Re: pal to ntsc

Hi!I have already done a job(titles,effects,clips) in DV-PAL format and i must give it to my client at NTSC format also.Who is the safest way to change it?Must i only change the seguence settings and render the movie or must i do and something else?
I would appreciate any responce,
thank you,
Stephanos

An excellent but pricey, time-consuming and fiddley conversion plug-in is the "Nattress Standards Conversion"
Charles

Hi Stephanos,

I agree with Charles.

- Although theoretically you could just change the sequence settings and render away, you will find that PAL to NTSC conversion within FCP is not very good. Rest assured, it is not any good in any NLE.

- A better workflow is to export your video to a QT movie and import this movie in Compressor to do the format conversion. If you use Compressor you should select the DV NTSC setting (Other Workflows > Advanced Format Conversions > Standard Definition > DV-NTSC). When your setting is applied to your Compressor window, select the setting and click the Frame Controls tab in the Inspector. Click the little asterisk next to Frame Controls to activate the Frame Controls window and set Frame Controls to "on".

Now set Resize Filter to "Best (Statistical Prediction)", UN-check Adaptive Details and set Rate Conversion to "Best". Finally click the button next to "so source frames play at 29,97 fps. Click Submit and, depending on the length of your video, be prepared for a long conversion process.

- The best workflow is to use Natrtress Standards Conversion. It takes a little while to get used to working with this FCP plugin. But once you know how to work with it, it gives you by far the best quality software format conversion you can think of and it is worth every cent.

Best wishes,

Ronny

Thanks a lot both of you.Also i would like to know if in dvdsp must only i check the ntcs box or is there something else that i have to know?

Once you have your NTSC video file you open DVDSP and in Preferences you set the Project format to NTSC. THEN you create a new project and it will be NTSC.

Best wishes,

Ronny

Thank you again Ronny!I hope that i will not find anything else to ask!

ronny courtens Wrote
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...............
> fps. Click Submit and, depending on the length of
> your video, be prepared for a long conversion
> process.
> - The best workflow is to use Natrtress Standards
> Conversion. It takes a little while to get used to
> working with this FCP plugin. But once you know
> how to work with it, it gives you by far the best
> quality software format conversion you can think
> of and it is worth every cent.

Hi Ronny,
Compressor will allow for multiple CPU's to be used, Nattress in FCP will only use what FCP allows.
Compressor using frame controls does far more "work" on the file.
I would have to disagree, and say that the conversion using frame controls in Compressor gives the better result.
This method writes the missing frames, it does not just interpolate.
Having said that, the time this takes may be problematic, depending on your system hardware, and wether you can
cluster more Macs to speed this up.

.

Cheers
Alexander

Hi Alexander,

You are absolutely right! We are used to mainly doing NTSC to PAL conversion here as we often get NTSC footage to be edited and deliverd into our PAL format. For this type of conversion we have found that the Nattress plugin works faster and delivers visually equal quality compared with Compressor. For really fast jobs we use a hardware converter.

But when you convert PAL to NTSC, which is the question here, Compressor will indeed deliver the better quality as it also creates new temporal frames to compensate for the fps difference. This is also why it takes so much time to do the conversion. So if quality is the main concern I would agree for Compressor when going from PAL to NTSC. With one sidenote: not everyone has octos or a render farm and even so, you may have to consider if the difference in quality will make up for the fact that you have to tie up your expensive hardware for such a long time if the end result will be an NTSC DVD.

Best wishes,

Ronny

ronny courtens Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Alexander,
>
> You are absolutely right! We are used to mainly
> doing NTSC to PAL conversion here as we often get
> NTSC footage to be edited and deliverd into our
> PAL format. For this type of conversion we have
> found that the Nattress plugin works faster and
> delivers visually equal quality compared with
> Compressor.

...and Ronny, for your NTSC to PAL you must be using the Nattress converter on single clips only,
In a sequence, each cut edit will essentially split the screen in half for one frame creating a flash frame, you will get a flash frame on every edit. I'm sure you would have seen this. Graeme even warns you about this in the instructions.
No such problem with Compressor.

Cheers
Alexander

Cheers
Alexander

We have never used Nattress filter on anything but single clips, so I wouldn't know about this problem.

If we transcode within FCP for PAL delivery of an NTSC locked edit we always make an NTSC master file first, which is then transcoded to PAL as one clip.

Best wishes,

Ronny