film to PAL are commonly used. But it begs the question - why would you even want to convert the one that retains its film speed to PAL if you already have the speeded up version?

In any event, you'd need AviSynth for the job. First to unblend it back to 24fps film speed and then to speed it up to convert to PAL 25fps.

The one that plays slower (at NTSC speed, although it has PAL resolution) is a nice looking digital remaster. The one that plays at true PAL speed is a really bad VHS rip. If I manage to convert the latter one to play slower to match the good copy, I plan to compare the two with eachother to check if there are any minor differences and the only way I feel comfortable doing that is in my editing program MPEG Video Wizard where I line them up side by side and can compare down to every little frame, but they must play at the same pace to be able to do that. So it doesn't matter if quality is sacrificed converting the already bad looking file, I'm not actually going to be using it for anything else but for this comparison.
I have no clue on how to use AviSynth.

[guy24s]

I load the file into Adobe Premier Pro and right click on it and select "interpret footage". If it's 25fps change it to 24 or 23.98 and it will play correctly and pitch will be fixed, just do the exact opposite to convert 23.98 to 25. Output the file. It usually deinterlaces pretty good but there are some interlacing issues it cannot overcome and you want to get into low-level ffmpeg stuff that takes a lot of time. You can get 30 day trial but that software is a big learning curve.

Thanks for the tip. I'll keep this in mind but like you say, Premiere takes time to learn and I have never ever even tried it. I am hoping there will be a quicker solution for my problem, otherwise I will have a look at Premiere if all else fails.

[ProWo]

Assume the following:
File1 is original ntsc 29.97 fps, converted to pal 25fps at same duration.
This results in a framerate reduction with a factor of 1.1988011988011988.
Further assume that file 2 was converted from ntsc 23.976 fps to pal 25 fps at the same duration.
Now to get file 2 to the same speed as file 1, you have to convert it with a framerate of 21.745 fps at the same duration.
Try this.

[jagabo]

I thought if I would follow your instructions and convert FILE2 to NTSC in FFmpeg, it would play at the same speed as of FILE1 (it doesn't matter if the resolution is different, it just need to play at the same pace), but it didn't, it played way too fast.

Of course it played way to fast. You sped a 25 fps video to 29.97 fps. What you want to do is slow it to 23.976 fps. Then, if you need 29.97 fps, apply 3:2 pulldown or duplicates.

[manono]

If the PAL one that plays at NTSC speed is really the better quality source, then a sample will be necessary to tell what has to be done. 10 seconds or so, with steady movement. If from a DVD, you can cut an M2V using DGIndex.

[guy24s]

Now to get file 2 to the same speed as file 1, you have to convert it with a framerate of 21.745 fps at the same duration.
Try this.

What you want to do is slow it to 23.976 fps. Then, if you need 29.97 fps, apply 3:2 pulldown or duplicates.

If the PAL one that plays at NTSC speed is really the better quality source, then a sample will be necessary to tell what has to be done. 10 seconds or so, with steady movement. If from a DVD, you can cut an M2V using DGIndex.

Guys, I still can't get it to work. I am not sure I am understanding all you're telling me to do, but I have followed the steps in clever FFmpeg-GUI as explained by ProWo in reply #2, and tried the various fps settings you've mentioned throughout the thread, both with and without the "Change length" box checked, but the resulted file either plays too slow or too fast.

When converted to 21.745 fps, 'Change length' checked, the resulting file plays too slow
When converted to 21.745 fps, 'Change length' not checked, it plays too fast
When converted to 23.976 fps, 'Change length' checked, it plays too slow
When converted to 23.976 fps, 'Change length' not checked, it plays too fast

I have uploaded two sample files here: https://file.io/DSId6SxUefk0

They're just under 2 minutes long and both contain the exact same scenes. Maybe you could download them and take a look what needs to be done to get file 2 to play at the same speed as file 1? I would really appreciate it. And if you are able to figure out a way, I'd be even more grateful if you could give me some easy steps on how I achieve the speed change for the complete file 2. This simply goes beyond my limited skills.

[jagabo]

Your file link results in: "The transfer you requested has been deleted."

[Alwyn]

They are both playing at the same speed. Here, the left video is playing the left channel and the right video is playing the right channel. The pic is a section of the timeline; it looks like they are synced. Each video is in a different language, I think. This is Magix Movie Studio, which is payware, but I post to illustrate that there is no speed issue that I can tell.


[Attachment 72635 - Click to enlarge]

[guy24s]

They are both playing at the same speed. Here, the left video is playing the left channel and the right video is playing the right channel. The pic is a section of the timeline; it looks like they are synced. Each video is in a different language, I think. This is Magix Movie Studio, which is payware, but I post to illustrate that there is no speed issue that I can tell.


[Attachment 72635 - Click to enlarge]

Correct, it's the same video but in different languages.
But no, they are slightly different in length. File 1 is a tiny bit little longer, 5 frames to be exact. See here:
[Attachment 72659 - Click to enlarge]

This becomes much more apparent after 10-15 minutes, where the videos will be totally out of sync with each other. But even that short sequence is not entirely in sync at the end of the 2 minutes and 53 seconds.

Your file link results in: "The transfer you requested has been deleted."

I'm sorry, the file hosting site must've deleted them. They were supposed to stay online for 30 days. I have reuploaded them to a different place, and this time I made the samples about twice as long as the last ones, so that the speed difference will be a little more obvious, about 8 frames at this length:
[Attachment 72660 - Click to enlarge]
The longer the video plays, the more out of sync it becomes.

New download link: https://easyupload.io/m/zlkcqy

[Alwyn]

Fair enough, I was looking mainly at the audio. I stretched file 2 5 frames to match File1.

[ProWo]

Set FPS to 25.05272 (Change length not checked) on FILE2 sample.mpg to match it with FILE1 sample.mpg.


[Attachment 72662 - Click to enlarge]

(Corrected video length only, no other improvements, audio also needs to be fixed).

[dellsam34]

Why would you convert the files and lower their original quality, They can be played as they are, Is there a specific reason for conversion?

[ProWo]

Why would you convert the files and lower their original quality, They can be played as they are, Is there a specific reason for conversion?

See the OP"s request in post #4.

[guy24s]

Set FPS to 25.05272 (Change length not checked) on FILE2 sample.mpg to match it with FILE1 sample.mpg.


[Attachment 72662 - Click to enlarge]

(Corrected video length only, no other improvements, audio also needs to be fixed).

Thank you so much for your help!