Converting PAL DVD to NTSC: cheap software vs hardware ?
 

Mr K

Subject – Convert PAL to NTSC

I remember your first comments on this was ( Just don’t do it ) but now I have to.
My newly purchased Sony BD player ( BDP-S550 ) will not play PAL.

The disk I sent you was a copy of my first attempt..
1 – Ripped PAL dvd with ImgBurn.
2—Converted the two VOB files to NTSC with Womble MPEG VIDEO WIZARD DVD.
3 – Put the two MPEG files in Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 to export one file.( Premiere would not take VOB files )
4 – Put the one MPEG file in Pinnacle Studio 11, trimmed 6 seconds of black off the beginning ( Never did learn to use Premiere )

I have learned to take the Womble files straight to Premiere and use it to burn disk.I have tried several burning programs, Premiere does the best job.
The moving credits in the video are a little jumpy, some of the horizontal lines on the moving boats are a little wormy, but plays ok in my blue ray player.

I know you plan a section on Converting , so just a few questions.
1—Best cheap program to convert?
2—How well does hardware convert?

I knew that a BD player would upgrade dvds thur the use of hdmi connections, but to see it on my Sony xbr 37 is simply amazing.

Is this PAL DVD progressive or interlaced video?

If you're unsure, use GSpot Codec Appliance and see if it shows I/L or PROG in the video stream info area. (Note: I don't much like v2.7, it like to crunch too much data, takes too long. I suggest v2.52 for this.)

It makes a big difference in quality, as to which method is used, and then what is and is not possible (or suggested).

converting PAL
 

Gspot says it is interlaced. and I think I always asked for progressive in all of my burns.

Well, I spent about 11-12 hours writing up a new guide for this topic. I had intended to write this guide for several years now, but just never did it until today (and much of yesterday).

See http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/.../standards.htm

That should explain pretty much everything. There are even some test clips to download and burn to DVD-RW/DVD+RW, to see the conversion quality for yourself.

A great Guide
 

Mr. K
Thanks for the great looking guide you wrote on
Converting PAL/NTSC Standards. I have a few problems
On the pc I use for video before I can use this guide. In the
Meantime there are a few questions I would like to ask.
First let me say, I am an amateur, who enjoys working
With video (something you know but others might not). Also
I only have the one PAL disk, but it is special to me, and with
The luck of an amateur’s fist try I was able to convert it, so it
Would play in my BD player. One area of concern, slight
Stuttering of movement in a close up shot of a passing tour boat
Also in a long horizontal pan of the city. With beginners knowledge
Of the difference in the two formats, my questions are
1 ---Can any conversion blend the frame rate perfectly?
2 --- Any difference in a blue ray player’s upconverting and
a dvd player with hdmi connections?
3 ---I use the word stuttering what word should I use?

I'm a long-time video enthusiast too. I do things at the professional level, the hobby level, and the family/personal level. More care will go into some projects.

To answer your questions...

1. Blending the framerate will always cause ghosts of some kind. So to that end, no, I would not consider any blending method to be perfect. Temporal frame offsets are the best method. The only possible exception may be at the specialty level, using hardware such as Snell & Willcox, which carries a price tag roughly the size of a car or small house!
2. In some sort of theoretical way, I'm sure there is. But in my experience, neither of those devices would be as adequate as the upsize filters found in some of the nicer HDTV sets. I let my Sony SXRD HDTV do my resizing, connecting via component and bypassing HDMI. Let your eyes answer this question, it's really model-by-model, product-by-product specific. I don't think any general answer would ever be correct.
3. I would say it largely depends on what you refer to. There are two common scenarios where "stuttering" is used:
   • Poor framerate conversions - the motion is not smooth and fluid, it jerks a bit, like frames of video data are missing. You're sort of jumping through micro-moments of time, giving it a "stuttering" appearance. You could use "stuttering", but I would expand up it, mentioning that a poor framerate conversion caused it.
   • Interlacing reversal issues - the motion is severely jerky, because fields are reversed. Sometimes you can see comb artifiacts, sometimes not. The video is nauseating to view, and it looks more like violent vibrations (earthquake vision?) than a stutter. Again, if the reason is known, "stuttering" could be sued, but mentioning the interlace reversal would be more valuable.

Good luck on the problematic PC. I've still got the photos you sent me of the various nifty mods you've created for your systems. I'm going to use them eventually, for some advanced articles on modifying computers. Still working on the site, not in a place where I can add a lot of new articles just yet.