Considerations when preparing a DVD for export to Europe?

[ehbowen]

I know that in the digital era concerns are much less than they were in the VHS era; I bought a DVD from Australia last year and while the only version was formatted for PAL it played in my US-spec player with no problems. But I've just finished putting together a wedding video from 1989 as my mother's Christmas present to a friend of hers, and she has relatives overseas. It occurred to me that she might very well want a copy to send to her relatives in Greece. Are there any changes I need to make in order to make the DVD work and play well over there?

BTW, I'm using VideoStudio to edit and master the DVD, after capture with my usual workflow and some basic Avisynth processing. VideoStudio can be shifted into a PAL format standard, but I'm unsure of the effects obtained when doing so with a completed video. And I can't experiment right now because, with the DVD burned, VS is now rendering the completed 2-hour video to digital (720p)...likely to run 8.5 GB, it estimates. I might play around with it after that's done.

[lordsmurf]

Not really. Most all players play both NTSC and PAL, especially PAL players.

"shifting" NTSC to PAL will introduce ghosting, at minimum. Best results to truly convert NTSC to PAL will require Avisynth to "deinterlace" (separate field), decimate or speed up/down, reinterlace, and that's just the video. The audio needs speed adjust, and pitch adjust. PAL>NTSC is easier than NTSC>PAL. I never mess with this, aside from working with documentary filmmakers.

[latreche34]

As far as I know region free DVD discs (which a home made one is) can playback on any machine worldwide, Not the case for Blu-ray though, If a blu-ray for example is locked to region A it cannot playback a region free with 50i contents made in Europe so the player has to be hacked for region free or unlimited region switch. I could be wrong though, The last time I dealt with an optical disc was about 8 years ago when I use to record on Blu-ray discs, I still have a Pioneer home Blu-ray player that I flashed its firmware for region free and Cinavia free so I can playback discs from all over the world when I occasionally buy them online.

[ehbowen]

Thanks, I hadn't known that about Blu-ray. Yes, the Australian DVD (TV specials of The Seekers) was region-free and it played on my Sony Blu-ray player and Samsung TV without a hitch. Possibly I'm living too much in the past (hey, I built a website for timetables of classic passenger trains!), but I'd rather give a family friend a DVD with a nicely designed label and jewel case with insert than simply hand her a thumb drive and say, "Here. Mind you back it up to a few places before you forget and write over it!"

Lordsmurf, I would think that conversions between NTSC and PAL, with optimizations for modern digital media, could well be its own topic worthy of discussion. Which forum would it belong in?

[lordsmurf]

Which subforum? Probably Editing.