Thanks in advance for looking in. I've searched the forum, but the more I read, the more confused I get, and no one seems to have quite the situation I do.

I live in Region 1, and bought a Daewoo DVD-5700 player, which has been altered to make it region-free. I bought the first season of West Wing DVDs from Amazon.co.uk. The playback on my DVD player is not the best...images appear wider than they should be (everyone looks thick) and the voices are all higher-pitched. Not horribly, but noticeably.

I want to convert these PAL DVDs to NTSC SVCDs, not only for my own enjoyment, but also so I can share with my family.

My setup:

Samsung SM-332B DVD-CDRW drive on an Athlon 2000+ system, running WindowsXP.
DVDGenie
CladDVD XP -or- SmartRipper / DVD2AVI
Cool Edit 2000 for stretching the soundtrack by a factor of 104.271 (25/23.976)
TMPGEnc
VCDEasy
Nero

I've experimented with a number of combinations, but my SVCDs always seem to come out jerky...sometimes with a bigger once- or twice-per-second jerk. The audio syncs just fine, and sounds normal. Can anyone with experience in making this conversion point me in the right direction?

I made a rudimentary checklist for making (S)VCDs, just to let you know roughly what I've tried so far...


Converting PAL West Wing DVDs to NTSC (film) (S)VCDs

1. Using SmartRipper…

Make sure DVD Genie is loaded. Create a new directory for the episode, if necessary. Choose the correct episode in SmartRipper. Remove check marks from all extraneous tracks, so that only video and English audio remain.

2. Using DVD2AVI…

Open the .vob file that you just ripped. Make sure the Field Operation is checked “none”. Save project. I just copied over the .d2v vile that was already there.

3. Using Cool Edit…

Open the .avi file in the episode directory. Choose Transform > Time/Pitch > Stretch. Enter value 104.271 (or maybe it’s already entered). Hit Process. Save when done…use the same filename. Check out how much longer the file is now.

4. Using TMPGEnc…

Select VCD – NTSC (film). Choose the correct video and audio files. There should only be one of each. In settings, choose advanced, and check off de-interlace and do not frame-rate conversion. Everything else is normal. Encoding VCD will take about an hour per episode.

5. Using Excel…

Change the original IFO chapter times to new times by multiplying everything by 1.04271. Format correctly (hh:mms.00). You’ll need this for VCDEasy.

6. Using VCDEasy…

The usual.

7. Using Nero…

Ditto.

Am I missing some intermediate step? Or am I missing something obvious?

Again, thanks in advance for your help.

--Chris